My case against <G14>
 

(Note to readers: I know this post is long! There are a lot of things wrong with this rule, in my opinion... if you're planning to respond, or even if you're not, please try to read the whole thing, or at least the end. That's where I tried to put the meat of my argument.)

For those who haven't yet memorized the rulebook (shame on you!), here is the rule I am referring to:

In plain terms: If you "double up" in one match, you lose one cell in your next match. "Triple up", and you lose both.

Anyway, as you might have guessed, I don't like this rule. In my opinion, it is a bad idea, badly thought through and badly implemented. There are way too many things that can go wrong with it and very few things that it does right. I'll lay out my objections in detail:

-What happens if an alliance scores zero? I guarantee it will happen at least once. Boom, three teams are screwed for their next match, having done absolutely nothing. Yes, an alliance could score on themselves, but that is certainly not professional and far more insulting then gracious. This is what I mean by "badly thought through".

-"Shenanigans" are far too easy. I don't hope or believe that they will happen, but even in FIRST there are some "bad apples" who may take advantage. I'm sure you can figure out how to yourself, and there are probably other threats about this as well. But even if it doesn't happen, there will naturally be speculation, and we really don't need that.

-Some of the most exciting events at any FIRST competition are when an alliance reaches a milestone. I remember in 2005, my rookie year, when our very good 'bot was paired with the always extraordinary 254 and another good team I have forgotten since then. The other alliance put up a good fight, but we managed to complete a "clean sweep" and cover every goal, and when the final tetra was placed at the buzzer the entire crowd went wild. Of course, if we had had this rule that year, we would have had to stop halfway through and throwing blue tetras on top of ours. Good luck seeing any high scores this year; I imagine that half or more of the endgames will end up with Super Cells being purposely witheld or own goals being scored just to avoid this rule. Try explaining that to the random spectators-just a reminder, they do exist, and they are crucial to FIRST's growth.

-Imagine this scenario: Rookie team 3456 has had a lot of trouble scoring or playing defense due to a reluctant powertrain and balky gripper, which prevents them from grabbing any Super Cells. But in their next match, they are paired with two expert teams, both of which are agile enough to avoid being scored upon (or they have the mythical trailer cover!). Happy that they finally have a chance for a big score, they send their coach over to the strategy meeting, where teams 123 and 456 are almost ashamed to tell them: Sorry guys, you can't score too much, or we'll have a <G14>... Or think of the rookie team member who designed some part, or the veteran that wants to go out with a bang, both prevented from seeing their robot act out to its full potential. Or the human player (many teams use rookies as human players) who has to be told not to score, not too much, possibly while being watched by friends, or family, or simply wanting to have fun and make the most of their competition.
What I'm trying to say here is that there should never be a rule that prevents teams from taking an opportunity to score. I'm not a big fan of the "ranking score" system (where higher opponents' score=good for you) in the first place, but at least that encourages offense (good for spectators) and allows smaller teams to do more. This rule, by contrast, encourages lower scoring and the shutting out of "minnow" teams.

-A team should not be punished for something they did not do. Seems simple, right? But not this year-if you're paired with a powerhouse team, and they don't get their score quite right (maybe the scorers messed up? Maybe the other team got a penalty? Who knows?), *you* take a penalty in *your* next match. How is this fair, and what purpose does this serve? Of course, there is no way to figure out individual scores, and no way to make this rule fair, which is probably a good reason it never should have happened in the first place.
Even more unfairly disadvantaged are ~six~ teams that lose one of their alliance's cells just for having the audacity of being partnered with a team that scored a lot the last match. Does this sound wrong to anyone else?

-The entire idea behind the rule-that blowout winners are somehow doing something wrong, and need to be punished, or that the playing field of what appears to be a close game needs to be artificially leveled-is, in my opinion, horribly wrong and misguided. That idea might get some traction in the lowest levels of Little League, or JrFLL maybe. But come on, we're dealing with high school students here. There is just as much to be learned, if not more, from a blowout, devastating loss then from a big win. A loss can inspire a team to action, teach them what they did wrong, and give them a glimpse at what to do to become really successful. And I'm don't subscribe to the theory of "students are inspired by watching big money, engineer-built robots crush them", but trying to essentially keep the scores down until the finals doesn't help anybody.

Some of these are niggling little issues. Others are not. But when you have a rule that does this many things wrong, it needs to have a pretty compelling reason for inclusion. I cannot think of one. FIRST cannot honestly believe that spectators or team members will respond to the false excitement that this rule attempts to generate. And my idea of "strategy" is not sandbagging or scoring own goals. Those correspond better to my idea of a game that is a joke. What ever happened to recognizing excellence?

<G14> will make the game less exciting, less pure, less legitimate, and take away the learning that is supposed to be inherent in this competition. I presume that the GDC thought it through and found some reason it deserves inclusion in this year's rulebook, but I would much prefer if it was one of the victims of the first Team Update. If anyone wants to chime in with their idea of a reason, I'd be glad to hear it.

