I just began reading this post... As I see it, there were two main problems about this years game
Traction - too much emphasis on high traction, being able to push others, being able not to be pushed, etc.
2-Dimensional Field - As someone else put it, this year's game was all about flooring it and steering.
So, my suggestion...not really a game, but a few ideas how it could be expanded
King-of-the-Hill style play. Have a large hill in the middle of a rectangular field. Say if you have this year's field, the nuetral zone would be the hill. There would be sides and a flattened area on top. The point is to get scoring items up there. Now, here's the catch...
De-tractionize - Someone suggested using cheap linoleum for the field. Now, this would be too much for the entire field. So instead, here's my suggestion: carpet for most of the hill, but make the slopes of the hill linolium, and make them at such an angle that it would be hard to get a grip on it. Or, if you really wanna get evil, you know the rollers at airports on the x-ray scanners? Remember the show, "American Gladiators" on USA who knows how many years ago? Yeah, thats the kind of hill I'm talking about!
So basically, what it comes down to is somehow getting on top of the hill and being able to drop an item off up there. Now, the real kicker is if we completely detractize it...
Blind Spot - Now, if we detractionize it completely(i.e. rollers), chances are robots are going to get up there by speeding up and using their momentum to get to the top. Now, that also means unless you can get it perfect every time, you're going to over-shoot and go down the other side. If the hill was uber-king-of-the-hill, meaning tall hill, drivers wouldn't be able to see on the other side.
Now, if FIRST was nice, they'd provide some kind of mirror on the top of the other alliance station. You've seen those spherical mirrors on trees at bad intersections? Picture something like that on top of the glass of this year's alliance station.
Now, if FIRST was evil, they could put reflective tape in certain areas and have the robots auto-navigate back. This could give
us deprived programmers out there something to work on ;-)
Now the good and the bad:
TV-Apeal - Who DOESN'T want to see robots driving up a hill consisting of rollers. I mean, they're going to be going quickly, going to overshoot, and most likely, spin out of control. Thats genuine TV material without the Battlebot-ish element of pure destruction.
Hard Challenge - The main challenge would be essentially to master control in a traction-less environment. I'd love to see how teams would over-come this
Human Player? - What human player?
Too simple - Essentially consists of running up the ramp over and over. Needs more thought in it
Yeah, this is far from a complete idea. But if theres one good idea in this post, it's the
element of losing control. As I see it, this is probably the best way to get TV apeal. The main problem so far is that FIRST has been something that only techies would appreciate, while Battlebots has that element of destruction - or, excitement and the match turning around at any point in time. If FIRST added some elements of the field that basically cause the robot to loose control, well, think of them as some obstacles that add some fun to it.
If not a king-of-the-hill game with rollers, it would be cool if there were random roller spots on the field, or parts of the field's floor that are 'unstable' - such as a merry-go-round at floor level - when a robot goes on it, it's motion causes that section to spin. Basically, anything that
takes some of the control away from the drivers makes the game
more exciting and more suitable to a TV-audience.