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-   -   Alliance picking (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37145)

Shu Song 10-04-2005 13:16

Alliance picking
 
I would just like to suggestion an idea that would potentially make elimination matches more fair to lower seeded teams.

I've been to many FRC competitions and I seem to see a trend: the 1st seeded alliance almost always picks from the top 8. This should come as a surprise because to be in the top 8 means that your team is very good and should be in higher demand as a first pick. But this also means that the first seeded alliance will almost always ended up with the best alliance and the lower seeded alliances end up with not so good teams. Time after time, I've seen 1st seed alliance just roll through the elimination with ease.

In professional sport drafting, it's usually the teams with the worst records that get the first pick, which makes perfect sense, if your team is already very good, why does it need 2 more great teams to help them through eliminations.

Here are my proposals:(this is an either or, can't have both at the same time)
1. After the top 8 seeded teams are established, reverse the order so that 8th seed gets to draft first and 1st seed drafts last. This is more like professional sports, to help even the playing field, so that one team doesn't always dominate.
2. Make a new rule where no one from the top 8 can choose another team from the top 8. This helps to keep the alliances more balanced, so that 1st seed pick 2nd seed never happens.

I'm open to all forms of criticism, so don't hold anything back.

Jeff Rodriguez 10-04-2005 13:28

Re: Alliance picking
 
You've worked you butt off all day coming up with strategy, coordinating with alliance partners, and executing strategy. You've put everything you have into trying to be #1. On Saturday, you finally achieve that and are ranked #1 at the end of qualification matches, BUT you don't pick first? I'm sorry that just isn't fair to the robots that are #1, 2, etc.
Why would I want my team to be #1 now? Instead, I'm going to try and be #8, even if that may mean losing a match or two.
I'm sure there a plenty of other people that will do almost any/everything to be #1 seed, or in this case #8 seed.

Lets say you have the top 10 teams. The team seeded #1 wants to be seeded 8th so that they can pick first, so they lose a match on purpose. Teams seeded 2, 3, 4, 5 all see how they did this, and they all go out and loose a match to get closer to the #8 seed.
This trend will start to snowball and eventually you will have teams trying to lose more than their opposing alliance.

Why shouldn't the top 8 seeds be able to form the strongest alliance they can?

The problem with comparing a FIRST alliance selection to a pro sports draft, is that professional sports don't have alliance partners. Only one teams wins a championship.
FIRST is unique, and has a unique draft system.

Meyerman 10-04-2005 13:30

Re: Alliance picking
 
at the nj regional team 56 was #1 seed and picked 237 they werent in the top 8.

Goldeye 10-04-2005 13:30

Re: Alliance picking
 
It's to reward them for getting the first seed, essentially. And what's to stop the 8th seed from picking the 1st? Teams would probably even try to drop their rank a bit, to get the first pick. It just wouldn't work.

Likewise, if two teams are good friends, one might blow a match so they can fall out of the top 8 and get picked by their friend.

David Guzman 10-04-2005 13:40

Re: Alliance picking
 
I think that it is fine the way it is. A team woks hard during the event to be in the top 8 and they know that the higher they are the more chances of winnig because they get a better pick. Now if the top 8 couln't pick within the top 8 then maybe the finals wouln'd be as ecxiting because you would have alliances that aren't as strong as they could have been.

The way it is right now there are always strong alliances and it makes things a bit more ecxiting, but thats just me.

Dave

DukesAZ 10-04-2005 13:57

Re: Alliance picking
 
The current system has worked fine for years. I don't see a reason to change it.

In fact of the seven regionals I have attended, I can't of a time where the no.1 seeded alliance has taken home the championship (including the time we were on the no.1 seeded alliance).

Cory 10-04-2005 14:05

Re: Alliance picking
 
To be blunt, I think this is a horrible idea, for the reasons Jeff mentioned and more.

You think people throwing/making "agreements" about matches is bad now? Wait until you institute this system. I think you'd find after about 20-30 matches, that the game would have no point to watching it. They won't be playing triple play, they'll be playing the "Who can get more penalties?" game.

FIRST is not fair. Dean has said so repeatedly. It IS, however, fair to reward the number one seed for doing so well. It's a competition, there are winners, and there are losers.

If #1 decides to pick #2 and they can absolutely dominate everyone, more power to them for making awesome robots.

The game is as fair as it's going to get. Playing best of 3 in the elims gives ANYONE a chance to win. There's no reason we should handicap the best teams.

AJunx 10-04-2005 14:08

Re: Alliance picking
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by TierraDelDiablo
In professional sport drafting, it's usually the teams with the worst records that get the first pick, which makes perfect sense, if your team is already very good, why does it need 2 more great teams to help them through eliminations.

Thanks to TierraDelDiablo for bringing up this interesting topic. I'm guessing, based on early poll results and former discussions, that few people will support a rule that takes away from the accomplishment (as well as the competitive advantage) of being the #1 seed.

The reason, I think, comes from our general perception of the structure of an FRC regional event (or the Championship event, for that matter):

I imagine that most people think of a regional event as consisting of two parts. The qualification rounds are like the "regular season" and the elimination rounds are the "playoffs."

It is true that in professional sports, a draft is usually aimed at balancing out the competition, by letting less succesful teams pick first. However, a draft is always held after the season is over. The draft is not held between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the playoffs. The reason for this is because a team that has the best record going into the playoffs, thereby securing homefield advantage (at a FRC event, that would be the #1 seed), has earned the competitive advantage that is given to them.

