Quote:
Originally Posted by mutantlog
I hope I'm not speaking inappropriately by posting as a referee this past weekend, but while I've lurked around here in my past 9 years volunteering as a ref, this is the first time I've bothered registering to post. Of course my opinions are my own and not representative of anyone at my regional or my fellow referees, etc.
Without turning this into a laundry list of issues, I was surprised at the basic issues of referee location on this year's field. With regards to seeing whether the pedestal lit up, I found that standing by the tablet in front of the gates made it very challenging to see due to the angle and the number of drivers and coaches in between my position and the pedestal. I could step back and turn towards the pedestal, but that took me away from the scoring tablet and the action on the field.
If anyone knows of a proper channel to provide feedback to FIRST and the GDC as a referee, I'd be interested to hear it. I feel like a bit of an odd duck as my experience with FRC is limited to refereeing once a year and watching the occasional live stream on other weeks, and I won't be at St. Louis so I can't find someone there. For what it's worth, every prior year I finish the weekend with the intent to sign up in VIMS as soon as I remember it's open. This year is the first year where I'm more hesitant, and I expect that I'll read the 2015 game rules in detail before I agree to sign up.
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While I haven't been reffing as long as Ryan has, I was at Waterloo, GTR West, and I will be reffing at champs.
Seeing the pedestals is nearly impossible from the tablet locations near the field gates. The only way I could tell that a pedestal was unlit was when I was tracking that color ball on assists, and noticed that no human player was inbounding after a completed cycle, or when a team began yelling about an unlit pedestal.
Another issue noticed is that depending on the Head ref, the truss lines up exactly at eye level, obstructing the view of dead ball cards for one alliance by the head ref. This meant referees on the other side of the truss had to radio in dead ball cards. Not significant, but with the band aid that the dead ball card is, I dont think the GDC thought about this.
Several penalties are very difficult to enforce correctly.
G40 requires the ref to almost put they're head into the safety zone to see correctly. I don't know about you, but a head in the safety zone seems more dangerous than a human players hand. I understand the rule, but unless its blatant, its very hard to call now. I actually preferred it week 1, much less ambiguous.
G27 needs more defining. What is high speed? What is aggressive ramming? How does any defensive strategy, no matter how gentle not inhibit the other robot? Unless its more defined, the penalties wont be called consistently. The head ref sets the benchmark for each competition, but what ensures the rule is equally applied everywhere? A more thorough definition of these terms would make it a lot more enforceable, and also keep things fair for everyone.
G24 needs a damage clause. If a robot suffers damage causing G24 to be violated, but remain inconsequential to the match, I dont think the penalty should be applied. As the rule is currently written, this is not the case.
I understand that the GDC is unable to predict every twist or turn the season may bring, but having somewhere for Referees to submit feedback would benefit everyone, and lead to a balanced game much more quickly. I was surprised that there was no way to do this besides making suggestions to the head ref.
Tracking very fast paced teams is difficult, especially when there are a few powerhouses on one alliance milking assist points. With the slight delay on the tablets, keeping up with these teams meant that it was very difficult to watch for anything else besides possessions.
The rule change on a Thursday made things difficult as well. At Waterloo, one team played perfectly legal defense on Thursday, and ended up taking huge penalties on Friday for the exact same defense. If the GDC had wanted to stop high speed collisions, why not wait til the following Tuesday.
As a coach, the new rule changes frustrate me, but I can understand where they came from. As a mentor, I feel that anyone who had played a game made by the GDC would have noticed several things before the game was released. I cant blame them for not noticing, and the fact they are doing their best to fix it is evident, I just wish it had been done while teams could still redesign their robots.
Overall I like this game, but as others have stated, its execution is poor, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I will volunteer to ref again, as its a lot of fun, gives a different perspective on the game, and I think whatever they throw at us next year will be a lot easier to ref than this.
PS: Woah, that turned into a wall of text really fast.