[Kevin Sevcik]

I've seen penalties decide a good many matches. At GLR, my team lost 3 matches because of penalties through no fault of our own. So just because you haven't been bitten by penalties doesn't mean they aren't annoying other people who are playing the game fairly and losing because a human player picked a foot up or a team playing their first match wasn't aware that there was a brand new penalty for putting tetras on the carpet.

At any rate, I'm more concerned with the balance of these penalties. The 30 pointers seem horribly costly. Bumping a robot in a loading zone results in a near definite loss for your whole alliance. Tipping a robot by pushing high gets you a 10 pointer and possible DQ, despite the grievous damage that could result to the other robot. It seems slightly out of whack to me, fair and consistent enforcement or no. I think in the best of all possible worlds, FIRST would design a game where penalties just aren't necessary by the very nature of the game. Or atleast where random 30 point insta-lose penalties aren't necessary.