I think doug said it best. All you have to do is bump 1 robot of the platform and you have broken your promise. Backstabbing would be to tempting because of a potential gain of over 250%. I think the new tie rule would cause too many bad feelings between teams.

Ah yes, but say a team who has to qualify for nationals ( team number ends in an even number ) Earns their way to nationals by tying every match? When I am in Houston...I sure as heck don't want to see divisions and ultimatly the finals decided by teams who got there by repetitive ties.

I'm with most of you guys- it'd become a game just like 2001 where everyone worked together- I believe 2001 was the only year FIRST had a 4v0 format- for a good reason...

without competition this wouldn't be the FIRST robotics competition-

The competition is to score the most points...

Breaking the Tie
 

I have to agree, there should not even be the temptation for strategizing a tie. Our team was the one at the Nats which had the tie. Coincidently it was against another team from LI, and both of our teams are quite friendly (Team 28). Now, obviously we didn't plan to tie down in Fla. but when the coin leaned on the teather of our mouse (to further the anxiety), the adviser of the other team and I agreed that, at that point, the win was not as important as the amount of fun we had in getting there.

I have seen at least one match at a regional "plan the match" when one alliance was obviously out matched. They scored almost a perfect score, and the losers were still happy with what they got because it was higher than there previous average.

I think FIRST will realize their goof. BTW I now like coin tosses--only because we won it

;)

Even though FIRST encourages cooperation, I don't think they want teams to agree behind the scenes with each other just so they can get more points to win the game. The point is not to secretly plot a victory, but to truly work with your allies and enemies during the 2:15 period. By playing fair, no one would complain and the game will be more interesting than just winning.

AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
 

I'm just going to go stick my head in the oven.

Two years ago, virtually EVERY team screamed and yelled about how much they hated the 4-vs-0 scenario. It was boring, no fun, a waste of time, and not challenging. More than one team said it would be their last season specifically because there was no more "competition" in the competition. I even had one person nearly tackle me in the stands just before the awards ceremony, and practically beg me to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE ask FIRST not to stick with the "complete cooperation" games.

Now here we are two years later, and all of the sudden everyone is all up in a lather about the potential situation where - GASP! - teams will all collude to ignore the "competition" and just "cooperate" to the detriment of the game.

The only way this "intentional tie problem" will happen is if all four teams decide to accept a lower score than they could by winning. If even one team decides that they might prefer to WIN and ADVANCE OVER THE OPPOSITION, then the "intentional tie" scenario fails. Given the number of teams that were present in 2001, and are still around for this year's event, I have a hard time seeing the "intentional tie" situation happening.

In other words -
- you spoke
- FIRST listened
- you got what you asked for
- what is the problem?


-dave
(unfortunately, the oven is electric, so it will just hurt a lot...)

Precisely.

I found that to be quite humorous myself, seeing how, with a highly competitive game, people just want to cooperate. While in 2001, people flipped out. I enjoyed the 4v0 game...but I seem to be outnumbered.
:D

For the record, I loved the 2001 game. The problem with coordination is when teams coordinate to cause either a major disadvantage to one team (i.e. working 3 v 1) or causing a major advantage to an alliance (as I described in my earlier post).

I havn't decided if I like this game yet, I like certain objectives and how everything looks so simple but is still a very complex game to build for. The problem itself is the people and teams that are willing to go beyond the robotic portion of the robotic competition to give themselves an advantage.

If a team agrees with yours to rig a match they are breaking the spirit of first and being borderline dishonorable. In order to rig a match you have to trust that the opponent will not , say, tip over one of your stacks right at the end. Since you know that this team is dishonorable, why would you ever trust them to follow the honor system? Back stabbing is just as legal in the rules as cooperating. You could even consider this "justice" because you are losing points after agreeing to rig a match.

Another thing: The only thing anyone has posted here is disgust. Nobody has said "we will pursue a rigged agreement in all of our matches and we see nothing wrong with this behavior." So don't worry, the majority of teams will not rig matches. Unless you're all a bunch of liars.

Hmmmmmm, well Dean did say the game would not be fair. Is this what he was thinking of? I know it sounds completely contradictive to complain about a 4 vs. 0 game, then suggest that cooperation could be the key. But honestly, I think more of us are arguing against rigging the match. I wouldnt want to rig a match, it would be greedy. And its not FAIR, but it's also not right. "cheating" is what I'd call it. Use your gracious professionalism, be honest.

Remember, the name of the game is QPs and EPs if you get that far. Whatever a team does to maximize it's QPs within the rules is OK with me. If that means (gasp!) co-operating with your opponents I don't have a problem with that. It is to your advantage to ensure that your opponents have SOME points. That may mean scoring for them and possibly IN SPITE of them. I know in the past we've scored points for an opponent in spite of their active opposition.

I have much more problem with teams "taking a dive" to lower their score in a hopeless match and therefore lower their opponents QPs. This is something we as a team have decided never to do deliberately. We will always strive to achieve the highest score we are able to. But let's face it accidents do happen. Like knocking over that tall stack while attempting to place that last box.:o

I was at the KickOff the year we first had alliances. I have told this before but not in a year or so and it may be instructive for the newbies.

In the process of announcing the game Woodie mentioned that something very strange had happened the year before. That year had been 1 vs 1 vs 1. The strange thing that happened was that NONE of the top 10 seeds on Friday evening made it to the finals. Doing a little research FIRST discovered that those teams were targeted by lesser ranked teams and interefered with to a much greater extent. The lesser ranked teams would ignore each other while deliberately lowering the score of the top ranked team in the match. They couldn't prove there was collusion, it may just have been that the teams independently decided that was their best strategy.

So Woodie announced that henceforth, since collusion could not be prevented, it would be required! They then went on to describe the alliance system we now know and (mostly) love.

In view of this history, I don't think FIRST will have any problems with four teams working together to achieve a higher score than would otherwise be possible. They will probably be delighted.

IF you make such an agreement, you'd darn well better KEEP it. Backstabbing your opponents at the last second will not help you win friends and word will get around pretty quick. Your team will be shunned and distrusted for years. People have long memories, and some of us mentors have been playing this game since you kids were playing with blocks. It could take a very long time to undo the damage done in a couple of seconds for a very minor advantage.

Um... call me crazy, but your position in the rankings is relative to other teams... so if everyone tried the tie idea, nobody actually wins. Also, the logistics of stacking and distributing bins with exact precision is just a tad daunting; 29 bins on the ramp, one of them is bound to land unrecoverably when they all fall, or simply not all will fall the way you want everytime. Instead I feel we should just go out there and try to out score and out think each other. Who knows, it may be... fun?

I sincerely hope teams don't set out to do this. It is an unprofessional way of playing the game. However, we all know there'll be one or two teams that try this idea. I feel that figuring out how to tie, in some situations, might be harder than just keeping ahead of the opponent alliance. Also, if the match is high scoring, you would want even more to have a higher score. And in regards to the poster that mentioned the 50-50 tie, if your team had 51 and they had 50, you would get 151 points, so the best idea would be to gain points instead of tying.
Just my thoughts. I really hope, though, that not too many teams go to these lengths...

Ties are GREAT!
 

Tying is great. It limits everyone's scoring potential equally.

I know I would be very comforted to find out that when one alliance can't stack crates, both alliances will be limited in their scoring.

Ideally, all teams would tie every round - with the same score.

Better yet, they shouldn't keep score, and just declare everyone a winner. Afterall, isn't that what the FIRST Robotics Competition is all about?