Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

I understand everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I think that making a game in which two alliances work together to achieve a common is goal is quite frankly the worst thing FIRST could possibly do. You learn plenty of cooperation with your own alliance, let's not start a process of removing the competitive aspect and replacing it with something that FIRST has plenty of. People need competition too. I'll bet you can learn just as much from a competition as you can from a cooperation. Right now FIRST has a perfect mix of both. Plenty of cooperation that kids learn how to work together and plenty of competition that kids learn what it's like to not always succeed and get a taste of the real world. The competition is the best part. Making alliances work together may involve some form of competition, but it wouldn't be the same without the competitive aspect. If you were working with your opponents anyway, they wouldn't really be opponents, they would just be people with robots that were in the player station on the opposite side of the field. The cooperation aspect of FIRST is covered fine in the pits and with alliance partners. Let's keep the competition on the field. It's the most fun that way. Having fun is a good way to get inspired, and inspiration is the main goal. I know for me I've learned plenty of cooperation from first as is, if the teams on the field are working together it won't be fun to watch, or play for that matter.

Koko Ed made a good point, "let the teams play each other not the system." If teams are working together towards a common goal, they aren't playing each other they are playing the system. The competition is the inspiring part for me, sure I'm inspired by everything else in first, but if you take out some of the competitive aspects, your losing a lot of the inspirational parts of the events.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

There is at least one other ranking system for sporting events that incorporates the relative strength of the opponents. I'm thinking of the international ranking system for chess players. Each match of each tournament is played between two ranked players and results in the alteration of their rankings based on the outcome. Beating a stronger (higher ranked) player will increase your rating but losing to a weaker player will decrease your rating. The amounts of increase and decrease depend upon the difference in ratings of the participants at the time of play. For a grand-master to win a tournament with all other players as experts means less to his/her ranking than winning a tournament with many closely rated players.

I won't explain the system further, but I can assure you that spectators at a chess match of any significance all understand the process of ranking nearly as well as they appreciate the playing being exhibited. You can appreciate the ratio of complexity between the game of chess and the game of breakaway, I think. It has been pointed out in this thread and elsewhere the widespread lack of understanding about the game of Breakaway among the very people trying to play it. The ranking system component of the game is certainly one of the confusing factors for would-be players but not the only one.

I strongly suspect that beakaway as a game has seen its day. In less than a year, I doubt that there will be even one event featuring it as part of the proceedings. To the extent that my prediction may be true, further study and analysis of the game will only be useful in appreciation for the matches already played and recorded. Such study will only be useful in some general sense as it might possibly apply to some future game. Perhaps its short life expectancy is the very reason those who should study the game decline to do so. However, the seeding system may see some further use for a future game or two or many. That makes it worthy of some study about its workings and utility.

Any commentary about likes and dislikes about the seeding system are largely a waste of time and effort. As are statements and posturing about how I will never enter combat with the intent to lose. Ask any novice chess player about the concept of Queen sacrifice to hear about the utility of such pre-game statements. In fact, making pre-game pronouncements about your style of play may even make it easier for your opponent to defeat you. I only have to know how much my opponent treasures his Queen to chase her all over the board, fortifying my position to the detriment of his.

What we really need to do is to convince the team members that they need to understand the game completely to play it well. We could make a "perfect" robot that would surely perform miserably at the hand of incomplete game understanding. Six weeks to make a robot should be accompanied by six weeks of concentrated thought about how the game should and will be played. We can also hope for some preliminary game understanding that will guide the robots' construction. Else, we'd end up with the proverbial one-legged players in an a$$-kicking contest.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Sgreco, I think you took my comment to far. I was only proposing one mission (for example the end game mission) to be cooperative between the alliances.

This will make for an interesting game, in my opinion, without sacrificing the core competitive nature of the game.

Bill,
That is a very interesting idea which deserves further thought.
Are there any critics of the international ranking system for chess players?
what are it's disadvantages?
do you think it scales down well to 80 participants?

-Leav

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Actually, my confusion is about whether 6v0, scoring for the opposition when you're winning big etc are behaviors the GDC wanted as part of this year's game and if so, why. Were they intentional or unintentional consequences of the way the rules were written? More disclosure of purpose and intent would be a good thing.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Suggestion - opposing alliances must complete a mutual objective that unlocks access to super-dee-duper high scoring bonus game pieces that EITHER team can then score. They can call it "Pandora's Box", for once you open it, all heck will break loose as the teams scramble to acquire and then score the bonus objects. Sounds fun to me - perhaps not so much for the engineering staff that has to design the field structures that implement this objective, but that's why they pay them the mediocre bucks.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

perhaps like the ball release in '04?

