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Originally Posted by dlavery
I love it when there is someone that obviously "gets it". People, please read Andy's words again. He has homed in on the right interpretation of the penalties. There are there for a reason. They are behavior modifiers that are intended to have an effect. If a team is modifying their style of play based on a concern about accumulating too many penalties, then the simple existence of the penalties is fulfilling the intended purpose.
The message is simple: STAY AWAY FROM THE LOADING ZONES WHEN AN OPPONENT IS RETRIEVING A TETRA! Lots of tetras should be coming out onto the field. The way to beat an opponent that is scoring tetras is to retrieve and score more than they do, not by wrestling over access to their loading zone.
-dave
(I also hate it when I keep seeing this message: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Andy Baker again.")
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The problem I saw, Dave, is that there were too many penalties being given for seemingly nonsensical reasons.
For instance, in one match our team was involved in, (this isn't as much of a penalty as it is a strange rule) Team 88 was retreating back to their end zone as time ran out. As the buzzer rang, their robot finished rolling with its arm barely touching the lowest tetra on the central back row. This discounted not only that tetra and all above it, but (if I remember correctly), two tic-tac-toes. They were in no way supporting it--just touching it!
I understand the loading zone penalties--the safety behind it--but some of them are a bit strong to. In another match, our robot was disabled for the entirety of the match because the referee on that side believed that our human player had touched the robot. Video evidence showed that it was not the case. In any case, the suspicion of the judge on a seemingly minor infraction was enough to disable a robot for an entire match.
Quite a few matches ended with robots scoring 0 points on the weight of penalties alone. When it takes a fairly spectacular alliance to score 40+, and each penalty has a weight of 20 or more, the scores go down quickly.
I've no bones to pick--I'm happy, because our robot finished 15th overall and we made it into the finals. There were some truly spectacular robots, and I will admit that some teams were more productive than I thought possible. But for future reference, I would suggest that, when a game is played with such low scoring objects, that the penalties awarded should neither be so great in relative magnitude nor so seemingly superfluous.
The fact is, it is difficult for teams to modify their style of play when the most basic requirements of successful play often result in such serious penalties.
--Petey