EDIT 4: This post has been revised, so to speak. I've added a couple things and tried to reorganize it a little bit.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Sure it seems like a semi-feasable idea to level out the field, but there should be no rule, ever, that prevents teams from showing their true strength, then recieve a penalty for it. I firmly believe that this rule will cause MAJOR sandbagging, and will cause teams to not "shoot for the moon" with their robot designs. I would be really happy for this rule to be either obliterated or drastically changed, maybe only involving personal scores and the only penalties distributed are individual.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

My case against the rule regards the points that you can score with a EMPTY CELL (2). As the rule states now, What I would like to make note of is the OR between EMPTY CELL or SUPER CELL. If you 2x in your previous match and the refs take a SUPER CELL, no big, your can score your EMPTY CELLS as regular ol' MOON ROCKS for 2 points a pop. But, if the refs take your SUPER CELLS you are at a loss for not only the SUPER CELLS, but also the opportunity to score the EMPTY CELLS...

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I have a few problems with this post.

I really do not see how it would be insulting to help the other team score points. If you're losing that badly, everyone knows it and the other team should understand that it is purely strategic and "big picture" thinking.

While this might be "easy" to do, as you said, it would not at all be graciously professional. I do not foresee teams purposely losing matches so that a team they dislike has a slight disadvantage in the next match.

I believe the system is the way it is because it shows somewhat the caliber of the opponents played. Obviously if team A's opponents score 50 points per match but team B's opponents score 10 points per match, team A has had a tougher schedule. If two teams have the same number of qualifying points, why shouldn't the team who played tougher opponents get a higher rank? The system seems good to me (until the 4th tiebreaker of electronic coin flip:p ).

Overall, I disagree with your philosophy regarding the rule. I do not think it will keep teams from scoring a ton of points. The matches will not be less exciting simply because teams are afraid of the 2x or 3x score. Also, it will be very hard to lose all super cells. All 3 teams in an alliance would have had to have won by 3x in their previous match for there to be no possible configuration of human players which could get a super cell in play.

Example:Team A, B, and C are aligned for match 100. Team A won 97-17 in its last match, team B won 30-8 in its last match, and team C won 50-20 in its last match. Teams A and B both lose 2 of their non-moon rock playing pieces. Team C only loses 1. Therefore, team C could position its human player at either of the fueling stations and the alliance would have one super cell still possible. This is assuming they could not somehow get a super cell which the other alliance introduces into the crater and score it before the game ends. Sorry if this message seems to be rude or inconsiderate on my part, I just want you to see that perhaps it is not such a big deal and in fact might add an interesting element to the games.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I agree that it is not such a big deal, but I want to point out that if indeed you loose 3/4 EMPTY CELLS, you loss 15x3 points for the SUPER CELLS you cannot acquire and 6 points for scored EMPTY CELLS... I understand that with 120 balls on the field loosing 3 is like a flashlight in a cave, but three balls is still a loss.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think you misspoke there, note my correction! But honestly I don't think it's a big issue. An EMPTY CELL is only two points, same as a moon rock, and you have, what, 30 of those? And I don't believe the refs decide what to take-my interpretation is that wherever your PAYLOAD SPECIALIST sits for the next match, he loses one ball.

I really meant patronizing more then "insulting", but I agree that in the context of this game, I agree that the losing alliance would probably realize the purpose of the winning alliance's actions and not begrudge them for it. But do we really need a rule so convoluted that it is a necessary strategy to score on yourself? And how does it really help the psyche of the losing alliance, or the perceived evenness of the game, if teams are scoring on themselves just to avoid falling outside this rule? Does the GDC think the spectators or losing teams will not notice this or something?
(Note: This isn't directly in response to your post, but I keep coming up with new reasons this rule is bad all the time... :( )

Teams taking advantage of this rule was really more of a minor concern of mine, and I believe as you do that none will try it. But there shouldn't even be the opportunity, and even if it doesn't happen, team members (and spectators "in the know") will speculate whenever some team has a problem, and we don't need that.
As for your point on the ranking score as "strength of schedule", I honestly hadn't thought of that. I guess it could work that way, but using opponent wins would probably be better, and the manual even says:
...thus my idea that the main intent of the rule is to discourage defense. I really don't have a problem with that-I was more comparing the rule to this one.
No problem at all :D The whole purpose of boards like this is for debate, after all! And by the way, I have edited my first post (and will be doing so again right now, argh!), so you might want to look at that...

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I refer you to G14 (my bolding to emphasize)

You cannot possibly lose 3/4 of the empty cells due to the fact that each team can only lose two of its cells. This is a big deal if your team's payload specialist is in a fueling station because your opportunity for super cells is lost. However, if your team's payload specialist is in the outpost position, he or she will always have at least two empty cells at his or her disposal. Also, I remind you that in discussing what the opportunity cost is for losing an empty cell, it is the 15 possible points from the super cell acquisition and score, not those 15 plus 2 for the empty cell possibility because once an empty cell is exchanged, its two points will never be scored.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I don't really like this rule eather. My thoughts on it is that one teams outcome in a match shouldn't have any effect with them on their next match. It also say that it punishes the next two teams in the allience with something that they might have had nothing to do with.

Example: "Team A" wins with a 2x score, but in their next match "Team B" and "Team C" on their allience had close score in the previous match. But yet they are the ones in the end that are taking the hit with "Team A". It also can go agienst a team during team selection during elemelnations. Who would want to pick "Team A" to go with them to elemanation when they lost a SUPER CELL from a previous match.

