The real issue I see is that
throwing DISCS is still allowed. While there won't be quite the blizzard there was before, I fully expect six colored discs to be thrown for the HIGH GOAL in just about 75% of qualification matches. See the recent Q&A:
Quote:
Q532 Q. In light of the 2/19/13 team update do colored discs thrown by human players in the last 30 seconds into the LOW, MIDDLE, or HIGH GOALS still count as SCORED?
A. Yes.
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Our FEEDER was seeing ~4/20 in the HIGH GOAL and 1/20 in the PYRAMID GOAL. I'm sure there are better FEEDERS out there but just thinking about the numbers, that's 12 pts vs 5 pts. There is no reason to shoot for the PYRAMID GOAL with your colored DISCS and you will just end up with the same problem we had before of it being dangerous.
This seems like a game balance rather than a safety fix. Sure there are not going to be quite the blizzard of DISCS flying around but twelve is still quite a large number, more than enough to hit someone or break something.
On a balance side it makes sense. Our team had a number of people who could, from 50 ft and no pyramid in the way make in the range of 4 of 20 into the top goal. I have no doubts that other teams had better FEEDERS and we could be seeing humans hitting multiple shots per match. I don't want humans deciding my matches. This is a robotics competition.
I also suspect that the GDC noticed a large number of discs piling up on the center line and missed shots. This leads me to echo the thought that this will effect higher levels of play much more than lower; the more robots who use all three in AUTO the less there will be to pickup on the field.
My final question is why there was no way to reduce the effect of the DISCS no longer appearing near your goals in the last 30 seconds. If all that is required is that humans no longer throw DISCS in then why not have up to 12 (how many and if colored decided by the alliance) DISCS get dumped in like the balls in 2004. This would solve both the problem of the robots who were relying on the influx of DISCS in the last 30 seconds and the humans throwing hard shots.