Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot
Just wondering, how does this game compare to, say, Lunacy, in everyone's opinion?
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I think the some of reason that many long time FIRST mentors are pretty unhappy with this game is not due to the nature or general strategy of the game, but rather the implementation.
In 2009 we saw that robots would be traction limited and had to lug around a big heavy goal. It was pretty apparent from the beginning the game would be a snoozefest. Most people accepted this, built the best robot they could, and competed with it. Sure there were some penalties but they weren't game changers and the scoring was straightforward. Like most good games, the score could easily be verified by counting the game pieces in the goal at the end of the match.
This year, we have the opposite situation. On paper, the game looks good. It has tons of potential (Robots working together? To throw and catch giant balls? With a human player in the mix? Sounds AWESOME!). The issues this year have been mostly technical due to an overcomplication of both field hardware and penalty rules. This will leave a bad taste in any engineer's mouth because these issues are totally avoidable. Unlike 2009, the bad parts of the game are not inherently part of the game!
Some of the issues people have been complaining about are seemingly things that can be fixed with no team intervention (for example with a field software patch or rules update).
- Referee tablets freezing, causing pedestal delays
- Hot goals not turning on
- Missed assists/points due to referees having to watch too many things and having a bad interface to record the score.
- Rules which allow an entangled robot to force penalties on to their opponent (Waterloo SF1-3?)
Now, I'm sure our gripes do not fall upon deaf ears. There have been field software updates. There have been rule changes. While I love that the community's concerns are being heard, these updates have not solved the issues. What makes this blog post a bit hard to swallow is it seems like damage control. This is understandable, this is something every company will have to do at some point in time (though in the real world this comes with a replacement or refund).
We don't want to have the blanket pulled over our eyes. We want FIRST to fix the field. I promise we won't hold a grudge. Just fix the field.