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Re: Unscheduled Team Update: 3-20-2014
Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of FIRST/GDC members when they make games and rules like this.
I for one agree with the rules to a degree and I will back up what Brandon said earlier which is we should see how it plays out in Week 4. Yes it does seem very open ended but let's see. For those of you competing, welcome to what it is like competing in Week 1. I for one and not a big fan of heavy defense damaging robots even if it is bumper to bumper contact however I have to ask the following:
Did the GDC even think this game through?
This is a serious question because now that I see this update they are trying to bring us away from heavier defense and bring the game down to what they see. I have a big problem that they didn't see this sooner because it is showing some lack of forethought on their part for a few reasons.
1. Teams have more in their drivebases than ever before. This is the second year we have been allowed to have 6 CIMs on our robot and look back over the years and read through Jim's paper on rules and you can see that 10 years ago was when CIMs were brought into the game. Now we have nearly any transmission available with a huge number of motors to throw in them.
2. The field is extremely open. We haven't had a field this open since the days of 2006 or 2009 (but this year doesn't fit well due to the low friction surface) but a lot of us looked back to 2006 when this game was announced and remember the defensive battles that took place. No, bumpers were not required but when goals changed there was a huge push from one side of the field to the other with many collisions and pushing matches. This is what happens when there is no traffic flow around the field and teams are working down field similar to football.
3. This has been mentioned before but what are the other two robots doing??? I can always see how FIRST wants us to play the game however I think they often get out of touch with how it will actually play out. There are many teams who just don't get their robots done and I think everyone of us has had to face an event or several matches as purely defensive because our upper assemblies just weren't working. Couple this with them pushing for more events with smaller quantities of teams in the district model even with many regionals and you have a smaller pool of teams to pull from. No matter what game FIRST makes, there will always be robots that for one reason or another just can't play the offensive role. In a year where they are only giving ONE ball to an alliance they just increased that number by a lot. Not because there are necessarily more teams who didn't finish but because with one ball the team who is better at scoring will have it for most of the time leaving many teams on the defense. Even teams who do play offense well have to play the defensive position. Our team inbounded and threw the ball over the truss in a matter of seconds and then played defense for the rest of the cycle because our offensive role was complete. We played defense on opponents and defense on the robots covering our main offensive scorer.
Now combine all three together and what do you have? A very defensive, tough, & rough game and it didn't take our team weeks to figure that out. We interpreted the signs immediately and that influenced our design choices on day 1 as it did with others in our area like 1058 who made a top notch drivebase to survive this game. How long was it going to take the GDC to figure this out? Week 4 of competition?
I for one feel like this game could be amazing but FIRST is definitely using fouls with large point values to control exactly how they want it played. That has already been debated but what I dislike the most about 2014 is I just feel the GDC is completely out of touch with how teams play. How many members of the GDC have ever been on an FRC team. How many of them have actually competed?
I have a lot of respect for the GDC as they have to make new games every year and the past few years have had hands down the BEST games. This year is a lot harder for everyone standing in light of the best game we have played. That being said though each year there are several portions of the game, rules, or manual that you have to sit back and ask, "Did they really think this wasn't going to be an issue" or "How were they expecting us to play this".
At the end of the day we are all human but these are the things that just baffle me.
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