[KrazyCarl92]

For teams that could integrate a climb and dump with the ability to score discs in the high goal (67, 1114, and 1334 come to mind), the climb and dump is a way that they could raise their alliance's ability to score, but did not exclude any of their partners from scoring points. What I mean by this is that a 7-disc auto is great, but having two robots with 7 disc autos on the same alliance is superfluous. Having additional cycles beyond a consistent 13 total for an alliance becomes superfluous. Additional disc points past a certain point are exclusive from each other. Climbers that climb up the outside of the pyramid to 30 and dump in the top are not exclusive of other alliance partners' points (aside from colored discs being limited). Another interesting aspect of climbing that fits into alliance structure is that while climbing up the outside of the pyramid to 30 points would not exclude potential partners from points, climbing up the inside to 30 is an action that is largely exclusive to a single robot per alliance (perhaps not, but I'm not aware of 2 robots on the same alliance climbing up to 30 inside the same pyramid this year).

From an individual team design stand point, we made the decision on day 2 of the build season that based on our resources we would have to decide between primarily climbing/dumping and largely forgoing other disc points, or going for disc points with a 10 point hang. Based on our estimation of contributions we could achieve from different strategies, we figured we could choose either:
-about 50 points/match if we chose climb/dump
-about 80 points/match if we chose 10 point climb and scoring discs

We chose the second option because we felt that it would improve our chances of winning matches, and it also felt like a more repeatable strategy. Missing a single climb takes away all of our points. Missing a single cycle or a single shot is 12 or 3 points, respectively. All things considered, I would rather fail at missing a single shot than at missing a single climb.

With the decision on overall strategy determined, we moved forward with prototyping around functional objectives based on executing that strategy with our robot design.

It's not so much that the 50 point climb and dump was not valuable. It is just that perhaps many teams who tried it could have benefited from a competitive stand point by making a decision against the climb and dump early on. The teams that did execute it in addition to scoring lots of discs in teleop were extremely valuable as alliance partners, hence why 2 of them partnered with a 7 disc auto team and a great defensive robot to win IRI.