[AllenGregoryIV]

I want to talk a little about what the GDC did well in Aerial Assist.

The low goals in this game are the best I have ever seen. Scoring in the low goal can be accomplished by a kit bot with ease. They don't have too many false positive, most of the time when the ball enters the goal it stays in. This game would be much worse with out such a simple way to end the cycle. Low goals in the past have basically only been touched during field setup and take down (2012, 2013). This is a very good thing, we are seeing far fewer under 10 point alliance scores. There are still some but not nearly as many as in previous years. We had problems with our launcher at our first event and we were still able to win a lot of matches by using the low goal effectively. In previous years if your shooter wasn't working, you were just out of luck.

Simple way to score in auton, the mobility bonus is a good idea. It's clean and simple and rewards teams for the effort of making an autonomous even if it doesn't work. For many teams just getting driver control is difficult allowing a simple challenge is excellent for those teams.

Truss vs. High Goal - Having two ways to earn points that are very similar but differ in their accuracy requirements is a very good concept. This allows teams that can build a launcher but not one that is as accurate to still have a valuable role. It's sort of like the 2-point goal from last year except you're able to get maximum points per game piece. In 2013 you were at a big disadvantage if you weren't shooting in to the high goal, truss specialists this year are far more useful then 2-point goal scorers last year.

No End Game - I actually really like this. It allows teams to build higher quality robots since they don't have to spread themselves to thin. There wasn't a need to reserve weight or motors for a mechanism that is only used in the last 15 seconds of the match. The last second truss shots and goals are more intense then climbs last year. Points swings in the last second can be up to 40 points. You also get last second defense which we haven't really had in the past for risk of big penalties. This is the same type of drama you see at the end of a good basketball game.

Human player role - I have never liked the idea of human players (and I was one for two years in HS) but I think this is the best implementation we have ever had. They don't get to score points directly but they can have a big impact on matches. The human players have to work well with the robots to get efficient cycles. And we are off the trend of having them heave full court shots at the end of matches. Though they did have a impact on a few matches in 2012 and 2013, I don't think that aspect really made the games any better.

This game absolutely has problems, but the GDC did some innovative things and some of them have made for a better game.