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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
Every game has its strengths and weaknesses. I think UA was much easier for a casual spectator to understand, but AA was more interesting for dedicated fans. (Aside: If you are going to show the game animation at a regional or district event, please do it in the afternoon right before elimination matches when all the casual spectators show up, not during opening ceremonies when only the dedicated fans are present).
I think the "assist" concept in AA worked best for teams in a district system. With all the value given to assists (both in scoring and seeding), your schedule had a disproportionate influence on your ranking compared to previous games. While nobody has a constitutional right to seed in proportion to their skill level, it is good when that happens, and an unfavorable schedule made that happen a bit less this year. If you only went to a single regional with a few matches and a then got a difficult schedule, you may have had a short and frustrating season. With districts, the better teams have more opportunities to prove their worth over time and move on. This allows (makes it fairer for) the GDC to come up with games where the "whole" of the alliance is greater (or less) than the "sum of the parts" in ways they haven't before. There will always be a wide diversity of skills between teams, and limiting the GDC to games that can be played well "solo" is an unfortunate constraint. As a team in a district system, I am happy to trade some "seeding inefficiency" for an exiting new dimension to the game.
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NC Gears (Newaygo County Geeks Engineering Awesome Robotic Solutions)
FRC 1918 (Competing at St. Joseph and West MI in 2017)
FTC 6043 & 7911
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