[logank013]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

I'll admit it. Recycle Rush is not an exciting game to watch. It was a fun puzzle to try and solve, but not a fun game to play. There just aren't that many exciting moments. The one exciting moment Recycle Rush does have, however, is the can battle. And removing can battles turns an already boring game into a snooze fest.

Now before you hit the reply button and say that can battles ruined the game, I agree with you. But as we've seen before, games with no interaction with the opponents (or no opponents, a la 2001) are boring. They simply dissolve into a race against the clock. There's no change in strategy between matches unless an alliance member breaks, no affecting the other alliance, no off-field chess matches like 2014 Einstein. It's just robots doing a task until time runs out.

Why take the only interaction between alliances out of the game? The answer is balance. Canburglars are overpowered. If you have a the fastest one, you have a huge advantage over your opponent. Losing all 4 cans in auto is a devastating blow for your alliance, making it almost impossible to win the match. It's unfortunate that FIRST didn't manage to balance canburglars, but that doesn't mean they should be eliminated from the game.

There are two ways to help bring balance to a game with an overpowered element. You can remove (ban) the element or you can reduce its effectiveness (nerf it). As I said earlier, removing canburglars from takes an already boring game and turns it into a set of drills. Why not nerf canburglars instead?

IRI and Chezy Champs have already taken steps toward nerfing can battles (if you ignore the fact that they're also explicitly banned), by adding 2 and 3 cans to each side of the field, respectively. They've reduced the advantage an alliance can gain by winning all 4 cans in auto, nerfing the can battle. If an alliance loses all 4 cans in auto at IRI, they still have 5 cans to work with. If an alliance loses all 4 cans in auto at Chezy Champs, they still have 6 cans to work with. Remember, this is a game where the highest score in the world was achieved with 6 cans.

Don't ban can battles from your offseason, nerf them. Bring them to a point where winning the battle is an advantage, not a necessity.

Braces for impact.

I do have to say I agree. Now having 5 cans at IRI guaranteed is a great advantage. Can battles are not as important but are still important. Therefore, teams would still like to make their can burglars faster if the can battles are still like the battles at worlds. When you take the rule at IRI, you basically are guaranteed 7 cans. It now won't matter if it takes 2 seconds to get the cans in auto or the full 15 seconds. Going out on a limb here, I would guess that most teams with a can burglar has an auto for the can burglar. Basically, what IRI is doing is trying to prevent powerhouse teams from spending another couple thousand dollars on making their can burglars a split second faster. They also want to make it so teams aren't mad if their burglar get destroyed mid competition and again, preventing that extra cost. I believe the ultimate goal is to have teams save money on the off season. that's what a lot of events are doing.

A rule change that would be cool is if they did something like this: You have to wait 5 seconds into auto to touch the cans on the left side. Then, teams that have fast burglars still have the advantage but don't have to worry about speeding the can burglars up. A team that has a 4 second can burglar doesn't have to be concerned about a team with a 3 second auto. So then, you can line up 4 robots at the step (like at worlds) but have the robots on the left side on a 4.9 second delay so they still get the cans in auto. Then, it would be more like worlds where having a good auto truly does matter.

Tell me what you think, I hope all of what I said made sense. Thanks for reading