I have always believed that no match should exchange guidlines onto your next match. You can have a 2x blow out prevention rule to let them know that thats not the intentions of the game, but to punish them onto the next match. I don't think thats right.

The thought of losing a potional SUPER CELL isn't what really concerns me as much as what I stated above. Learn from a misake in a match but don't cury the misake onto the next match. More of a.. Learn from previous mistakes, but leave the past behind you.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Perhaps I should ask something else-what is the good that this rule does?

Many people have suggested that it "adds strategy" to the game. Sure, I won't deny that. But does this game need the added "strategy" of sandbagging? Sandbagging is never fun to watch and less fun to do, especially for team members enthusiastic to show off what they made. And scoring on yourself? I mean, come on. How are you going to explain that to drop-in spectators or NASA TV viewers? (They do exist, you know. They're also one of the most important audiences FIRST needs to target.) And I don't know about you, but I'd feel better losing 50-10 then if the score was 40-30 and 20 of those points were own goals.

As for the "preventing blowouts" rationale, my thoughts on that can be found in the initial post. We are all mature enough here to take a big loss and consider how we can use it to move forward.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Outscoring my opponents by 2x... this is a problem I'd like to have.

I would feel more comfortable if a minimum was placed on this rule for exceptionally low scoring matches.

There is also the chance for abuse by surrogates. A surrogate could run up the score and hurt their alliance partners in the next rounds without being affected themselves. But then again they could just throw the match if they really wanted.

GDC one fix that needs to happen, if a team is penalized from a previous match and they are a surrogate for the current match, their penalty should be postponed until their next non-surrogate match.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Say your next match was very important. You are currently up 65-30, do you take a penalty to avoid doubling? Encouraging penalties should never be the result of a rule.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

That is another of the deranged "strategies" that is encouraged by this rule... or what if you are down 40-65, and against *insert your region's dominant team here*? I would hope that FIRST teams would not do this, but it would be really easy to *accidentally* throw a Super Cell over a bit too early...

And hopefully there are more people on now (as opposed to 3 EST :ahh: ), so I'm eager to hear an actual reason why teams that win by a lot should be punished.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I agree. <G14> is, in my opinion, not in the spirit of FIRST. When has the game not encouraged us to do the best we possibly can? Also there is a possibility of double penalizing a losing team. Think about this teams 1,2,3 play teams 4,5,6 and the 1,2,3 alliance triples the score of the other alliance. Then the following match the alliance 1,2,6 exists: team 6 has just been PENALIZED for LOSING, because two of their partners are out 2 game pieces. Then we consider the possibility of that alliance losing and the additional consequences there. There are too many possible negative ramifications of this rule.

The 0 score argument is interesting as well. What if an alliance has 12 points and you have 20, but they were penalized twice during the match. Their score is now 0 and yours is 20 and that sucks, because you've tripled their score with 20 points :confused:

Re: My case against <G14>
 

It was made to even the playing field which is in the spirit of FIRST, but since FIRST uses competition as means to achieve it's goal... It is a paradox, well lets solve the paradox and delete <G14>.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Alright, I really am hoping that you can all get every empty cell to the fueling station and then introduce every super cell EVERY match. As I said before, it will be extremely hard to eliminate all four super cells and impossible to eliminate more than half of the empty cells for a match. In that case, you have three aligned teams who all dominated their previous opponents. Perhaps you design a strategy which does not require the use of super cells or empty cells as a key component. That way, you will be zero-cell-proof.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

One could argue that "deranged strategies" are encouraged by our society too. I'm sure everyone here listened to Dean's speech very closely. The emphasis on why we do what we do. I'm sure everyone listened closely to Woodie and Dave as well - before the game was unveiled.

Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. If you are choosing to do something just to "win" even if you may think or know it's not the "right" thing to do, then I guess you're missing the point entirely.

...and spare me the talk of, "but the other guy might do it and that's not fair..." because, again, this too is everyday life in our culture. The stuff we're supposedly working at changing, regardless of the adversity along the way.

If you want to actively change the culture for the better, then, in the face of all this perceived and potential "wrongdoing" and adversity you'll find a way to do the "right" thing without judging others at all - it's just wasted energy anyway.

Is all of this unfair? Sure. If I'm suggesting that we shouldn't expend energy pointing fingers of others' wrongdoings doesn't that mean I'll have to work that much harder to succeed? Yup, probably.

Listen, folks did you ever think that these type of items, the ones that nag the teams every year for the same "fairness" reasons is the REAL game we need to pay attention to? How many times do some of us need to hear our founder and national advisors talk about competing like crazy and treating each other well in the process, winning in a way that values your opponent, etc.

If we're going to be cultural change agents we need to get comfortable with the notion of working harder than we ever have before without caving into our personal desires to "win" or get what we think we "deserve." The journey is the reward - REALLY. this is a hard challenge, REALLY.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the time people think they have to discuss this in such painstaking detail when there's a huge problem to solve and lots of sharing to do in a very short period of time.

I admit the game if fun, but we all need to remember why the heck we're doing this. Dean, Dave, and Woodie try to hit us over the head with the important messages every year so let's make this the year we keep all of that foremost in our minds, even during robot build and game play ... please?

