Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Soukup
Either that or they designed a game with tremendous diminishing returns on the tube rack. If your alliance could score 12 tubes and your opponent could only score 6, you got 96 points while your opponent got 72 (assuming 3 top row ubertubes). If you could score all 18, you got 108 points. That's a 33% higher score for 2x the number of tubes and a 50% higher score for 3x more tubes. That's the main reason for the close scores, not because the alliances were more evenly matched than in past years.
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I completely agree with Mike on this one.
One great example is the match we played in the Curie finals when 71 took themselves out of the 2nd match to work on their robot. They played it 2 against three and the score was really close.
If you looked at the racks, it didn't appear to be nearly as close as the score. Our alliance scored around 6 more tubes then theirs, but due to the diminishing returns of scoring, the final score was really tight. Why? Two logos on the 2nd row is a 24 point advantage. First and third vs. second and fourth in the minibot race is a 15 point advantage. If one alliance make the two logos and the other alliance gets the minibots, that's a 9 point margin. Pretty darn close, yet very plausible in a 2 against 3 situation.
If the 2-robot alliance took first and second in the minibot race. They would have pulled off the win.
The scoring system definitely make for exciting finishes. You're never really out of it.