balls on the field at VCU
 

I have noticed after watching VCU that many of the human players are just constantly throwing balls on the field....even when their robot/alliance has no ability to pick up these balls. Does anyone else feel that some would be better served by going to the driver station and be accurately filled by the human players at close range?

for some of the alliances it just seems like a waste of a lot of possibilities for points....any one else have thoughts on this or seen something to the contrary that I'm missing?

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

If your alliance can pick up balls from the floor, by all means keep throwing... but if you can't then STOP you are just giving balls to your opponents.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?p=463800

This is the original thread for the VCU reigonal please post all talk there.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

today is all practice, right?

the HPs are just being nice, putting the balls back into play, for the opponents?

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

that is always a good assumption.....thursday is always different than friday (i anticipate a lot more contact friday and saturday), but i saw the same thing happening in the UTC Winter Warzone videos....it doesn't seems to make much sense to me, but i'm also not there thus cannot understand the strategy fully (or maybe lack thereof)

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

Exactly since it is practice i would really want to give my human player the experience of actually trying to shoot into the robot or where ever they need the balls to go, instead of just getting them back onto the field. the more practice the better your human player is. But lets just wait to see what happens tommorow.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

I am a littl surprised at the style of HP playing. I hope that in real competition, balls and points won't be wasted like they are being right now. But i guess every drive team does have that option. More balls for us i guess :)

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

The human players are mostly trying to see if they can throw balls into the corner goals for 1 point. Probably testing out how hard it is.

I've seen a couple go in but not many.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

I don't see many teams trying to load their robot with the human player at all. This might change as it goes on, but right now all the balls are winding up near the corners from missed one point attempts.

I don't think it will make a very big difference until we start to see some bots that can score 3 pointers. Right now everyone is just getting a feel for the game so they'll know how to play tomorrow.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

I think about 1 in 3 robots use HP loading today. 384 uses HP loading but still pulls off good shots. So did 122.

For the most part, the balls were aimed at far off hoppers or goals. Some people just threw to throw.

We'll see tomorrow what happens.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

That's what was happening at the Winter War Zone. Most of the HP decided to try for 1-pointers and some of them got pretty accurate toward the end of the day.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

I hear what you are saying! At the NJ Regional, some teams were not going closer to the driver station and accurately putting balls in they hopper. I was very confused about this.

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

Even the once thought impossible act of scoring in the 1 pt goals from the HP station is quite possible. The key, hit around mid-field and let the ball bounch/roll into the corner goal from there. 116's HP was getting between 5-8 points just about every match, and the shots he missed were positioned close to the corner, enabling 116 and our alliance partners to quickly pick them up and dump them for 1 pt each.
A few teams did rely soley on HP loading, such as 384 and 1541 though, and they did do pretty well (#4 and #5 seeds ;) )

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

NJ had this happen, most teams if they were getting desperate the HP would just hurl balls onto the field and hope for the best.

However I did notice that a lot of teams were throwing when they couldn't score. Some teams were actually throwing/shooting/dumping when the other allaince was on offense? Anyone else have this happen?

Re: balls on the field at VCU
 

I saw that happening too, mainly on thursday. After a while people learned just to score when the light was on :p