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On side ball use agreement.
What if the two alliance in a match agreed to just move their bin that scored fuel goes into and let it fall into their opponent's bin? Then both sides wouldn't have to cross the field of they wanted to get fuel from human players
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The issue is, why would teams want to help each other? In 2015, when the noodle agreement was a possibility, it would help both teams because ranking was based on average points. This year though, an agreement like that would unfairly help whichever team is better at fuel.
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It would help the better alliance more. But it would help both alliances and they would both score higher. The better one isn't winning because of it, they're just winning with a higher score. And it can help all teams on both alliances because it match score is the second sort for qual ranking.
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As I understand it, he's simply saying to not put the Return Bin(s) in place, which will send all the Fuel that would normally land in them to the Overflow Bin(s). Then the Overflow Loading Station would be used to send the Fuel into a waiting robot, rather than the Return Loading Station(s). Take a look at 3.11.5. |
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I cringe every time that I see a thread like this. Any agreement such as this always falls under the classic prisoner's dilemma where it incentivizes betraying the deal, which is inherently violates GP.
In this scenario you benefit from not moving your bin and letting the scored fuel go into your retrevial zone. And since your loading lane is on the other side of the field as your driver station it would be pretty hard to communicate that the other alliance has broken the deal. Giving your even more incentive to cheat. Just like the noodle agreement in 2015, and the boulder agreement last year (2016) I( would hate for this to become a reality and really, really, really hope this doesn't happen. |
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That being said, C02 and C03 are very tricky rules to enforce, particularly if a strategy helps both alliances play above their normal ability. So I would expect a no-call on this, generally speaking. Just as a note: If your alliance makes such a deal, my advice is keep it. Don't back out. Send 1 HP that you can trust over there, and get those bins off right away. If either alliance breaks the deal, that alliance will rack up points, but rumors spread faster than light* and it's that alliance that looks bad. If you can't trust 'em in quals, can you trust 'em in elims? *Not actually physically proven. I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV. I do not advocate breaking laws of nature. |
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PS: Just to be clear - Both of mine would insist that I adhered to any deals that I made. |
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Even if you can find another alliance that would like to carry out such a plan with you, it would be stupid to count on it happening. If you do move up past quals, i doubt alliances will be as open to the idea.
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While I am skeptical as to whether this will be feasible, I would caution against making statements about how this is not how Steamworks should be played
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There were agreements in 2015 where opposing alliances agreed to do coopertition together or even withheld from throwing litter until a coopertition stack had been finished. These agreements mutually benefited both alliances and I would consider playing to the best of their abilities. However, the GDC did prevent the noodle agreement from happening which was just another (possibly game breaking) form of coopertition or agreement. The GDC made their intent clear there, but has not made any ruling regarding gear or ball agreements. Until the GDC makes their intent clear, we should withhold from making judgements of what it is. |
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I won't make any claims about how the GDC would feel about this or if it fits the "intent" of the game. I'll just say that if you approached me, as a coach or driver, with this idea, I'd say no. If I think we can beat you, I want to do it straight up. If I think we can't, I don't expect that this will help. Either way, if you think this is a good idea, I'm assuming you know something I don't and are trying to exploit it, either to beat us or earn bonus ranking points you couldn't otherwise get. Meanwhile, I can't guarantee it will work out for my alliance.
