Team Update #10
 

http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Rob..._Update_10.pdf

New rule <R48-C> further emphasizes that the GDC wants this to be an offensive game.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Was anyone concerned that such a thing was going to be a viable strategy?

The GDC needs to write the rules once and let the game be what the game is going to be. There's little that's fun about being told exactly how to play with your toys.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Wow.

Thanks to the last few updates half of my defensive strategies have gone down the drain.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Team Update 10 should not include new gameplay rules.

Also, GDC should design games that encourage offense rather than rules that make defense illegal.

I really, really hope this doesn't turn into another 2008.

Re: Team Update #10
 

It seems like more and more the GDC is trying to get us to play a very specific game a very specific way.

A good game shouldn't need 1000 rules to work "the way they want it to". Should games even have a "way" they want us to play?

Glad to hear the GDC is willing to make team's entire robot designs and strategies illegal during Week 5 lest someone build a robot that wasn't exactly the way they thought it would be.

Re: Team Update #10
 

I agree with you and dumb things like this, but there are instances where an update is warranted. a good example would be the 2008 opponent's home stretch height rule... that rule had to go.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Just so we don't forget our current good fortune, the new rule doesn't make any designs suddenly legal or illegal. It only changes what you can or can not do with your robots.

Exactly how referees are going to determine "the flow of the MATCH" is going to be interesting. If two alliance members are playing defense and blocking opponent robots while a third opponent is not functioning, is that stopping the flow? Does the answer change if the robots are all in the same part of the field?

I'm think this game will require a lot of gracious behavior on the part of teams and referees. I'd hate to be a ref who has to determine if a pin was under 5 seconds or just over 5 seconds. That decision will determine the outcome of the match.

At least they've not (yet) changing the rules AFTER the first regionals like last year, or in 2003.

Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Team Update #10
 

The GDC taketh away, but the GDC also giveth. Nobody has yet commented on this very important change:
This restores the rule to what it was last year (<S04> in 2010). Without it, you could have received a RED CARD for something as simple as a BUMPER becoming loose and dragging outside the BUMPER ZONE.

Re: Team Update #10
 

again, nice catch Gary. I noticed that too and i almost went "really?" but then I realized the application you are referring to.

To be honest, this one really should be ref discretion, penalty for stuff like bumpers getting rammed so hard they fall off, yellow or red cards for repeated and obvious intention to break rules, etc.

Re: Team Update #10
 

I don't find too much offense with the new rule on defense. I believe this is to prevent doing things like stopping the entire other alliance from reaching towers for end game or scoring ever again after the team doing the blocking took the lead. It really depends what they define as flow in the competition.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Also the loading station is a natural choking point. If there were 2 robots, there is a good chance they could have kept a robot trapped in there.

I think its a fair rule in that it prevents other teams from rendering a robot useless.

Such a strategy would have had the same effect as an infinite pin.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Can you have a 2 on 1 defense with this rule?

Re: Team Update #10
 

I like the intent of the change, but I think it will be called rarely, inconsistently, and somewhat arbitrarily.

Maybe we'll be able to convince the head refs in Dallas and San Antonio that any double defense on 148 constitutes interrupting the flow of the match?

Re: Team Update #10
 

I think this is a good update. The GDC saw a potential chokehold and shut it down before week 1. Honestly, I wouldn't want this game to turn into hang the top row faster than the other team, block the other team from hanging tubes the rest of the match, and deploy minibots at the end. That wouldn't be a very fun game to watch (IMHO). That said defense is still allowed (mostly in the mid field) which keeps things interesting but allows the game to remain "flowing". Remember Lunacy with the huge 6 robot pile-up clumps as teams tried to score on each other? I never want to go back to that again. I believe that this is a step away, and in the right direction.

That said, I feel bad for the refs. They will have many tough calls ahead with all the subjective penalties.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Now this update is going to bring back some dead debates all over again.

