This has become a wall of text over the past hour, I hope that my thoughts can add something to the discussion.
Everyone here is assuming that people's actions are impeccably thought out and teams are being judged as if their robots performed perfectly, their drivers are flawless, and they can instantly calculate the strategically optimal course of action for any given situation under the pressure of eliminations. I am in no way trying to insult the teams or put down their abilities, but the truth is that the teams don't have superpowers.
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Originally Posted by ThunderousPrime
3. I disagree with the blue alliance's strategic (bolded for emphasis, this is a strategic analysis only) decision to participate in a no defense shoot-out as the best route for winning the match. It has been stated and also heavily assumed that the blue allianced was "outgunned" and not favored to win the match or a shootout senerio based on the robots and chemistry involved. Following F1 instead of going for less defense I would have tried more: a more physical and aggressive defense would have at least pushed Red to adapt or play through it to accumulate assists and score them. In addition to breaking red's rhythm a lower score which comes with defensive based matches favors blue who needs to catch up after auton. Putting 2 robots on defense has the potential to the MOV much more than emgaging in a shootout.
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The team's drivers aren't perfect. If they know that they can reliably do all of the steps required for their alliance to score, and might possibly be able to do it faster than the other alliance, then there could be a justification for wanting to do what you know your drivers were capable of rather than relying on their ability to defend against the other drivers. Even if a detailed strategic analysis proves otherwise after the fact, the blue alliance still could have acted based on that analysis, thinking that they would have a better chance of winning. Truly they could have acted on any strategic analysis that made sense to them. Even if the view is deluded, it is still the basis for their strategic decision, not an ulterior motive. Members of the blue alliance drive teams speaking here today have claimed that their analysis told them that they would have a better chance with no defense. If they believed that to the best of their knowledge, then that was a justified decision regardless of what seems like it would have been best upon closer review. This is my response to the "It was wrong of the blue alliance to give up" controversy.
It seems that the main focus of the conversation now is that it was wrong for Mr. Sanghi to give a monetary incentive that could cause teams to play in a way that is inconsistent with the GDC's intent. I think we can all presume that Mr. Sanghi did not wish to drive teams away from the GDC's intent, but to add a level of excitement to the event. I know that in the stands, before the final match, I heard people all around me discussing the challenge, making predictions about whether or not it would ever be achieved. So it did succeed in this goal.
Operating under the idea that we should hold the GDC's intent for gameplay as being inline with the mission of FIRST, and that deviation from that intent results in a failure to comply with FIRST's mission:
The problem that arose from the challenge was that it could lead to an alliance manipulating their strategy in a way that results in worse performance according to the the measurements of performance inherent to the Tournament as described by the GDC (win vs. lose). While I do not believe this particular case involved that kind of manipulation, I do see that this type of reward could easily cause problems in other situations. I presume that Mr. Sanghi did not evaluate all of these possibilities on the level that we have in this thread, and I can't see how it would have been practical for him to. It is close to impossible for anyone to consider all of the possible ramifications that could occur as a result of a monetary reward for a specific type of action in an FRC game.
Therefore, I agree that it would be best to not have monetary rewards like this set. While it did increase the level of excitement in the arena, the possibility for the corruption of gameplay outweighs the benefit.
This has been one of the most interesting threads I have ever read through on Chief Delphi. It has been interesting to learn so much about people's paradigms about GP, Coopertition, and the overall mission of FIRST. Though I screamed out of frustration while reading this several times, I welcome the discussion and hope to see more of the people I respectfully disagree with explain their thoughts in a thorough and objective manner.
TLDR: If the team believe they aren't giving up and are gaining an advantage, then they are still playing to win, regardless of what is theoretically most strategic. I believe that the way things played out, the challenge added to regional. I also believe that the harm caused by strategies that contradict the GDC's intent would outweigh this benefit if the blue alliance agreed to full-field play thinking that it would lessen their chance of winning.