Quote:
Originally Posted by mrnoble
I have a few quick points to make this morning.
1) There may be general agreement about 2013 being one of the best games ever (as referenced in this thread several times), but I recall last year seeing threads with posts that pointed out how bad the game was in comparison to previous years. For more cases like this, see also 2012, 2011, 2010, etc.
2) There have been several recent posts that suggest that teams that didn't win (for whatever reason, though everyone seems to be pointing to the rules) "wasted their money". Really? Is that what you do this for? Are your sponsors going to fire you if you don't win the regional? I always thought that winning was the thin icing on a very big cake that is the development of fantastic young people through inspiration.
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Everyone has something about each game that stands out to them making it the "best game". For a lot of people 2013 stood out as the best for a variety of reasons including a large number of game pieces, unique/challenging endgame, tons of strategies to play in a game, variety of robot designs to play the game, complexity of being able to pull off a "do it all robot", etc. It was one of the first games where you couldn't do it all (ground pickup, quick cycle, full court shooter, 30 point climber, color frisbee dump, etc) in a match.
For a lot of people 2012 was their favorite game but 2013 seems to have been more favored.
As for your second point, I would hope that a sponsor would not cease to support a team due to them losing however taking a tough loss or the season ending early is not an easy thing to have to tell your biggest supporter who is financially supporting your team or donated a lot of shop time for parts. It really depends on each team's situation but yes there are teams who spend a good amount of money not only to play but to iterate designs ($), build a practice robot/assemblies ($$), or compete at additional events to increase the chance of qualifying ($$$). A bigger investment is also all the time and efforts teams have put into their robots as well as senior members who may have gone "all out" in their final year only to lose due to a bad call. Its not an easy thing to swallow when you put your all into something, you followed the rules, and yet a bogus call ends your season.