[P.J.]

Originally Posted by dv/dt

I was hoping for 12.
I don't think this will affect quals much, high goal scoring still wins the match no matter how fast the low goal scoring all else being equal.
But I do think this will affect elims, mainly by putting a larger gap between the top two or three alliances and the others. The top alliances will have two good high goal shooters from the outerworks and still be able to capture the tower with the third robot feeding or playing defense. The other alliances will be forced to either play all three robots on offense to capture the tower or find some way of slowing down the opponent cycles, possibly by boulder starvation.
This game favors some complex strategies that are very difficult to pull off in quals but are a must for lower seeded alliances in elims. A very interesting game to play.

Just for a talking point, taking all Week 6 Regionals and District Events (with the exception of DCMPs), the capture rate in Qualifications was about 10%. Now only counting matches where the alliance captured AND scored 10+ boulders the capture rate drops to about 4%.

In Eliminations the capture rate drops from about 31% to about 15%.

Granted some of these alliances could have probably scored 10 if they knew they had to, I just really like numbers so I did some quick comparisons.