The 'game" exists as a test to us as designers, but more importantly as positive culture-changing people and organizations.


namaste,
rich

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Along those same lines... Lets say your robot alone, at it's best, can score 10 points for your team. Your two alliance partners in one match each score 60 points and, as an alliance, you triple the other teams score. The next match you play you're penalized, even though you contributed only a small portion to your previous alliance's amazing score.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

First of all, I'm an alumni (as noted on my profile) and sadly not yet a mentor, so I truly have nothing better to do then post here :P Anyway, I think you may have misunderstood the point of that post. I am not encouraging teams to take advantage of <G14>, or even stating that it is likely to happen. I was rather pointing out the many and varied ways that the rule ~could~ be taken advantage of. This is, in my opinion, one of many, many flaws the rule has, and not nearly the biggest one.
I'm honestly not sure I really understand your post. Are you simply trying to respond to my saying that teams could game the rule, or are you trying to say that we should stop worrying about the game and worry about the other parts of FIRST? I agree, in a way, but you have to remember that without the game, there isn't much else to FIRST. I believe that <G14> takes away a lot of the learning experience that is, IMO, one of the most important "other parts" of all. And I have still not read a real reason why the rule is there in the first place.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I asked in the other thread and i'm asking here. How do i explain this rule to students and parents? Not the rule but the reason for it? How do you explain that you might have to NOT do your best? Where in the real world do i point to for an example? What will the kids learn from this?:confused:

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think what Rich was saying is that we can only police ourselves. If other people will do any "sandbagging" as you called it, then they will. He was just saying that all we can control is ourselves and that by doing so in a graciously professional manner, perhaps others will try to emulate us.

As far as the reason for the rule, it seems to me the same reason why we switched to a serpentine style alliance selection process. It will bring some added excitement to the games by making them more even. I was in FIRST for 1 non serpentine draft and the elimination matches did not compare to the ones we get to watch now. #1 Alliance used to win a lot more than they do now. FIRST went out on a limb back then by trying to even the field a little and IMHO, it worked out incredibly well. The people running FIRST are pretty smart, let's give them a chance to show us that a rule like this is a good thing.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This isn't introducing any real excitement, though. It's just fake excitement, where the scores will seem close but the match will have been a blowout. Team members and non-affiliated spectators will both be able to tell when an alliance is far superior and simply not trying to win, and it won't make the match any more "exciting", it'll just make the end look like a joke.
It's a lot like NASCAR, which I used to enjoy a lot. In the last few years, though, they have gotten into the habit of throwing yellow flags (which bunch up the field) constantly and for no real reason, especially near the end of the race. The result? The results look more competitive then ever and the margin of victory is always low, and NASCAR constantly puts out races to this effect. But is the race really any more exciting? No. It's just manufactured excitement, making the final results look close when in reality the cars may have been far apart in performance. FIRST is trying to do the same thing, and it won't work. Besides, why do they need to? This game is level enough already! And what ever happened to the "successful teams inspire others" theory?

Re: My case against <G14>
 

If the rule stands as is, you're not going to see very many super cells in play this year.

There are plenty of regionals that don't typically have tons of high scoring matches. I don't think it's really a very good rule, but if it stands as is, you're going to see a lot of scoring for the other team going on as well.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I question whether lopsided scores in competitions are inherently bad or the "wrong thing". When everyone (spectators AND players) can easily recognize that one side will be overwhelmingly victorious (such as in the final quarter of a football game), then I can see teams choosing to refrain from "running up the score" as the "right thing". In an intense 2 min.15 sec. match when a final match score probably won't be as readily obvious, does the possibility of a looming penalty (for performing well the objective of the game's challenge), in a future match with other alliance members, make sense?

"Fairness" & GP are often in the eye of the beholder. Creating barriers to doing one's absolute best when accomplishing a goal bothers me. Envy and even the desire to spare other's feelings can backfire into promoting ideals unrelated to inspiration of others, personal growth & the exploration of new skills.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

So let's take this scenario a bit further, and say that every other match you have half your supercells due to the fact that you keep outscoring your opposition 2:1. If you're constantly in this situation, you obviously have a good game plan, and depending on who you're allied with you will still do very well when you're down a couple of super cells. That's where your actual robot design will be critical: it means that if you're reliant on a strategy and your human player too much, you will have to be more reliant on your robot the next match. There it is, from a pure strategy perspective.

In the elims, if you score 2:1 in match 1, then as a result they beat you in match 2, you will probably still outscore them in match 3 if super cells were the difference maker.

I personally think it's just a nuisance rule, nothing more.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Is everyone planning to only use super cells if THEIR team has some? There is nothing I can find in the rules saying that you cannot use the super cells of another team on your alliance. Therefore, I feel as if people are either disregarding the fact that the super cells are for the entire alliance to use or do not think their alliance will be very good at sharing. Also, if your robot is really THAT good, why can't it just load dozens and dozens of moon rocks into opposing trailers every match? I understand that a strategy which relies heavily on super cells is damaged by this rule, but perhaps that's because FIRST wants teams to not rely solely on that strategy.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

After some more thought this rule is better intended for a competition where alliances are the same throughout the whole competition. The main problem lies within alliances changing, because one alliance may be great and then robot from that alliance could be paired with a pair of rookies for instance that alliance is even further disadvantaged, and this is the biggest problem I see. You are punishing teams who get paired with really good teams and I think that is completely out of line with the principles FIRST has taught us.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I'd say that, for this game, doing you best is something other than running up the score as high as possible in a single match.