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Similar, only that one alliance would not be able to trigger it by themselves.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

I think one of the main problems with the 6v0 concept is that the GDC never imagined it would be used in their wildest dreams. I think in many ways, teams keep pushing the envelope in how far they taken their analysis (a good thing) and how far they take their willingness to show the GDC that they've found a fatal flaw in the game (sometimes also a good thing!)

Even allowing for such a thing to happen truly set a slight damper on the first weeks competitions, thought I was impressed that a complete 6v0 match was run. It took guts.

Coopertition, I think, it's safe to say, is here to stay. It's been a mainstay of FIRST for many years, and I think that for them to suddenly drop it and move to a purely competitive style is very unlikely. I am among the oldschool. I started when it was every robot for itself, and I loved it. I also love the coopertition system. It provides for "greater greatness" - and I think it promotes Dean's mantra that everyone's a winner - Less of the ordered rank, more of the shared success. There isn't 1 world champ. There are 3. That's a huge difference. It builds teamwork, it builds camaraderie, it better advances the goals of FIRST.

All that mush aside, I do think the GDC needs to be more proactive in their solution to the issue - they need to not build in a breakable seeding system.

Winners should win. Losers should win. Winners should win more. Always.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Regardless of its effects on coopertition, this year's seeding system did a better job of accurately ranking teams than W-L-T has every come close to. In W-L-T, all of the following situations have the exact same effect on qualifying points:

• Losing a high-scoring match by one penalty
• Losing a blowout because of an unlucky schedule
• Losing a low-scoring match after a fair fight
• Losing an easy match because your robot/alliance partner's robot tipped over

The new system accounts for each of these and ranks accordingly. I've never seen more accurate top eights before.

I personally do not like 6v0, and I'm pretty much neutral on scoring for your opponent when you're ahead. I do like how this system discourages defense and encourages scoring. If FIRST must fix 6v0 and other issues, I hope they don't change too much, because the way this seeding system accurately ranked teams was amazing.

It is difficult for me to tell whether 6v0 and scoring for the opponent were strategies the GDC simply didn't think of, or strategies they deliberately put into the game to teach the reasonable lessons that helping out your opponent when you are very far ahead, or giving up and joining your opponent when you are very far behind, are both courses of action that are sometimes beneficial for everyone involved (including you).

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

There's one problem that I see with using the chess ranking system:

A new player in chess gets to go up against established players that are already ranked, so it's easy to see where they slot into the rankings after a number of matches. The problem with FIRST is that all teams start with a clean slate at the beginning of the year. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the chess system somewhat depends on a number of players already having rankings. I don't know how it would work when everyone comes to the party unranked.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

Systems like Glicko2 take more than 10 matches to accurately rank people, and the systems are more flawed than our current system since they don't take point differentials into account. A 10-0 blowout against the #1 seed because they didn't move should be worth less than a 10 / 9 match

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

An amusing aside.
Watching the Sprint Cup race at Talledaga I heard Darrell Waltrip use the word CoOpertition to explain Bump Drafting.
That's a bit of a different perspective on the subject.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

In my opinion, CoOpertition was a huge step back for FIRST.

FIRST, in Dean's words, is trying to make a "sport" out of a science, technology, engineering and mathematics competition.

Go to your TV. Turn on the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins or sports team of your choice, the Yankees if need be.

Do you see David Ortiz hitting a home run for the Washington Nationals because the Red Sox are winning?

Do you see Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce take the ball to an undefended Celtics net to score for the Wizards because the Celtics are "winning by too much"?

Do you see the Bruins pulling their goalie in the first period because they are winning?

The answer for all these cases is no. That is because it is a SPORT! A competition based on the skills of the teams involved.

Seeding for finals should be based on wins/losses/ties, or develop some type of point system like in hockey or something if you don't like saying that one alliance wins, while another alliance loses. Like if your alliance wins, you get say 3 points. Losses are worth 1, while ties are worth 2 for both sides. Or if you want really close matches, make ties worth more than wins.

All I am trying to say is make it a sport, like its supposed to be. Give some incentive to do well.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

They just change the definition of "doing well", forcing teams to think. Doing well relies on technical proficiency more now than ever before.

Re: Thoughts on CoOpertition
 

If we want spectators, fans, and the common plebian masses (he said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) to really enjoy and root for teams, it needs to be a competitive sport. Cooperatition in general is fine -- as implemented this year was not, in my mind, a way to achieve the goal of getting fans to come and watch FIRST.