[EricH]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

This reminds me a bit of the fiasco in 2011 when people thought it would be cool to launch minibots up the pole with a spring, until it was banned a few updates in. I think the GDC does not like it when people find an aspect of the game they thought would be difficult trivial, but I am struggling to see how they can fix this one simply.

I think that it's relatively simple.

Is there an aspect of Velcro that is not allowable? (e.g., how are the loops attached to the backing?) Find that, and issue an announcement that that is not allowable, etc.

OR, add in a rule section/blue box that indicates Velcro as not meeting the spec. That's what they did with the pre-placed gears.



Launching minibots was banned in TU#1 (2011). The Noodle Agreement was announced as "in the process of being banned" in TU#1, but the actual implementation of that was released in TU#2 (2015). I believe it was something like TU#16 or TU#17 (or later) that banned stacking robots to start a match back in '07--AFTER that strategy was used to score points, and despite a Q&A on the topic. A fix to 6v0 was released in the update between Week 1 and Week 2 in 2010--and does anybody remember the THURSDAY update in 2014???

The GDC has their ways to put the game towards the way they want it. I suspect that they are having strong internal discussions on two topics: 1) Do we want this in the game? 2) How do we make the answer to #1 fit in the rules/Q&A?. There are a couple of cases in memory where the GDC has changed their answers mid-season, for reasons apparently including not being on the same page. I get the impression they're trying to avoid that...