G14 doesn't punish a team for "doing their best", it punishes them for not understanding the rule.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Re: My case against <G14>
 

The way I explained it to my new students is that FIRST wants to see a more evenly matched game, and the *intent* is to discourage defense and encourage offense. There are plenty of valid arguments here and my own personal feelings are that the rank points are enough to try and keep this in check, but FIRST makes the rules. Im sure we will see modifications coming up (ie the 0 issue, and that its based on raw score not penalized score), but again the idea here is to build a robot that can score, not a robot that battlebots the other robots... that's how I explained it at least.

The initial thing that worried me about this rule was mostly that how is a coach to know the score at all times?? What if its 62 to 30... I cant imagine that is easy to judge with a bunch of robots running around and balls that just look like giant tangles. I dont even know how refs/scorekeepers could really accurately tell (although maybe FIRST has some way to keep the real time scoring updated well).

And then my last thought in reading through this thread, sort of spurred on by the discussion of scoring for your opponents... whether its "GP" or not... how do you explain that to a spectator? (same really goes if you are scoring in the terms of getting up your rank points). If Red Alliance is supposed to score in Blue's goals, how do you explain to the 8 year old sitting in the audience why Red is suddenly scoring points FOR Blue?

Whether its for rank points or to keep super cells, I think we will see scoring for the opposing alliances this year.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This rule also provides protection against crack shot Payload Specialists, which is in my opinion a more "fair" purpose.

David

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Huh? How, exactly, does this encourage offense? In my opinion, this will encourage exactly the opposite, as teams stop scoring with 30, 60, or more seconds left once they realize their victory is assured. Or, of course, the quite frankly embarrassing likelihood of teams scoring on themselves.

Well, at least someone came up with something. (Sorry for my becoming increasingly sarcastic and confrontational, but this rule really is making me very angry because of how many flaws it has and how little purpose it has. I'm not trying to attack you, dmlawrence, at all.) I don't really understand what you mean, though. Can you explain it a little more?


And I'm a little disappointed that no one so far has responded to what I think was my most important point. FIRST has apparently assumed that blowout games are somehow bad and need to be eliminated. In my opinion, not only can a blowout loss be a valuable learning experience for a team, but an false close loss will certainly be no better.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I am starting to see a good lesson to teach the kids. Peaceful,civil disobedience., he says half jokingly. Perhaps a quiet agreement with every team at a comp to play as hard as you can and not care about g-14

Re: My case against <G14>
 

When I first heard about this rule, I was rather confused. Even after reading various threads about it, I'm not sure I have formed an opinion about it.

However, there are a couple of things that concern me.

1. It seems like FIRST is encouraging you to do well, but not too well. While I understand that losing a match by an obscene amount can feel lousy, it can also bolster one's team to do better in the next match or spark a change in one's strategy. The world is not a fair place--it is more competitive than words can express. Perhaps FIRST is implementing this rule to encourage students to change the view of their peers; that we should be concerned with others and not just ourselves. This is a valid lesson people should learn. However, I'm not sure if this rule is the way to do it. For some reason, I parallel this to school. Do well on a test, but don't do too well, otherwise you'll be penalized on your next test.

2. Perhaps what confuses me the most with this rule is the way it interferes with other teams who were not a part of the high-scoring match. (I.E. Teams A, B, and C are penalized in their next matches, making their future alliance partners also penalized). If the mission of this rule is to show concern for other people, it seems a tad bit hypocritical. Teams D and E of the future alliance now are disadvantaged by something they have no control over. This has been previously discussed in this thread, so I'll try not to repeat much more other than it seems wrong to penalize teams for something beyond their control.

Even though I might not agree with the rule, FIRST has deemed it important and wouldn't institute such a rule change without wanting the best for all teams. Perhaps the purpose of the rule will be more evident once we see some matches played. Maybe it won't. Either way, I'm looking forward to an amazing season.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

It'd be great if you could, but unfortunately, you can't without compromising your own position in the game. Not unless you can convince everyone to throw away their own cells in response, or the referees to hand you the taken cells behind your back.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

i, also, must disagree with this rule.
For several years the qualifying rules have make the opponents score the tie breaking element after wins/losses/ties. This has made many teams more aware of not trying to blow out other teams. In reality, I think that this qualifying rule is more to reward close, big score, wins as being an indication of a better teams and NOT to stop blowouts..but in practice it was thought of as a NO BLOW OUT rule..

Aside from the very relevant question of why blowing out other teams is a bad thing...we have to question the very realistic issue that in many regionals we may have 3 rookie teams on the same alliance. Having helped many rookie teams build kitbots over the weekend, I can tell you that the kitbot, even with a four wheel drive refit, will NOT be able to handle this surface very well.

It could be a very long, and frustrating season for rookie teams that use the kitbot drive system. Our team is going to try and develop some limited slip software that we will share with everyone to help alleviate this, but nonetheless, the kit bot drive system, which in year's past allowed rookie teams to at least be a box on wheels and play defense and have fun, will not be as useful this year...


