The way to by successful is to help your alliance outscore the opponent alliance regardless of the capabilities of allies or partners. The most successful team will be versatile. How boring will a three vs three defensive bot match be? 15/15 ties are not the best way to earn distinction.

I add the most value to my alliance by being the best offensive robot I can field. In this game, the way to be most versatile is to throw and pickup a ball from the field. (Catching and be able to score both high and low adds versatility.)

There will be plenty of good 'defensive and offensive' robots to pick from when you select your elimination partners. But here's the thing, if you are running defense, while it is true, if you are limiting your opponents scoring, you are also lowering your own scoring by at least 30% because in the best case scenario you have removed a 10 point assist per cycle(21 instead of 31). This assumes your defense is effective. Meanwhile, even you are effective at slowing a high scoring alliance, They are still putting in 30 or 40 point cycles and cleaning your clock.

Autonomous defense - this is ridiculous. Why would I want to block a low goal to deny my opponent 2 points, when I can get 5 points by driving forward? I just gave away 3 points.

Tele-op high goal defense - seems impractical - too easy to turn and shoot to avoid defender, to easy to get a foul. One 50 pt technical and your toast.


Defense in general. IMHO the foul points are so high because the game designers intent was to make offense and co-operation between alliance on the offensive game the emphasis. A game that is a race to score the most points by deliberate passing and shooting neck and neck, is more interesting then a big scrum where nothing changes on the scoreboard.