[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Jay Lundy
I am strongly against the new elimination scoring because of what happened at nationals. In the semifinals of the Newton division, our alliance went up against the hot + rage alliance. It was a tough, high scoring match due to hot's ability to stack and since most of the match was spent with our robots fighting each other rather than descoring the opponent's zone. In the final 10 seconds, it looked like we were going to win with our 2 robots on the ramp versus their 1. Hot was still off the ramp building / protecting their stack. In the final seconds, hot was able to push one of our robots off the bridge and get on themselves.

The final score, them: 94, us: 47. EPs, them: 188, us: 47, a deficit of 141. If we had gotten the 2 ramp robots, it would have been 72 for us and 69 for them, a defecit of 141 in the other direction. There is no way to overcome a deficit like that. We had 2 great alliances facing off, and the entire thing was decided in 5 seconds of one match. The second match was basically not even worth playing. We tried our best to stop them from descoring the zones, but I bet we still would have lost even if they had never touched their controls.

Maybe it was the insane amount of points for getting on the ramp that screwed up the scoring, but I doubt it. I think they should just go with the 2 out of 3 method, but I am concerned that they might stick with the current method because it reduced the number of matches teams had to play in the elimination rounds.

I have observed a number of elimination rounds, some from www.soap108.com, where similar things occurred. It particularly bugs me when I see a team lose their first match by 50 to 52 and then win their second match 80 to 10 but not advance. True, the other team was probably descoring, but it sure isn't clear which is the best team. Some luck in the game is fine, but this year's game had too much luck.

Anyway, you are definitely not alone in wanting to see the end of this year's scoring system in the elimination matches. I also vote for 2 out of 3 in the elimination rounds. If we have to stick to highest score over 2 matches, then each team should just get the total of their scores. Under that system, your team would have had a shot to come back. Also no one would be descoring, which must seem really weird to spectators.

I would like to go further and arrange the scoring so that we don't see "opponent agreements" again. That also tended to throw things off the rails.