The issue, as others have pointed out, is that this is a prisoner's dilemma problem. Abandoning the agreement has benefits for either alliance, unlike, say, agreeing not to throw noodles until after the co-op stack is complete. Call me cynical, but I wouldn't take the deal. There's nothing in it for me. |
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I am of the opinion that you play the game. This game's rules want teams to work to get their gears and the fuel.... Your team designs a robot that will accomplish the tasks of the game. Agreeing to make it easier on each other will do nothing but amplify the advantage that really good teams have right now..... If you are a good fuel scoring robot.... this is perfect. Every ball you put in will come right back to you.... so keep scoring If you could shoot from the middle loading station in your own alliance you could almost shoot continuously.... This is not what the game designers intended.... I am pretty certain of that. Our team will play the game with gracious professionalism but will play to win.... If approached about this I would counsel my drive team to politely decline. Other teams can choose to do whatever they see as proper for themselves. |
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Just Say No To Game Objective Agreements!
please |
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So... if your team was approached by the other alliance to say, "Just so you know, we think that the goal of the game is to score lots and lots of points. We're going to put everything we have into offense, and we hope you do the same. We'll both score higher, possibly earn more ranking points, do less damage to our robots and put on a better show for the audience if we both focus on offense instead of defense."
Are they trying to undermine the game, or improve the game? Would saying, "Great idea! We'll do the same!" be G.P? Jason |
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But those are just contrived examples. The point is, when we step on the field, we're there to win, whether that means the match or the competition. That means that we craft match strategy based on what is best for our alliance. Now, I'm not against co-opertition. If the GDC writes it into the rules, I'll gladly play along. I even like the message it sends. You could say I'm pro-co-opertition on the whole. But if it's just you telling me we should run a certain strategy for your sake, don't count on it. |
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Sure, offensive play can be more fun for spectators to watch, and I'd prefer to have exciting, spectator-friendly games every year. I think they're better for the program and its outreach efforts. But as a team and an alliance, it isn't always in our best interest to avoid playing defense, even if our opponents say they won't defend us. We may judge our best chance to win a match is by defending. It's FIRST's job as the game designers, not ours as the competitors, to ensure that the spectators are entertained. |
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I don't see this working out in any way. As much as I hate to say it, there are teams who don't abide by GP, and who will exploit this agreement. And reputation may spread, but at that point they've already benefited from it and gotten the ranking point(s). As soon as that starts happening, I think it'll be hard to find teams who will accept such an agreement, just to make sure they don't get snaked. I could be wrong, and this could work out wonderfully for both sides, but I can tell you that I would not take the risk by accepting this sort of deal.
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It would be nice if the GDC could just add a new rule:
No prisoner dilemma deals are to be made. But... I'm sure someone would find another way around it. It's fun when you find a cool little "loophole" (2015 multi-bots and conveyors), annoying when we have to play lawyer. (agreements and flashlights) |
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Embrace the challenge; and use the opportunity to teach students to use slightly-more-sophisticated-than-normal analysis/thinking to help them navigate the world's many non-linearities, including ethics' many shades of gray. Like so many other topics, this is a subject that doesn't fit well into the superficialities of tweet-sized sound bites. That makes it a fun one. Blake |
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I fail to see how any team would do this strategy, if not for their benefit. In an ideal situation where this strategy is beneficial to both alliances, denying participation is only detrimental to your rankings. Why would other teams give up this agreement if it had any benefit? I do agree that these agreements are unlikely to happen in practice, but it would be nice for the GDC to show a definite intent. |
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TL;DR Strategic depth is not incongruous with games that encourage simply playing with your alliance and against the other one. We don't need other nonsense to get our fill of lateral thinking. |
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Here's a good Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_t..._(game_theory) |
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Just to roll this back around to the original question, after a couple of years as a field resetter standing behind the driver station, it wouldn't surprise me in the least that human players would ignore the overflowing bins, forget to replace bins, drop fuel all over the place, ... in other words, you think it, it's been done or not done. Not in any agreements, not in malice -- just "because".
Well, not really. Because the HP wasn't trained in their job. |
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IMHO, C02 and C03 should be a simple rule that there shall be no discussions/agreements between alliances, except regarding coopertition points (if available in that game).
