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Unread 06-03-2012, 17:08
Mr. Van Mr. Van is offline
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Re: Favorite FRC Game?

I've noticed that some are talking about playing the game, and others watching it. I think that these are very different.

For watching, it also depends on wether or not you are a "FIRSTer" or an "off the street" spectator.

From talking to people "off the street" here's some thoughts:

Rebound Rumble - easy to understand, fantastic endgame. I think the GDC got the balance between the endgame, hybrid & teleop just about right. The Coopertition Bridge is a bit confusing ("Why didn't they get points for balancing the bridge?!?"), but it makes just about every matchup a possibly exciting match. The only thing lacking (so far from what I've seen) is the lack of opponent interaction, but the Coopertition Bridge does a good job of making up for that.

Logomotion - You could actually keep track of who was winning as the game progressed without any "real-time scorekeeping" system. The minibots were cool, but the faster they got, the less exciting they were. I think the GDC was expecting a 5 to 10 second race of minibots up the poles, not a blink-and-you-miss-it lottery that determines the win.

Aim High - Exciting, but the scoring periods were very confusing - often people couldn't understand why teams stopped scoring. Good endgame.

Breakaway - Easy to understand, but the 1st week regionals were so plagued with penalties that they game was changed. Endgame was not worth enough points. Ranking teams was very confusing.

These next few are all about the same. Good games, but they have spectator flaws that make them hard to follow.

Triple Play - Teams actually had to strategize on the fly, trying to make and block rows. "Impossible" autonomous mode, which meant a boring start. No real endgame. (The strategy element of this game makes it one of my favorites, and once I would explain to spectators "look at the rows - it's like tic-tac-toe" they would get it easily. Without this explanation, they never seemed to figure out what was going on.) There was also the huge penalty problem...

Overdrive - Very cool to watch robots toss the huge trackball, or run very, very fast around the track. Too many confusing penalties. Not very interesting overall.

Rack 'n' Roll - Good endgame, good basic form, but the special tubes and the exponential scoring made it problematic.

FIRST Frenzy - Fantastic challenge, exciting endgame, but way to much going on for someone to figure out.

Zone Zeal - The eliminations were substantially different from the qualifications. No endgame (at least not once certain strategies were allowed...) Ranking based on looser score was confusing to many.

Coopertition - Good solid game. Nice endgame. Just not fantastic.

These games were "less than spectator friendly"

Stack Attack - Nobody made stacks... This made it an exciting first 10 seconds and exciting final 10 seconds, but not much to watch in the middle.

Diabolical Dynamics - I actually liked the 4 vs. 0 game, but it was difficult to follow in terms of scoring. "What are they trying to do?" was a common question. Any game that can have "good" rounds score between 3 and 700 points has a problem.

Lunacy - Aptly named. It just about always ended up with bots crammed together slowly moving around each other trying to get any sort of advantage. (It really reminded me of those old school "electric" football games.)

I think the quality of the games have improved in general, and certainly in terms of spectator experience. The scoring has simplified. Any time there is something that multiplied (or changed the exponent!) of the score, it makes the point values swing far too wildly.

Now for actually playing the games, or watching them from the standpoint of having been on a team, that's a different story...

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox
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