In professional sports, the NFL for example, we expect that, come playoff time, the team with the best record from the regular season will go on to win the championship (or at least be a top contender). Of course, this doesn't always happen, but we would never demand that that team play all of their playoff games on the road just to even up the competition.

-Andrew

The Lucas 10-04-2005 14:09

Re: Alliance picking
 
One selection method you might want to add to the poll is a serpentine draft (all you fantasy sport and FF addicts know about this). This is where the #1 seed gets the first pick in the first round. It works its way down to the #8 seed who gets the last pick in the first round. Then the #8 seed gets the first pick in the second round (i.e. two consecutive picks #8 and #9 overall). It works its way up to the #1 seed who gets the last overall pick.

I like the alliance selection the way it is but a serpentine draft would be interesting. The first quarterfinal match would be:
2 studs and a sleeper vs. 3 solid bots
Who would win? I think there would definitely be more upsets :eek:

sanddrag 10-04-2005 14:16

Re: Alliance picking
 
I think one thing that may be a problem is who plays who. I know there is not time for everyone to play everyone but to me it seems unfair for the strongest alliance (#1) to play the weakest alliance (#8) for their first match in the quarterfinals and then alliances 4 and 5 play each other (pretty equal matched). Usually, it is two wins right up front by alliance #1 and alliance #8 is hugely defeated right from the start and it is over for them. But if alliane #1 played alliance #2 and alliance #8 played alliance #7, the lower alliances would have a better chance of proceeding further in the competition and the higher alliances would have a tougher match to play. It would be a closer more competitive match because the robots would generally be more equal. Or maybe the who plays who should be selected at random after alliance pickings. This would eliminate knowing before hand who you have to play and it would also tend to equal things out a bit.

StephLee 10-04-2005 14:19

Re: Alliance picking
 
Our team didn't go to Pittsburgh, but some of us went to watch. In the final, the lower-seeded team won because they had a better strategy; they had a little rookie bot pulled from the stand-by pool block team 365 (MOE), the best bot on the field in that match if you ask me, and definately the best capper. MOE didn't score as much, so the lower-seeded alliance won.

The point is, even the best bot in the world can be brought down by a well-thought-out strategy and a little determination. Teams on lower-seeded alliances can win. Why should the higher-ranked teams have to submit to letting the playing field be levelled to such a degree that it's not really a fair competition anymore?

People have already made the point that FIRST is entirely different from professional sports, so I don't think I need to say anything about that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention team 53. They were ranked 53rd after the Qualifying Matches, and they wound up on the 1st seeded(and winning) alliance(congrats, guys!).

Joe Ross 10-04-2005 14:21

Re: Alliance picking
 
Rather then reversing the top 8 teams, because that already shows favoritism for the teams that do well, why not allow the bottom 8 teams choose their partners? Let the last place team choose first. That's how pro sports work.

Pro Basketball uses a lottery, where the teams have different chances to get the first pick based on how they seeded. Wouldn't a random process be more fair?

Even better, since pro sports are for drafting personnel, why not let the bottom ranked teams draft mentors and/or sponsors. Wouldn't your team love the chance to pick up Andy Baker for your mechanical needs, or Al Skierkiewicz if your electrical is weak, or Andy Grady if you want strategy help. Or maybe you'd get to choose UTC as your sponsor, or maybe you'd prefer Delphi.

dangerousdave 10-04-2005 14:25

Re: Alliance picking
 
At the Boilermaker Regional, team #93 was dead last (1-9) in the qualifying matches . However, they were picked by a top alliance and went on to be a finalist team. I do not know the reason that they were picked but you can never give up hope!

Perhaps a little tweaking in the way the alliances are selected but overall keep it the same. Dave

Daniel Brim 10-04-2005 14:56

Re: Alliance picking
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Ross
Rather then reversing the top 8 teams, because that already shows favoritism for the teams that do well, why not allow the bottom 8 teams choose their partners? Let the last place team choose first. That's how pro sports work.

Pro Basketball uses a lottery, where the teams have different chances to get the first pick based on how they seeded. Wouldn't a random process be more fair?

The problem with this is potentially as complicated as the problem of a "reverse" draft. People might try to lose every match on purpose so they are virually guaranteed a spot in the finals, unless they miss and don't get picked at all. I could forsee a lot of "thrown" matches because of this.

Personally, I would be in favor of getting rid of the draft altogether, and having a large tournament, like NCAA basketball. 1st, last, and middle against another alliance. The only issue with this is if a regional has an odd number of teams, some would be left out. Each method of picking has its problems, and this is no different.

-Daniel

MattB703 10-04-2005 16:03

Re: Alliance picking
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by The Lucas
One selection method you might want to add to the poll is a serpentine draft (all you fantasy sport and FF addicts know about this). This is where the #1 seed gets the first pick in the first round. It works its way down to the #8 seed who gets the last pick in the first round. Then the #8 seed gets the first pick in the second round (i.e. two consecutive picks #8 and #9 overall). It works its way up to the #1 seed who gets the last overall pick.

I like the alliance selection the way it is but a serpentine draft would be interesting. The first quarterfinal match would be:
2 studs and a sleeper vs. 3 solid bots
Who would win? I think there would definitely be more upsets :eek:


I like this idea. It preserves the benefit of being a higher seed but could even out some of the play in the finals. Very interesting.


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