[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

I won't say that my "patience is completely gone" but I tend to agree...I inspected at Palmetto, and my team attended NC and DC. From one perspective, the gameplay has seemed to degrade throughout the season. It can still be a very exciting game in eliminations, but it is too easy for a match to become a frustrating battle to avoid defense. This is my opinion, of course, but I believe the games are much better when an increasing level of game play is synonymous with increased elegance, finesse, and technical expertise. Too many matches in the elimination rounds become one power house alliance shutting down the offense of the other by blockade. The elimination matches I saw earlier in the season seemed to have quicker, more spectacular scoring cycles...often deciding a match at the buzzer by a two or three assist goal...at the end, there are far fewer of these and many more struggles to break the blockade and score.

I disagree that scoring-only games are fundamentally better. For one, they effectively prevent participation by rookie robots that can barely do more than drive; that's not particularly conducive to inspiring those teams and keeping them in the organization. Moreover, lack of defense quite simply means lack of strategic depth in this game - there is no point to do anything other than three-assist cycle as fast as you possibly can if the other robots don't do anything to stop you. I think seeing alliances forced to adapt and overcome stiff defense is far more exciting that watching which of two noninteracting teams can perform a task the fastest.