I disagree - we had a few entanglement calls on Curie. Oddly enough, most were between two allied bots. I do think that we might have called more though.
There were a few borderline calls. I DO believe the referees made the right call on them, and I think all in all, the referees did an awesome job in the face of adversity. I am still in doubt of the "intent" of the rules being overlooked by the letter of the law, however. Dean said at the beginning of the season that we shouldn't look at the rules as lawyers, and yet I fear that that is exactly how some calls were made, just in the interest of "making the easy, fair call." Dean DID say that the game wasn't intended to be fair.
I think we may have given too many warnings, called things too conservatively sometimes, in the interest of the Letter of the Law. I think that the idea of "intent" to damage is a weak bridge to cross, and who wants to stand out by making that call? Ex. There is a team that is restricting another robot from moving, but it isn't "pinning" in the literal sense, because it's not against the edge of the playing field. My opinion is that I'd like to be able to keep the game moving by making the aggressive robot move away. Aggression and intent and all of those vague ideas are very conservative, and I think that the calls should be made more looking at the actual actions of teams.
I'm not saying call every entanglement issue that happens, but maybe more calls should be made when a robot is in OBVIOUS danger of non-natural damage. There was very little call for agressive defense in this year's game.
If a team is successful at what it's designed to do, then there should be NO cause to be aggressive towards other robots.
Disclaimer: I am not bashing refs, nor the calls we made. I am exhibiting my opinions in hope that next years rules are made clearer and simpler, with no weak words.
P.S. I do believe that the rules, and the game in general, were a VAST improvement over previous years. Now we're just "raising the bar" so to speak for the rules and games for coming years.
[Edit]P.P.S. - I woulda put money on us Curie refs to be the first to be moderatedly bashed. Looks like I did a better job than I thought
