Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Curtis
Specifically, how did FIRST improve on the things they set out to? I wasn't at an event, so curious to hear from those that lived it.
- Upper Goal Bounce-Outs
- Fouls
- Refs
- System Issues
- Balls Being Returned to Field
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I watched a ton of streaming matches. On Friday night I switched between four streams so there was always a match playing from about 5pm until the last west coast matches were over.
- Bounce outs: The goal redesign completely fixed the bounce out problem from the rear bar. I saw maybe two bounce outs the entire weekend, and those were pure flukes.
- Fouls: The insane number of G40 penalties was cut way, way down. It was like they went from making that penalty the highest focus of ref attention to making it the lowest focus. In my opinion, it dramatically improved the match results.
- Refs: I don't know that they got any better at refereeing robot-robot interactions. One of my personal pet peeves is uncalled G28 fouls. I didn't see any improvement here. On the other hand, scoring seemed to be smoother. I guess if I had to prioritize the referees attention, I would prefer them to focus on scoring goals and assists first, and catching illegal gameplay second, but it still rankles me to watch match video and see teams getting away with illegally aggressive defensive play. As long as the neglect is applied equally to all, it's probably a wash.
- System issues: Couldn't say. I only watched matches in play, skipping delays.
- Balls being returned to Field: From the matches I saw, this was almost instant. In fact, robots throwing over the truss to the sidelines didn't really need to make the throws catchable by the HP. Even if the HP missed, the ball was promptly delivered by field staff. Big cudos here for much improvement.
In short, after working through the normal week 1 bugs, the game is now being played like we expected it would be.