In response to the FIRST forums
 

I have a question out there how many people would be opposed to changing the playing style of 2 bots vs. 2 bots to 1vs1vs1vs1. And than in the Elimination rounds you would have 2vs2. It seems now a days with alliances that while we are playing 2 vs. 2 in reality it really is 1on 1 with your alliance partner playing like a mini game with the other alliance's other bot. And how many times has your team gotten moved down in the ranks due to a poor alliance or maybe even dare I say it "collusion." So I throw this idea out to you so FIRST may benefit from this or you can call me crazy.

in most of the matches that i saw this year it was normally one vs one on one side of the field, and then one vs one on the other side of the field. however, i like the two on two style because not every robot can be built to do everything at once.

our team moved down a lot in the ranks at nats due to i wouldnt say poor alliances, but alliances where the other robot was flipped within the first thirty seconds or so of the game, so it was pretty much left up to us. i remember one we were allied with, at the time, the number one ranked team in our divison, but it was flipped very early in the game. and so it was just us against the other alliance teams, who were also ranked very high up. but, alliances can also help you move up in the ranks, as they did for us at the canadian regionals a couple of times

I'd be against it.

If you want to try to bring emotion to your argument and mention "collusion," consider for a moment what'll happen in an every-robot-for-itself scenario.

The incentive and ability of two or three mediocre robots to temporarily ally against a single, much better robot is enormous. There is precedent to support this, even.

I think that'd be an enormous step backward.

I think that, realistically, you want to have the elimination rounds played exactly like the finals. Changing the alliance system between the stages will be confusing for spectators, and will force many teams to change tactics. This, combined with the supposed cooperation aspect of the game, for the past two years, and even more so for three years ago, would be a step backward, in my eyes.

I'm generally against things that just outright don't make sense, and this doesn't really. The point of the competition, overall, is not seeding high.

Re: In response to the FIRST forums
 

In many ways, it would be nice to have a team's score be based on its performance, so that you are not penalized if your partner has a problem. However I agree that 1vs1vs1vs1 would lead to teams ganging up on other teams, which would be unfair and cause hard feeling. Also, the communication between teams on an alliance is a positive aspect of the competitions.

So while I understand what you are trying to achieve: a team having control of its own fate, I don't think 1vs1vs1vs1 is the answer.

How about each team builds 2 robots and you have 2 vs 2 matches? Let's see. To answer my own question, that would do away with the inter-team communication aspect, and it would be too expensive for new teams. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.

smaller bots/larger field and have some kind of 3v3 soccer type game match with certain positions being taken up by members of alliance. (not really soccer but the concept of positions, possibly causing multiple attachments, more teamwork, and less reliability from team mates. ex. if a robot doesn't move it can still play a goalie type role.)

I think 3vs3 could be a step up. If one robot is broken, you lose a 1/3 of your alliance instead of 1/2. Also each team would have more matches.

3 vs. 3 games
 

3 vs. 3 games may become the way of the future as the number of teams keep growing.
Some Regionals has too just many teams competing in just two days.

By having 3vs3, more team will played in less games as compare to 2vs2.

Re: 3 vs. 3 games
 

In capacity limited events, though, such as New York City, Long Island, and Seattle ...three traditionally small regionals... 3 vs. 3 wouldn't do as much to increase throughput as it would to decrease downtime between matches.

While each regional could then play more than the 10 or 11 matches per team average that we've previously seen, is it worth the expense of the subsequent lost repair and maintenance time?

M - as Doug said, you would still have 2 players out there, so you wouldn't necessarily loose.

maybe someone could help me with this one,

2V2 - 1 partner showes up, its 2 robots against 1 which means the one has to worry about 2

3V3 - 1 partner doesntr show up 2 against 3, so in this case, 2 robots coud easily both have to worry about 2 robots, because they would be running around playing defense. i really do not see an improvement, because there will always the one extra, i think that 2 v 2 is a nice ammount, any more and it would just cause alot more confusion

Well, that's all well and good. . .except that winning or losing isn't what I was talking about. I don't care about winning or losing, honestly.

What I do care more about is giving these teams every opportunity to put on the best show for themselves that they possibly can. That means, partly, giving them to opportunity to field a fully functional, reliable robot for each of their matches.

Of course, time constraints during the competition require that, sometimes, this doesn't happen. Increasing the field throughput by adding teams to each round is great for larger events because it adds more opportunity for teams to show their stuff, while still providing each team with downtime that is commensurate with other teams at other events.

If it went to 4 vs. 4, for example, teams would compete twice as much per event, but have half the time to repair their robot. See the tradeoff? Now, at larger events, half the normal repair time might be commensurate with what teams at smaller events normally see. However, teams at smaller events would have almost no time to make important repairs. While 3 vs. 3 wouldn't have the same effect, it'd still be pronounced.

Ask teams like 365 if they want the time they have to fix their robots cut in half. ;)

It can be very pronounced. At Sacramento, we ran 14 matches per team. No complaints about giving us a lot of chances to play. But when you're on final queue call before you even get off the field from your previous match...

Now, part of that was due to the rapid (and somewhat crazy) queuing. FIRST wanted us to get to play as many matches as possible, and wanted to make the transitions between matches as short as possible, and it would be logical to assume they will continue to do this. So if the game goes 3x3, all the regionals better get big, or FIRST will have to slow down. Even though we're supposed to make reliable and sturdy bots, things do break or need repair...

I think that at smaller events, FIRST should try and slow down the pace to give teams a reasonable amount of matches in a reasonable amount of time. There's no need to keep a breakneck pace at a 40-team event. This would be an especially good idea in a 3v3 situation. Teams could get the same number of matches as the teams at large regionals, but there could be more staging time between matches to slow the pace down a little.

to all y'all that are whining about bad partners: how many times have your partners saved your arses when you werent working well? yeah thats what I though. Why is it everyone whines when they are "let down" by their "horrible" alliance partners, yet noone praises their partners when they win because of them?

Cory