What changes to this year's game...?
 

I believe that FIRST was trying to put more emphasis on dexterity and BUILDING something this year. However the reality of the situation was that stacks were very hard to build quickly and hard to defend.

In other sports, they have years to fine tune the rules to balance the game. We don't have that luxury because the game is different every year.

In hindsight, what change to this year's game would have shifted the importance from speed and power to stacking, dexterity, and other skills? That information could be valuable to the game designers in helping to make next year's game better.

--If there is no stack in your zone, you get no points for bins and maybe even KOH...

--your multiplier should be equal to the sum of all stacked bins instead of just your highest stack...


Just a couple of my ideas

Maybe if First ventured away from the 2 minute game, there would be more time for stacking.

Also, close games in the finals would not mean a deficit that was to big to make up. First should lose the opponents score rule.

Why not have the stack multiplier count for KOTH? This would get people to stack more.

Just my thoughts :-)

That gives me something of an idea... perhaps not right away, but down the road-

FIRST limits the matches to 2 minutes such that all teams compete a certain number of times within a restricted time period (e.g. 9:00 am to 5:00pm). One way to increase the amount of time per match would be increase the number of robots- rather than 4 bots in 2 minutes, try 6 bots (3v3) in 3 minutes. Logistically, it should work out to about the same amount of time, but all bots get to compete more.

Naturally though, this might require a bit larger playing field to accomodate the extra volume, but shouldn't be too hard to tack on an extra 2 feet length and widthwise.

time
 

Another problem with more time per match would be the battery. I know by the end of about one minute for us this year we had a low battery, three minutes would be too much. I do like the idea of more bots per team though.

One change to scoring could have made ramp domination also a modifiable score (Maybe like 10 points + 5*stack height) or something.

You have a point. We can't change this year's game, so there is little point in complaining to FIRST about it.

(Also it seems like Team 25's robot was pretty suited to this year's game. If I was in your shoes, I might not be thinking about how to enhance this year's game at this point either. And by the way, I would love to replay the Houston finals without any circuit breakers popping. I want to see what happens without breakers interferring. For that matter, I would like to replay the 2002 game without Team 64's breaker popping.)

Anyway, the point of this thread is not to complain. Making a new game every year is tough, and as far as I am concerned, FIRST did an awesome job of coming up with Stack Attack. I am just greedy. I want a better game next year, and I think this thread might help that occur.

A philopher named George Santayana said,

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Anyway the point of this exercise is to see if with hindsight, there was a way to reward making stacks and other skills, so that those skills would have been valuable in the game, and therefore used more. I, for one, wish that teams like 365 were more rewarded for their efforts in designing great stackers. And I know there were a lot of other great stackers that I didn't see. That is the point. They weren't in the finals, even though they had this incredible ability.

Anyway, really we are just brainstorming for any ideas that would have improved this year's game, with the viewpoint of using those ideas in the future. Probably that is part of what is going to occur at the team forums anyway, so this is a way to get a headstart on coming up with some ideas to present to FIRST before they design next year's game.

I'm with Big Mike, i think this tread seems a bit redundant. There are threads that discuss the past few years’ comps. (all except that ugly 2001 comp, 4 vs. 0). I understand that you have to learn from your mistakes, when mistakes are made. We all wanted a fun competition this year. And this years’ competition was fun. The bar was raised & lowered a bit this year & not too many people really took notice. The 1 thing that really separated the good teams from the great this year was the auto mode. Who had the most control of their robot during auto mode…111, they also had a great bot but, they took the autonomous mode 1 step further. StangPS, there’s a thread & a link, check it out. This years’ comp was fine. Lets see what we can do for next year. Let’s see what we can do for FIRST.

a good idea to lessen the totality of winning ad KOTH is to limit the amount of time one could spend on the top. Also, a thing i would like to see if future competitions is active obstacles on the field. just to make the game a bit more interesting./:D

We drain fully charged batteries in 2 minutes and don't even run a compressor. 2 minutes is good - please let it stay.

Okay, here is a shot at an idea for changing this year's game to improve it.

I think the game's designers did intend for stacking to be useful.

Problem:
When a robot made a stack, it was too easy for the opponents to knock it down. Why bother if it takes 90 seconds to build a stack and 10 seconds to destroy it.

Solutions:
a) Stacks that wound up outside the scoring zone on your side would still count. A robot could then put a stack in a corner and it would count, and be easier to protect.

b)There could be a couple of alcoves a little wider than a bin with walls on 3 sides, so a robot can stack in them. They would stick out beyond the field boundaries . A robot, but not a human, would be allowed to build a stack in there and it would count.

Advantages:
It would be harder for opponents to knock down stacks in corners and in the alcoves, so stacking would then be more viable, which would then provide for more variety in the ways to win the game. More variety = More interesting because the outcome is not as easy to predict. (How many people would watch a movie if they knew exactly what was going to happen?)

My only change- go back to the best of 3 eliminations. I know 2 rounds in FIRST's eyes is better than 3 and that the format this year assured that the eliminations were the same as the seeding game. But it was real disappointment to battle back from a first round loss, win the second round and then have everyone sit there waiting for the judges to tally the scores, do the math and decide then who won. It worked both ways for us at various time this year but I think it really detracted from the game. It should be win the round or lose the round.

As for the favoritism expressed towards stackers in the thread above- well the name of the game WAS stack ATTACK. It wasn't "see how big a stack you can make in 2 minutes". We tried a game like that in 2001 and everybody or or less panned it. Obviously the stack building didn't work well for most and robots that could attack or defend stacks did.

The ATTACK and KOH part of the game is what made the game exciting to watch this year. I'd say we need more of that, not less. Testing the mettle of one robot against another seems to be what the public and most teams want. That's why we are told each year to "build robust robots".

WC:cool:

If you want to make a game where lots of people design stackers and stack defenders...

1. Don't allow human players on the field to make stacks.

2. Disallow any other scoring strategy (remove the 25 points for KOTH).

This would make for an intensely boring game this year, since quick stacking is too hard in the first design iteration.

You would have perhaps 10 out of 800 robots that could do it effectively this year under the above scoring rules.