[cglrcng]

What made me first notice the item at all (because in both regionals I listed above), and that we attend every year because they are closest and we have agreements mainly for lower cost hosted team housing....Is because we always have about 10 Q matches.

This year that jumped without explanation to 12...I wondered why, and then I was on the FIRST Stats site and started looking at many different Regionals...Found from 10~12 matches each Regional was norm, then I brought up Virginia 8, then Waterloo 13....Fewer Teams/Robots more Q Matches.....More Teams/Robots fewer Q Matches, then started looking at the data and QPA's and saw the implicit differences in the data the high teams and the lower teams (call that the Inflation/Deflation factor), have on the QPA Data, and the differences in each event.

If you shine huge, w/ this years format change, you inflate and affect everyones QPA scores, likewise if you stub your toe often, you will tend to deflate the QPA's (though on a lesser scale if the High shiners are on your alliance)...Not much matter at Virgina (only 8 chances to do either, but Waterloo...13 chances to do so). That's huge.

And I realized after looking at the published OPR's today (and comparing multiple events), that issue is not corrected for in the figuring of those OPR's any more than the QPA's. (I don't know how you can compare some that played 1/3 more matches, to someone playing 1/3 less matches)....Or, correct for a 1/3 difference.

The data is not reliable...But, many will rely on it and still do the comparisons all year long. Kevin's Team Value in $$$$'s is also very viable on the subject for the same reasons.