Yes. Oh, please, yes.
Jim Zontag of 33 did OPR analysis that said that a tech foul was literally twice the average contribution of a team to an alliance in week one. According to TBA insights data, the average match score this week is 55--essentially the same as a technical foul. This is unhealthy, and should be changed.
Imagine if in 2013 the tech foul was 50 points (that's on par with what is is now, comparing tech foul to average alliance score). You would have had to score an extra 17 discs to make up for a tech foul. That's more than 4 cycles. Even over your entire alliance, you could not make up that kind of point gap. There is just no way to cycle four extra times in a match. The 20 point tech foul we got last year was 7 discs, just barely possible to make up with huge cycling performance and good defense. It was harsh (and did decide matches) but wasn't always a death sentence to an alliance.
A technical foul should be something that's high enough you're never going to accept it for strategic reasons. There might be a few situations (especially last year) where taking the foul made sense, but even last year it never made sense strategically to get a tech foul. I'd argue that given average scoring this year, you're properly motivated (to never get a tech foul) by a 30 point tech foul. 50 points is excessive. You're no more motivated by a 50 point foul than by a 30 point foul.
Another problem is not all teams are smart and not all teams know the rules. Top teams will do their very best to avoid tech fouls (in any game), but not all teams can be counted on to act that way. In quals, you can be screwed by a randomly paired team's human player accidentally inbounding a second ball. Boom. 100 point penalty. You just lost the match. A ref thinks their HPs finger goes inside the safety zone? You just lost the match. They poke their intake into another robot as they're trying to get the ball? Lost the match. The opponents ball accidentally lands in their robot? Lost the match.
Fine. FRC isn't all about winning. But some of us do care about whether matches are won on the strength of the robots or on a momentary mistake by one team. That effects the level of play, and therefore whether or not were really meeting our goal of changing the culture.
FIRST needs to reduce this excessive penalty.
EDIT:
This.
Quote:
Originally Posted by animenerdjohn
G40 is the equivalent of an offsides in football giving 7 points to the other team.
Would you even consider scoring in football to be a good indicator of performance at that point?
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