The result of this is the very real chance that alliances will not be able to score...a match like this could consist of a single veteran robot with better control pushing a rookie robot in a corner... and dropping a ball into their hopper for the win... the rest of the time... no one moves much...and the veteran team is afraid of scoring so they hang around...

This will not be pretty to watch...

I also think we must get clarification of what a zero score means...

If one team scores 1 and one 0... is that an infinite difference?
2x? 3X?
Zero needs to be clarified.

The rule should be changed to reflect some reasonable minimum score... like 10 points or so... that can be scored with no penalty for the alliance team members in the next match.

Example...with this approach...

If Blue Alliance Scores less than 10 points... then there would be no penalty on Red Alliance teams unless they scored more than 20... or more than 30

OR even better...

If Blue Alliance Scores less than 10 points... then there would be no penalty on Red Alliance teams no matter what they score.

With this modification, teams could go ahead and score and have fun even though they were playing a really poor-scoring alliance and not have to worry about creating a penalty situation unless it got WAY out of hand..

I really do not like the idea of making teams score on themselves in order to go out and have fun scoring in a game.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

The thing that bothers me the most about G14 is that there is no language indicating that it doesn't apply to elimination matches as well. Consider this scenario:

Your alliance is up against an alliance of similar or better strength in the elimination rounds. You narrowly win the first match. During the second match, it becomes apparent that your alliance is losing, so you throw a couple of super cells in before the 20-second mark, causing 40 points in penalties and dropping your score down to zero. Now you have an advantage in the third match, since the other alliance can't score two of their super cells.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

FIRST may feel that most scoring in a match will be accomplished by humans, rather than by robots. In this case, G14 would serve primarily to limit the human factor in a match between robots. By reducing the power of high-scoring humans, the focus of the match will be kept on the robots. This is an admirable goal, even if its implementation is horrendous.

What about a blowout match that was a blowout because the winning team had three amazing Payload Specialists, even if the losing team had superior robots?

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I don't like the rule partially it will make seeding inaccurate (well, in some cases, it already is, but this could potentially make it worse). In essence what this is doing is giving a handicap to a future opponent if you outscore an opponent by given multiples. This makes little sense in a seeding standpoint (given that handicaps will usually mess with those anyways), and unless this disadvantage is taken into account in seeding, the "ladder" will be almost pointless to look at other than to determine who picks alliances for elimination matches.

Also, if you go by the team-by-team basis, if there is a 3x score in eliminations rounds, there won't be much left. While I can see that it is attempting to make the matches "even," I think that it fails at doing so by making the erroneous assumption that the future opponents are of the same caliber as the past opponents (unless of course, they happen to be the same). In a competitive view, it also makes little sense as it will not necessarily let the best team win, although it doesn't seem likely in eliminations that a team would score 3x then lose twice in a row since they'd have their cells back on the third match

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think the last sentence of your first paragraph may be the operable statement here. If that was the GDC's goal, there are many, many better ways to accomplish it; a higher alliance station wall, for example. An alliance that good could surely make sure they only won 36 to 20 instead of 60 to 20.
Or just ban human players from scoring altogether; I think that might actually make this game a better engineering challenge, although that's another subject altogether.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Okay, I'll do it :) I agree with just about all of your reasoning and especially this point. Let me share an example of just how a blowout game can be inspiring, a good learning experience, and certainly not inherently bad.

Two years ago at the Milwaukee regional, team 1736, Robot Casserole's alliance scored all along the top row (i think they did that singlehandedly, too, but i'm not positive). This meant they had 250 points. (Here is video, courtesy blue alliance: http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...hp?matchid=679)

This got everyone's attention and I think motivated our team to do better the next year and got us pumped up, because we wanted to be like that time one year.

Now, imagine this rule was in place then. They would have secured maybe 4 around the top and then gone to play defense, ensuring a victory. They would have still won, and they wouldn't be penalized the next round. However, i would have lost something i could point to as an awesome achievement. It would have made that game average and not interesting or inspiring.

I personally think this rule does (accidentally) discourage reaching for the stars both in the design phase and during each and every game. Obviously everyone still is going to try hard during games, but who will try to make a statement if it means losing an advantage next game? Nobody who is reasonably sure of a spot in the tournament will try to dazzle, just focus on winning. Especially when there are 15 point swings with a single ball. I imagine there will be close, low scoring games when someone dumps a super cell and ends up winning, but doubling the other team in a close game.

That's the biggest problem, in my opinion. Perhaps if they made certain adjustments (like a minimum difference for the rule to take place, removing the zero score problem, and accounting for penalties) it would be better. But I too am at a loss for a concrete reason why this was needed. I think the tiebreaking score based on opponent's performance already does enough.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

in general i dont have a terrible problem with this rule.

It gives an extra sense of strategy. Now this would be cool, if the drivers/coaches are unable to see the live score on the screen so teams would have to calculate scores in their heads. Plus it would give the crowd a bit more anticipation for the final score.

one thing i just thought of, if it’s been already mentioned i apologize, say your an insane scorer and your paired against other strong teams you'll be able to score high numbers of points, but say that same team is paired against not so great teams, then they will not be able to show their full potential to scouts which may lead to being overlooked at finals unless their strategy does not involve heavy use of super cells.

