I'll start by saying I'm not a fan of high speed, damage causing ramming being commonplace as it was in 2014. However, I think defense should exist in some form for a couple reasons. Defense forces teams to keep making their mechanisms faster and stronger. Any time you extend a mechanism outside your robot, it could be hit by another robot and break. You can reduce this by making the mechanism faster so it is at risk for a shorter time, or making it stronger so it doesn't break as easily.
The other reason for me is defense is exciting. I'm not talking about big hits, but one of my favorite things about sports is the "unstoppable force vs the immovable object" matchup, when a great offense goes up against a great defense(best FRC example is 254 vs. 1114 last year). Sure watching a great robot stack up totes is cool, but by the end of the competition you're just watching to see if they screw up. Defense adds a level of uncertainty that makes it entertaining. Bottom line, FIRST says they are all about inspiring people, but you can't do that if the matches are boring.
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Originally Posted by WillNess
Ya but they would switch a lot and defense was overpowered
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Just as an aside, 2010 remains my favorite game (weird ranking system aside) because the game evolved to have positions (forward, midfielder, defender), and everyone had to play their position well to win the match. defense was definitely important, but I didn't think it was overpowered.