On a personal note, I like the update. As mentioned before it takes away a choke-hold, and cuts down on un-necessary (IMHO) defensive play. I've always interpreted this from the begging as an offensive game, and this to me really should tell teams at this point that yes we're frowning on more then basic defense.

However....

I feel that this rule could cause some backlash. While it should have been taken care off, I agree with the rest of you It's too late!

For most teams, this will simply be a strategy hold, and the majority of teams who were planning on using this tactic, were doing it with robots designed for other tacts (based on my theory of all you need is some movable robot, that can't be pushed to play good defense). However, there is at least 1 team out there who made this there cornerstone strategy, has a almost build robot designed with special mechanisms for it, and now has to go to the drawing board and try to salvage their season.

Had they caught on to this even just 2 weeks ago, I would have been fine with it, but it's too late.

I love FIRST with all my heart, but sometimes I feel the GDC just needs to let it go, and have things take the natural course.

Re: Team Update #10
 

This is an awful update, atleast for week 5. This should have been shut down in week one, as should all major strategy changing rules. I know for a fact that there was atleast one team planning to make an extending blocking robot. If two teams teamed up to do that, they could shut down the entire scoring zone, and effectively lock opposing robots into their zones.

My team considered that as a Chokehold strategy this year, but decided it was implausible to use it, since its unlikely that there will be two of such types of robot in one alliance during qualifications.

If a team decided to use this as their strategy, they don't have enough time to change it now. They are very far up a certain creek.

I also feel that this update, along with the last few have been restricting the game play a bit too much. I'll reserve my final judgement for when I see it played, but right now, this seems like an extremely restrictive game, both in gameplay, and in robot (minibot) design. The GDC seems to have decided exactly how the game is meant to be played, and have removed any strategy that doesnt fit their vision (launching minibots, spring minibots, heavy defense, etc...)

Re: Team Update #10
 

As a part of the team who has the Dragonfly defensive bot, I just want to clear up that we will just take this as another challenge. It only says your ALLIANCE cannot team up to block the field. I don't see this being an issue.

We'll see how the regional plays out. :)

Re: Team Update #10
 

You'd have a case on triple defense on 148 or some of the other perennial powerhouses, John. Double defense? Maybe, but I'd assume that you guys are to busy scoring through it to pay any attention--and anybody playing any less than double defense is getting beaten handily anyway.;)

That's kind of my fear, too--if I'm parking a robot between my towers and playing defense on any robot trying to go through that gap, am I going to be called for blocking the flow of the game? I hope not! But I would not be surprised if any team doing that was be called.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Love this update!

I was dreading the 'score first then shut down all scoring' tactic, because it commits one of the worst sins of FIRST: It renders the game *boring*.

I know, I know, some people will disagree with me on what does and does not constitute 'boring', but I think of things from the perspective of the casual spectator. It MUST be exciting to non-participant spectators (e.g. friends, family, classmates, and invitees of those on the teams) in order to fulfill it's mandate of changing the culture.

Lunacy: reasonable fun to play, boring to watch as a casual observer (because it was too hard to keep track of everything going on if you weren't nails-on with the rules). GDC solution: hire people who specialize in entertainment. And GOOD FOR THEM.

Logomotion: both boring to play AND boring to watch if this strategy is enacted.

Defense isn't outlawed, you just have to give the other teams a chance.

Woot, I say. Woot!

Re: Team Update #10
 

After the unintentionally defensive game "Breakaway", which followed the best FIRST game ever (abbreviated as "Lunacy"), I assume that the GDC wished to make the game a real shootout, which I enjoy.

Lunacy was hard to keep track of scoring, but everyone cheered when there was a mass dumping of balls into the trailer, or the super cells got in in a close match. The fact that the tally was too hard to keep up with caused so much suspense. It was borderline impossible to play defense in Lunacy; while in Breakaway a team always defaulted to a defensive position. Also, 2010 could really get lagged down by the penalties, specifically the return penalty. There seem to be more penalties this year than there are pounds on the robot, so I fear that.