FIRST may have also added this rule for another reason. Say Alliance A goes ahead really quick, so now Alliance A goes on defense to insure a win. The score at the final 20 seconds is 60-46. Alliance A is holding their supercells and not using them, but Alliance B just needs to score one supercell to get an upset.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Unlike most games, where the goal is to get as many points as you can while denying as many points as possible to the opponent, LUNACY seems to be taking a different approach.

I'm not really sure what the intent of <G14> is, especially considering that the ranking score that both teams receive at the end of the match is based on the score of the LOSING alliance. Running up your alliance's score while your opponent ends up with very few points will get you the win, but will hurt your ranking within whatever tier you end up in. Why would you want to have such a blowout, when it doesn't really do you any good?

9.3.5 All teams on the winning ALLIANCE will receive ... ranking points equal to the un-penalized score ... of the losing ALLIANCE. All teams on the losing ALLIANCE will receive ... ranking points equal to their final score.

I agree that one main effect of the rule, and scoring, will be to discourage defensive strategies and focus on the offense. And that's what the crowds like, right, lots of action with lots of scoring?

live scores
 

Question from a new guy: Do they typically show live (real-time) scores during the matches? Will they be showing these scores during this year's games?

I'm just trying to visualize how a judge would keep an accurate track of the number and types of balls in the trailers....

Re: My case against <G14>
 

While I'm not sure it is required that live scoring is posted, it has been at every competition I have been to since 2005 I think. The live scoring, however, is unofficial and I have never found it to reflect penalties.

As far as why FIRST might want to eliminate blowouts, I suppose that's a matter of opinion. I was on the field for my 4 years as a student and towards the end, I felt like there was quite a bit of pressure on me to perform well. When did I perform my best? Right after competing well against another group of robots. I suppose some people could pull inspiration from a 70-12 loss but I am not him. The best match I ever had the privilege of being the driver for was a tie in 2006. It was incredibly thrilling. As far as the crowd goes, who enjoys a 50-10 football game? It's boring and the crowd often leaves early because of the lopsided difference in team caliber. I suppose getting beat badly is something people do have to deal with in their lives, but I have never heard that FIRST wants to show people what it is like to get blown out of the water. I'm sorry but this rule IMO just adds another dimension to the strategy and is a good one from FIRST.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I, too, take issue with this rule. It just seems so contradictory to FIRST in so many ways. For one thing, it's FRC, FIRST Robotics Competition, and we're not supposed to compete, or we'll be punished? It is against the very fundamentals of the idea. Also, FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Where's the inspiration when if a team has a good idea and implements it well, they will be penalized for it? Recongition? Of what? How well a team can hold back? It should be the inspiration for students to do their absolute best, with anything less being a disadvantage. The recognition should be of the most innovative or most effective ideas, not of how close the matches can be made when one side is given a handicap.

I, for one, don't understand why they put this rule in. Is this the new idea for "Gracious Professionalism"? I hope not...

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Our team is one of those with fairly limited resources. We have however done petty well for ourselves in spite of that fact, winning a chairmans award, a regional, a couple of judges awards, and reaching the finals or semis a few times. The nice thing about all of that is that we EARNED it. Winning because the other team was penalized for their past success would take all the fun out of it in my opinion.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This could come into play at some point but in the rules each alliance is given 4 empty, and super cells so we would still have either 2 or 3 so thats still 4,6,13, or 30 you could still get. But i dont think there will be high scoring matches all that often where there are tripled scores and what not

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This rule is backwards. Don't penalize the winning team, bolster the losing teams.

Let the winning team keep their cells next match, give the losing alliance teams 1 extra or 2 extra cells depending on the margin of loss (2x or 3x). As is this current rule does NOTHING to help the teams that just got blown out in their next match. It only serves to punish the alliance that did well, which doesn't line up with the intent of the rule at all.

Still, I highly dislike this rule even if it was altered to the format I just posted

Re: My case against <G14>
 

So the first Team Update, and sadly, rule <G14> has not been excised from the rulebook with fire. I can't say I'm surprised, but it would have been nice. However, I am somewhat surprised that no changes have been made at all. I mean, GDC, come on-even if you really thought about this rule and found some benefit to it that I'm missing, is there really nothing you can do about the zero-score issue, or the penalty issue, or the affecting of other teams during qualifying, or... well, you get the point. I mean, it's obvious they're responding to other issues that have been brought up here on Chief Delphi, so why not this one?

Re: My case against <G14>
 

It seems like G14 is designed to alleviate some of the problems with the random matches. It takes far more skill to do well against a good team than it does to blow out a weak one, but they both get you a boatload of points. G14 is an attempt to get the legitimately skillful teams the best qualifying spots, as opposed to the luckiest ones.

That being said, it'll never work. As bduddy has stated, everyone will just sandbag like hell if there's a chance that it'll happen. Some may say that's not gracious professionalism, but how gracious is it to your teammates to incur a penalty on them by letting G14 happen?

I think the best way to avoid G14, if it's not removed, would be to throw out the super cells early to get the 10 point penalties. Having everyone play well and then adjust their scores with purposeful penalties to avoid G14 would be way more interesting than watching a team play poorly the whole match just so they don't score too much.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Continuing the football analogy, what if in that 50 - 10 football game the 50 scoring team stopped playing as well as they could so they wouldn't get a blowout? Would that be more interesting?

