[DohertyBilly]

I think that FIRST did not include an endgame this year because they introduced a concept that would already heavily influence the design of the robots: catching. Catching was something that was very rarely seen this year because it was incredibly hard to pull off consistently with a potentially disastrous consequence (a free ball on Einstein may have kept the curse alive), and was really not worth that much point wise. People were already sacrificing the 9 points after a missed shot to take the safe low goal; that and not catching were similar sacrifices in order to reduce time spent setting up for the right shot. The only robot I can think of that showed catching consistency was 25, and they decided to completely forego a shooter. Catching and shooting were almost mutually exclusive; adding on a further complexity would have been ridiculous. And it would have reduced the effectiveness of younger teams, as veterans may have seen more opportunity in that than I think many saw in catching. To condense all that: the endgame was replaced by catching, and we didn't see much of it because of the point value. If FIRST wants to promote innovative design by encouraging the accomplishment of multiple tasks, they have to make them appealing enough point wise, and for that there has to be an endgame.