FYI: The fuel use agreement should also include a Gear agreement - Alliance transfers gears from their Loading Lane to the Alliance Station. C03 presents an interesting problem. Let's say you are a Surrogate Team, and you figure out yourself that you are better off throwing the match so that one of your alliance members doesn't get Raking Points. I think it is bad GP not to play to your ability. |
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That said, I don't think rules are necessary to prevent this behavior. It's clearly not in your interest to do this. It would be more arguable if you weren't already crossing the field to get gears, but your robot will already be at that side of the field regularly during a match. So you're going to want those balls! The alliance that scores more frequently will want this possibly, but the underdog alliance would like more "free" chances to load fuel into cycling robots, so it's hurting a strategy that can be used by them to come back and win the match. |
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Always play to the best of your ability. |
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This particular agreement states "ignore any discussion about match strategy around fuel which would gain your alliance a competitive edge in winning the match". IMO, it inherently violates C03/C04. |
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Just an observation: a clear majority of the posters on this thread were mentors/college students/alumni/not current student team members. I saw a few students posting, but they were overwhelmingly a minority.
As far as agreements go, I think that this one is pretty benign and beneficial, more in the spirit of coopertition that in trying to undercut the rules to get ahead. 1. Any team can participate in this, regardless of ability, and the benefits are likely to be proportional to both alliances. If one alliance is much stronger, they will likely benefit more in raw score, but in terms of a percentage increase from an average, non agreement score, both alliances will probably see a roughly equal benefit. 2. Both teams benefit. This one is pretty clear, there's no match-throwing, or rankings conniving, or a more capable alliance trying to dupe a less capable alliance into doing something not beneficial to them. 3. It does depend on both sides, but that's no different from coopertition in past years. If one side pulls out of this agreement without warning, the other side will likely be hurt if they were counting on participation from both sides during the match. However, I don't see this as much different than two alliances agreeing to focus on getting the coopertition points, and then one side realizing they can't/won't, and the other side then having wasted time they could have spent scoring points for themselves on trying to complete their end of the (now-failed) coopertition. Ultimately, drive teams will probably make a match-by-match decision if this agreement is still viable/worthwhile by the time competition season comes along, but I don't think it's obviously either wrong or right to choose one way or the other. |
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I think agreements like this effectively go against the intent of how it should be played. At this point, we've seen that if FIRST wants coopertition in a game, there is a very explicit coopertition objective. Just like other game mechanics (high/low scoring, end games, etc.) some years it is there, some years it is not. With this specific agreement, there is risk of one side breaking the agreement, where with now 3 different places team members can be stationed, it is difficult to communicate this effectively. Additionally, unlike games with specific coopertition objectives, there is nothing to guarantee teams will benefit anywhere near equally from participating in this agreement. Even if there were, this would inherently be putting teams who chose not to do this agreement at a disadvantage, as 2nd order ranking is determined by the cumulative sum of match points. I honestly wish agreements like this would stop popping up. We saw what happened in 2015 with the noodle agreement. Spend more time building a robot that plays effectively and undoubtedly better than your opponents, and less time tying to exploit inter-alliance game mechanics to inflate match scores. |
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I think this is "a more capable alliance trying to dupe a less capable alliance into doing something not beneficial to them." If you were going to beat me by 50, and we accept this agreement, which affects us roughly proportionally, so now I score 25 more but you beat me by 100, that's not helpful to me. Yes, I scored more, which helps my tiebreaker sorts, but so did you, and you're ranked better relative to me than you would have been otherwise. This is why it pays to break the agreement, and once you do, you can reap immediate benefits (i.e. it's easier to win the match), unlike with co-opertition. I know that one's reputation travels at the speed of sound, but it's still unsavory to me to be doing anything that relies on that good faith. Additionally, for the teams that got burned in that match, there is no reprieve. NBA teams—even the worst ones—wouldn't agree to inbound the ball to each other at every possession and hope that they can win that way rather than playing normally, even if the players are friendly and help each other up after the whistle blows. It's no different here. Be friendly, share your tools and your know-how in the pits, but just go win your matches on the field. |
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