G14 encourages teams not to play their best. Anything that doesn't encourage someone to do their best is useless,in my opinion.

That said, I don't think the rule will be much of an issue. I know I'd rather play my best no matter what, and deal with the penalties later. I'm willing to bet you'll actually see MORE blowouts than usual, as you have alliances where no one can use their robot to score, versus even just one team with an incredibly accurate shooter.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Alright so here is my bottom line as to why this rule is no big deal. Great teams find a way to win even with the odds stacked against them. If you have no super cells in a match, consider it a challenge. Ever win a match where your alliance only has 2 robots and the other has 3? It feels great. Consider it a challenge if you should be in this situation at some point.

Secondly, GP is not something people inherently know how to do. They have to be shown how to do it. Go out and compete at the highest level you can no matter what. Who knows, you may lose a match but it could result in another team noting your GP by playing your hearts out the match before. Then who knows, maybe they will spread it to their next regional, or practice it more in their everyday life.

Spreading the FIRST culture is what this is all really about. When I was a student, my best moment was winning a gold medal, without question. My best moment in FIRST? That would be my first year of mentoring when I saw two of the students on our team stand up for a design they created and believed in. That was the moment I realized that these two will be successful in life in part because of their experience in FIRST. The matches do not matter. I would trade a hundred gold medals for the feeling I get when I pass along the FIRST message to someone. If it's still a big deal that you might lose a match at the expense of showing gracious professionalism by trying your best, then I hope that you will pay very close attention to Dean, Woodie, Dave, Paul, or anyone else at FIRST the next time they make a speech. If you notice, they do not concern themselves much with who wins.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think I can clear up some misconceptions. The rule is very precice and fair.Let me explain.Non-surrogate means non seaded games as in the finals.So this rule doesn't apply to qualifying matches or the first match of Finals(when you choose your alliance).And so most of the sinarios that you guys talked about would not happen.What this rule dose is even the game for the middle aliances (ranked 5-8) giving them more of a chance against teams 1-4 who can pair up to be powerhouses.iam on psp no space 2 write.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think you may misunderstand the meaning of a surrogate team. It is one which is filling in for an empty space in the schedule. Section 9.3.2 of the manual states

This means that a non-surrogate match is one where the match will impact the qualifying and ranking score of the team. However, it is still not entirely clear whether the rules will be for qualifying rounds and elimination rounds, or just one of the two. I hope that helps.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

BRAVESaj25bd8: I agree wholeheartedly with your 10:35 post (don't want to quote it just to say this!). However, I have to ask: how does it apply to this conversation? Overcoming obstacles is definitely a positive experience for any team, but the rules should not create arbitrary challenges to a team just because they have done well. I also believe in the value of overcoming a loss, maybe even a big one-something the GDC does not seem to do. And how is it any more graciously professional to win by a little by sandbagging or self-scoring as opposed to showing one's full potential? Yes, I agree that the game and the robot are not the most important things. But that's no excuse for a bad rule, and in my opinion, this rule teaches the wrong lessons to teams, decreases the inherent appeal of the game (which ~is~ important if FIRST is to reach the level of professional sports, always one of Dean's goals) and reduces the learning experience involved.

And the rule, as of now, simply applies to "matches", so I see no reason why that would not include qualifying and elimination.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

They should decide if the score is doubled before penalties come into play, because the people in the players station are paying attention to the field and not necessarily if the referee is waving his flag.

If your opponent scores 0 points it is impossible to win the match without losing both empty cells or super cells in the next match.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

It's even more severe than than you think. Remember, the "modification" is applied per team, not per alliance, so they're going to lose two empty cells and all four super cells.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Well my point was that everyone SHOULD just try their best and score as many as they can. In my opinion, that is the most graciously professional thing to do. If you really hate that idea, it's still better to score some for your opponents than the purposely take penalties IMO. But I just think that scoring as much as you can is the best way to handle this. You can always try your best. If you worry too much about the score, you lose the fun of trying your best. I suppose it is a personal preference whether you would rather be able to say "we did our best every match for the entire competition" or "we won in part due to some seriously strategic score watching". If you do try to modify the score in a way that will benefit you in future matches, keep in mind you may have missed a penalty or two that your team received and that may lead you to actually losing the match for your alliance if you are "evening out the score".

Re: My case against <G14>
 

My first statement probably should sum up this issue:

You CANNOT legislate Gracious Professionalism.

Our team knows not to ridicule or take advantage of other teams that cannot perform on the field. We don't need a rule to do that. This is our choice... and I would rather err and lose a match here or there than not follow this path.

So in the end... I don't mind the rule... it is what we would do anyway.

What I do mind is that it penalizes teams that had nothing to do with the action.

I am team xxxx ... I am on an alliance with a team who does not really understand that's its not ok to take advantage... even on the field and even if its within the rules.... so they outscore our opponent by 3 times... WE carry the penalty into the next match... even though we had NOTHING to do with it...

AND our next ALLIANCE PARTNERS.. who did NOT break any rules....who did not even get a WIN by breaking this rule.... who are graciously professional on and off the field.... are penalized... and put into a disadvantageous position.... for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON..


YOU CANNOT TEACH Gracious Professionalism by making rules that require it.

thank you
and good luck to everyone this year!!