[PayneTrain]

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.
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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.