Re: Next Year's Game?
 

I would like the game to be called Sanity. Just for irony's sake.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

That's not irony, that's sarcasm!

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Water game is probably unlikely because of the tricky setup and the fact that the field gains the potential to totally wreck your bot if you make a slight oops (something that will leave everybody cranky). It would be neat if they could find a way around that though.

That or you could go from the other direction and make it possible to unscore your opponents points. Either way it would be really neat.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Yeah, I'd like to see descoring return; it was legal back in the day. Adds an extra strategic element.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Maybe it is just a little bit of both. :)

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Descoring was eliminated from the matrix of desirable game design characteristics after 2003. The feedback from teams for several years preceding that was consistent and universal - they hated descoring. This was reconfirmed with the brief flirtation with "Spoilers" in "Rack 'n Roll." So don't look for descoring to come back any time soon. At least, not before 2010.

-dave



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Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Based on my recollections of the community 'responses' to FIRST games...I would think that the feedback was more in line with:
"We don't like that it is so easy for teams to undo what we did."

I would believe that most teams would accept descoring if it was suitably difficult, and I believe that teams would admire a robot capable of it.

That would be a far cry from 2003 when a robot could drive into a stack and undo 2 minutes of work in 2 seconds.

I'm sorry to hear that "descoring" was entirely removed from your matrix.

-John

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

John,
This may be a good opportunity to point out some methods where descoring would require as much or more skill than scoring. as you mentioned, 2003 was a prime example of too easy to descore.
In Triple play it was very difficult towards the end of the match to score without descoring some of the more highly contested positions.
Rack and Roll would have required similar efforts to score vs. descore (at least thinking about it initially).
What are some possible scoring methods where descoring would be more difficult than scoring? Balls into a fixed tube? removing something that is latched onto something else?

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Whatever the game should be...

Please make the game cheap (inexpensive, easily obtainable game pieces and floor)

Please let the teams think out of the box, and in different ways.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

The fundamental problem with de-scoring is that there are very few types of games in which it is not as easy or easier to de-score than it is to score in the first place. The goal for each team is to achieve a low-entropy goal state. Increasing the entropy of the field state (knocking down bins, tipping goals, etc.) will almost always be so much easier than decreasing it that, in a minimax sense, optimal strategies will rely heavily - even exclusively - on de-scoring.

Spoilers in 2007, and ownership of the goals in 2005, are constructive de-scoring techniques - the total entropy of the field has been decreased, but the field state has been moved further from the other teams' goal. These are the only sorts of de-scoring mechanisms that I feel can be a part of the game without dominating the effective strategies for playing it.

I think I speak for (almost) everyone when I say - I don't want a game that can only be won by playing with a certain strategy. 2003 was such a game.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Good point, another example -
In 2000 teams placed 13" diameter inflatable balls into "troughs" elevated 6 (or so) feet off the ground. It was relatively easy to put balls into these troughs, but more difficult to get balls out.

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Yeah I was thinking giant Caribiners (sp?) would be neat. Relatively difficult to hook something onto (challenge), and extremely difficult to un-hook (but not impossible).

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Actually when you think about it Lunacy was one example where it would have been much harder to de-score points than it would be to score them. Disregarding for a second the rules about robotic appendages not extending outside the bumper perimeter, robots and payload specialists could load balls into trailers with relative ease. Once the game pieces are in the trailer anybody trying to un-score them would have a far more difficult time. Though then again, if extend-able appendages allowed then they could simply be used to cover the trailer and stop scoring kind of making de-scoring unnecessary...

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

Less human interaction. And more exciting. For our team, it was pretty much mutual that Lunacy was nowhere near as exciting as Overdrive.

~DtD

Re: Next Year's Game?
 

I would say any game where an object is put into a goal: FTC Face Off and VRC Elevation are good examples. In Quad Quandry, the scoring object was placed around the goal, but it would have been a coin flip as to whether descoring was more difficult than scoring.