Quote:
Originally Posted by 470-RBTX
When it comes down to it, in the elims, you score as much as you can as fast as you can, balance and just forget about the other alliance. If you're max points weren't enough to beat them then so be it, but playing defense is pointless in elims.
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I'm not really sure why you think playing defense is pointless in elims...
I'd contest that defense is far from pointless in either elims or quals, but I'll just focus on elims.
I guess part of a disagreement could result from how defense is defined... I'd say it's any actions you take to make scoring harder on the opposite alliance. This year, I think of moving balls from their zone to yours, blocking their path to their scoring location, blocking/reducing their ball supply, preventing them from getting to their bridge, etc.
When winning the match is the dominating motive, the question on whether or not to play defense is "can we inhibit them from scoring more than we could score if we weren't defending them?" - if the answer is "yes," play defense! Given that this year three robots can't all score from the near zone without slowing each other down some (due to space and ball supply constraints), you will usually find that you want at least one of your robots to not be scoring balls from the near zone.
So, what do these other robot(s) do? Well, they can indirectly assist with scoring balls (feed from near/far zone, keep opposing defenders away), they can assist with scoring bridge points, or they can play defense. Given that there isn't a whole lot you can do to aid with balancing for at least the first 60-80 seconds of the match, they should assist with scoring or play defense...
This is where it all starts coming down to the skills of those not scoring balls... Perhaps they're really great at harvesting and passing balls... Quite likely by picking up balls from the far zone and shooting (or ferrying) them over, they could have more of an impact than if they were playing a different type of defense. Alternatively, there may be a robot harassing your top scorer... Your partner may have more of an impact by keeping that defender off than by playing defense on the opposing scorers. There certainly are some robots that are exceptionally good defenders through a combination of strategy, robot capability, and smooth driving.
It usually only occurs on a very deep field that all three of your robots at all points in the match can do more by scoring than by playing defense... and even then it's far from always the case! Really, whether to play defense or not is a case-by-case decision; however, there certainly do exist alliances that may not be benefited by playing defense and alliances that can benefit tremendously from it.