Quote:
Originally Posted by BBray_T1296
I hope everyone realizes that the Step (and thus separation of the alliances) was added late in the game design process soley due to the constant, incessant moaning and compaining about the defense last year.
Now look at us: complaining about not enough strategy ie. defense.
While both these games may be seen as the two extremes, we asked for it.
I personally see merit in both sides of the arguement about the quality of this year's game, but I cannot help but realize that we brought this on ourselves.
|
People were moaning about defense last year? I remember people moaning about how the GDC tried to
regulate defense last year. (Who wanted that unscheduled G27 game update?) I remember people complaining that the GDC had designed a game that overemphasized defense by saying "I wonder what happens if we put three robots on each alliance but only let one play offense at a time?" And then tried make the overburdened refs force it in line with their vision. But I don't remember anyone complaining that defense
existed last year. No one, that is, except the GDC itself. And they (at least from my perspective as a coach and ref) were much, much, much, much, much louder about it than any other complaint about anything I heard all season.
I'm not saying that no one outside the GDC did complain about defense. I'm sure people did, and for understandable reasons. I'm just saying that it's only inherently hypocritical if you consider the community to be a monolith, which it definitely is not.
In terms of this game, I understand that each game design has different merits. From a team perspective, everything is a challenge and is potentially acceptable as such. This is not to say that you can't complain about whatever you want. Or that you shouldn't be upset when your ~$2000 minibot R&D gets cloned en masse for $50. Or that you can't pretend a game doesn't exist if it was basically one big charlie foxtrot on ice. But I'd like to propose two first-draft metrics for game merit. 1) Be sellable to sponsors. 2) Not alienate volunteers. Of course these are still subjective, but I'd say it's clear that 2015 > 2014 on #2 and 2015 < 2014 on #1. I know refs that left last year because of the toll the game took on us. I hope no one loses a current or potential sponsor this year to "competitive box stacking", but based on comments here and elsewhere, I'm not overly confident. And I would argue that
that, no matter how much you or I personally (dis)like the game, is a problem.