Offense was encouraged already because your secondary score (Qualifying Score?), which operates as a tiebreaker from your Ranking Score, is based off of the losing team's unpenalized/penalized score, depending on which side of the match the team landed.

However, I don't know how much tubes will factor in to final scores when compared to the minibot race. The Best FIRST Game Ever and Breakaway were able to remedy this issue. I just get this feeling that a close 40-35 minibot race will be outdone in the qualifiers by tube scoring.
---
On another note:
It sounds odd, but I have been waiting for the minibot race to go 25-20-15-10, or something even smaller. The tube score, I believe, will be rendered almost meaningless in the qualifiers.

Re: Team Update #10
 

This is somewhat of a repeat of how stack attack played - the end game was more important than the game preceding it. I suspect the minibots will be 80% of the game this year. After all, a GOOD robot with no defense will likely score 3 tubes during a good game. A mobile minibot will score that in every match.

If anyone hasn't figured it out, that minibot is far more important than hanging in 10, the supercells in 09, putting the balls up top in 08, and I'd say more important than '07's ramps as well.

Re: Team Update #10
 

with you saying Lunacy was the best game ever...Have youve seen Aim High being played? (not on the computer)

Re: Team Update #10
 

I'm with John, I don't see how they will call this. It would make more sense if they had more specific zoning restrictions, a la 2006 with the offensive and defensive periods (which was awesome btw). But as the rule stands, does a red robot coming out of its lane with a tube, and a second red robot playing defense, count as "blockading the FIELD"?

A vague rule week 5 of build, ugh. Here we go week 1 regionals, guinea pigs for sure!

Re: Team Update #10
 

'10 hanging, '09 supercells are barely even comparable. Hanging and Supercells would contribute in a range of 15-30%, in extreme cases, of the match. Minibots can contribute 45-65% of the final tallies. Being a junior and having those two experiences to look at, I find the minibot scoring ridiculous. A really good rampbot in 07 would get propelled into the Einstein field, while a minibot race victory, which can come down to chance, might keep a high-quality bot out of regionals.

I know this isn't the place to talk strategy, but I feel that the field will be chaotic with zone and lane lines intersecting and the polebases and innertubes scattered around the ground. Scoring on a peg also requires higher precision for the standard scoring than any of the last three games--even our buddy Overdrive.

Throwing a ball over a rack, dumping balls in a trailer, pushing balls into a wide hole, and now we have "Hang the tube on the thin peg--oh wait, no, take the higher one--no, make the logo!" Scoring will be low before endgame.

Wish I could have. It draws a lot of parallels to Lunacy, chiefly being high-scoring chaos. There were some odd scoring rules, but I never saw Aim High in person. :/ Looks like it would be loads of fun.

Re: Team Update #10
 

The robot section changes are sensible. (I still wish teams could use smaller tubing if they wanted to, provided pressure ratings were met.)

As a practical matter, the change about enforcing the robot rules will recalibrate the way refs call <G30>, and will probably affect the way inspectors and other watchful volunteers raise robot issues with the refereeing staff. There's always an element of discretion involved in identifying robot violations outside of the initial inspections. When is a robot in violation in such a trivial way that can wait until the end of the next match—and when is it in material violation warranting an immediate response (up to and including disqualification)? I think this will encourage more open communication about these issues—because the refs' newfound discretion will ensure that the question is no longer solely about whether disqualification is appropriate (in equitable terms) for a given violation.

As for the new blocking rule, it's pretty awful. The "flow of the match" is hopelessly vague as far as definitions go. Although I trust that the head referees will be briefed as to what that means, to ensure uniform enforcement, what about the teams? Who's planning to explain how to distinguish flow from non-flow gameplay? I think FIRST meant something along the lines of "ALLIANCE ROBOTS may not work together to blockade the FIELD in an attempt to prevent an opponent's ROBOT from possessing game pieces, scoring game pieces, or transiting between locations where game pieces were available and locations where they could be scored"—but if so, why not just say that? (And in my opinion, that's not even a good rule to have in the first place. Defence is useful and strategically interesting.)

