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

Well, I won't say there haven't been matches where our partners have saved us (111 at GLR comes to mind), but the overwhelming majority of the time, it seems our partners manage to let us down. I will say, though, when we do get a good partner, we really do appreciate it. We end up praising them all weekend for what they've done for us. So it evens out for us... help us and we love you, hurt us and we curse you.

In regards to 1vs1vs1vs1 I don't think the precedent would be standard in the given situation. Think about it you have lets say two teams that go out and try and dominate against a higher ranked team that leaves one team to do whatever it pleases and in the right situation it could be determental pending on the game to leave that robot roaming about free. Also in the free for all type you could have the game turn into a degenerate 2vs2 mercenary type were two teams that are high up in the rankings enlist the services of another robot in the match and square off on each other. This game could be a disaster however (not to take anything away from the current or former champions) but it would put more of a meaning on a true champion.

As I've previously asserted in my other posts in this thread, and just so the entire world is clear about how I feel, being a Champion is, in my eyes, completely meaningless.

There exist few circumstances where, if a single team were ignored for the entirety of a match, it would be "detrimental." If you imagine that teams were to gang up against the highest seeded team in any match, it stands to reason that the three lower ranking teams would find it advantageous to take them out of the equation. If one of the three teams is ranked within distance of that top tier team such that they have a chance at overcoming them in the standings, there's still more incentive to single that high-seed out.

Any way you try to slice it, the high-seed teams will draw attention from all three teams. A team that ignores the other three may have the potential to achieve a high score, but the end result is still that the high-seed teams will be at the brunt of the attacks.

Whether a competitive team goes solo and scores a lot of points because they're unbothered or they go after the top-seed team in a 3- or 2 vs. 1 matchup, the end result will still be that they move up in the seedings.

If a low-seeded team is left to go solo and scores a high amount of points, their rank may increase, but that change would be insignificant in the overall standings. A move from 10 to 8 is considerably more meaningful than a move from 40 to 30, or even 20. As this low-seeded team climbs to the top, they themselves will become a target.

A system of alliance partners ensures that the welfare and performance of all competing teams is a concern for everyone. It discourages outright decimation in a competition that encourages friendship and positive relationships.

1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 would be finding a new way to repeat the last two seasons, where overpowering a team with force was a better way to win than outsmarting them with design. How can you ever have a true Champion when three lesser robots always team up to take the best of the best down? If anything, it seems to me like such a system would immediately eliminate the true leaders, with a winner emerging from somewhere in the middle. ...just as precedent suggests.

How about a 2v2 where instead of being matched up with your alliance before the match it happens during the match. So you have a little control over who you are matched up with but another team could match you up with someone else. I don't know exactly know how this could be done but it would give another objective to the competition.

So then what would keep three teams from ganging up on one team? and what if one team suddenly decides that they dont like who theyre currently with and tries to help out the other side. Far too complex and confusing in my mind.

Cory

Is there ever anything too complex for FIRST to come up with? Well maybe but I think this could work. It might be as easy as there being four balls out there each a different color. Then there are also two goals that hold only one ball. The two balls in there at the end of the match count as an alliance and the the two teams that did not have a ball scored count as an alliance. If none are scored then there would be a form of tie breakers like the two closest balls. This is just one way of doing it. I am sure there is a better way of doing it so you don't have to be able to manipulate something. This would also be cool because then part way through the match your alliance could change.

This sort of goes along with Dean's idea of the alliances being like businesses where you don't want to destroy the competition because you might be working with them later.

This came up at the FIRST forum in manchester... and I could almost make it a direct quote from the person running it that "we will never go back to 1v1v1v1"

She mentioned the specific example given earlier that the three other teams would illegally collude and gang up against the one "better robot," because of this: 2v2 is here to stay


ByE

erin

Sorry Shyra771
 

It was the first time ever that we had flipped. Like your drivers told us before your team was bad luck. But don't worry, with a great team like yours, your luck will change. I hope next time we pair together we'll do better. It really sucked spending a whole match on our back, especially when we were sooo close to getting first seed. Oh well. Next year game is only seven months away, and we will be way more prepared. To bad they lose a great HP like myself.

Oh yeah, I kind of like the 2 v 2 style though, anything more would be a crowd. And what's the fun in 1v1v1v1, or 1v1. I guess I like alliances of 3 where the game is 2 v 2, and the alliance has to decide which two will compete. It could be unfair (if you were bad and paired which 2 good robots everytime you would be rated well. But what are those odds?) but it would eliminate 1 v 2 matches.

Re: Re: 3 vs. 3 games
 

I would think that with smaller regionals, the number of matches could be spread out a bit so that teams still play 10 or 11 matches. In Phoenix, where there were 37 teams, we played 11 matches, and it was great. (Congratulations to the Arizona Regional planners on making the first Arizona regional such a big success.) In Los Angeles where were there about 64 teams and Houston where there were about 73 teams in our division, we had 7 matches, and speaking personally, that just didn't seem like enough matches (although we sure walked far enough in Houston.)

3 on 3 could give us more matches, but in places like Sacramento, where they played an amazing 14, they would have to slow things down.

All right. I admit it. I want more matches in LA and Houston. Otherwise, we might have to go to Sacramento and Seattle next year instead.