Re: Team Update #10
 

Have you seen first frenzy played? Now that game was epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvDGWd1IhZs

Man do I miss 2v2, back when you could tell what was actually going on in a game.

Re: Team Update #10
 

We won a regional in 2004 solely on a hanging robot. All it was was a scissor lift. Now THAT was a game heavily weighted towards the end!

Re: Team Update #10
 

Too late to make rule changes like this.

I wonder what would happen if there was no Chief Delphi. Do you think the GDC is reading what teams are planning to do? or do you think they are basing most of it on Q&A questions...

We won a Regional and a Division Championship with a consistent hang.

Re: Team Update #10
 

TechnoKats won a Regional and came within six inches of winning a Division with a robot that never tried to hang.

Re: Team Update #10
 

+1 for hanging then ;)

Re: Team Update #10
 

The soft spot in my heart is the old 1v1v1...

Re: Team Update #10
 

Lunacy was my personal favorite game as well, not so much playing it as designing for it. Drive systems and ball manipulators have been perfected over the years but Lunacy provided a different challenge. When else did you see teams experimenting with propellers, gyroscopes, and weight shifters? When else did you see closed-loop traction control algorithms?

"Surprise! This year's game takes place on the moon." was the GDC's best idea ever. Until the water game :p, I doubt we'll ever see so much creativity and innovation in one year again.

Aww, come on now. Cheering for/with your alliance is the best part of a regional.

Re: Team Update #10
 

That reminded me of something...in 2003, Truck Town built this, and FIRST replied with this questionable interpretation (discussed here). It's entirely possible that FIRST issued an update that just happened to call out that robot's most unique feature, without having seen the picture...but somehow I doubt it. So it wouldn't be unprecedented that FIRST staff are reacting to a particular robot design revealed on ChiefDelphi. I just desperately want to believe that FIRST wouldn't have reacted the same way had they seen Beatty Hammond's 2002 robot before the end of the season—after all, it had a game-killing design, and it was fantastic.

The worst part of that 2003 update was the date: it was in March, after the end of the build season.

So, in terms of the 2011 update, FIRST has done worse in the past. This time they gave the teams some time to correct the problem, and explicitly added a rule (instead of muddying the waters with a dubious reading of the rules). I'm not sure if that deserves some sort of faint praise, but either way, I wish they wouldn't do things like this.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Anyone else wish making Einstein was this easy?

Re: Team Update #10
 

So...you can play defense on your own, but you can't work as a team. That makes perfect sense for a team game. I guess FIRST is catching onto how to get rid of defense strategies. Get rid of teams. I usually try to be understanding on most of their decisions, but this is the most ridiculous ruling I've heard from them in a while. If GDC is reading this, you should have an idea to eliminate defense as that seems to be your goal. Afterall, I remember in 2007 that the most cooperation I saw was on the defense side of cutting the opponents off from scoring long chains. I guess this is about 4 years worth of steps backward.

Re: Team Update #10
 

I think a casual spectator would agree that the Miracle on Ice was one of the greatest games of hockey this planet will ever see, and people don't really talk about the first 50 minutes... it's all about the last ten when not a single goal was scored.

Re: Team Update #10
 

Well there goes three pages of my play book. I guess I can understand this from a GDC point of view, especially blocking us from doing what I called "Hotel California" - you could check-in, but you could never leave. The lane to the Human player could be effectively cut off by two Robots. If you got a really good scoring robot to go into one of those lanes to pick up a tube, with two bots, you could keep them there for the rest of the match. Also, "Home, (not so) Sweet Home" was tossed out. Get the score high enough over their score, and set up a "picket fence" of three bots to shut down their scoring zone, and then bolt for the towers at the end game.

At least "The Italian Job" play is still valid - well, at least until Update #11! :rolleyes: