I hope I'm not posting to late. Sorry Mr. Lavery, but I don't have an exact field or rules for this potential game. I tend to agree with a lot of these posts and I am a firm believer that the game needs to be easily understood by the general public. My line of thinking mostly tends to do with making the game very easy to understand, and impossible to "master". This year's game was excellent. Certainly, some improvements can be made, but such improvements are well represented in these posts.
Things to keep:
- 2 v 2 !!! Equal chance to win, cooperation, competitiveness all in one. It was vey fun to watch as well. More than 4 robots would become sheer chaos with radio signals, queueing lines, scoring, field size etc. 4 v 0 was too much like an exhibition and was not that exciting after a while. The only way that one could implement a 3 v 1 would be after carefully orchestrating an big advantage for the 1, and not making that advantage too big. It would be too hard to make the game fair. Fluctuating alliances, where the alliances somehow change during the course of the match might be interesting, but confusing as heck for a viewer. It would be a robotic soap opera. "Wait, that robot stabbed the other one in the back !! NO John !!". Free for Alls, BAD !!! Teams might make shady Survivor-type alliance to gang up on eachother. Lying and scheming teams would end up winning. It would defeat the purpose of the alliance system which is so cool and good at demonstrating the ideals of FIRST.
- The field size is good, let's not change it. Give the regionals (and FIRST) a break.
- The game was much, much easier to understand at first glance than 2001

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- Each match had the potential to fluxuate in power in favor of one alliance or another. Meaning, the fact that the goals were mobile and could stolen and swing the points drastically made the game very exciting. 1999 and 2000 did not have this feature to this extent. The 3X Loser's Score also helped weaker alliances upset the stronger one. So I'd recommend keeping that.
- There weren't too many different ways to score points, which didn't confuse the viewers so much.
- CARPET IS GOOD. Dirt is too messy, would get slippery, the field would have to be raked after each match to fill holes made. Plus the pits would get messy. Slippery material, I wouldn't recommend it, there would be high speed crashes into the barriers and other robots and send parts flying (which is what we don't want in FIRST). Also, I think teams would figure out how to grip to it pretty quickly anyway.
Stuff that's good, but could be Better
- The torque v speed balance was pretty good. There was never a no-brainer answer to that field. Fast robots could disrupt the goals so th big mean couldn't get them and the Torque bots could drag the fast ones around. Neither type had a dominant advantage in Q-matches. However, Eliminations was in drastic favor of torquing bots and speeding bots had to strategize a lot to beat them. Perhaps, place a little more emphasis on speed and maneuverabillity. The torque factor will always be there in a game with two opposing alliances because of the robot pushing factor. So, I would recommend making an aspect requiring more speed. I have suggestions to fix this later on.
- Tug of Wars weren't that bad. I must admit, I felt a massive testosterone rush when I saw our robot dragging 2 goals and two robots. Tug of Wars are unaviodable in a game with a movng goal. I would, however, add something that would discourage tug of wars that is slightly more influential than not making it back to the 10 point robot zone.
- Inclusive Scoring Zones ... well, I won't beat the dead horse.
Stuff to be Overhauled
- This year, everyone knows that there were 2 different games for Q-matches and Eliminations. I didn't like this so much because Robots who didn't perform well at all in Q-matches were picked for finals. Some teams would sacrifice Q-points to strut their eliminations ability. Keep the games the same.
- Concerning autonomy and such... There is an easier way to promote autonomy than making a rule saying you can't touch the controls. Implementing barriers to block sight to the crucial areas on the field would promote some autonomy on its own. If there were sight barriers this year, then the Retro-reflector would have been much more widely used. Robots would become autonomous without an official ruling.
- Barriers and obstacles are excellent ways to promote more than Autonomy alone. Obstacles that cause severe inconvenience will promote fast robots get around the field more quickly. It would discourage making slow torquing bots because it is a much longer route to get from point A to point B. Drive systems would be more inventive so they could get over/ around obstacles. Adding route chokepoints, hills, etc. also adds a lot to the strategy of the game without making the scoring any more complicated. Heck, it could also lead to the use of a zip-line, as an option to by-pass these obstacles. The greatest advantage is the level of complexity for the team to think about, that the audience doesn't have to think about scoring wise. Also, they make the field look a lot cooler. So, HILLS, WALLS, CHOKEPOINTS, GOOD !!!
- Frisbees and/or footballs sounds REALLY REALLY COOL. A team might have to spin a frisbee using a motor before launching. The team would have to learn some aerodynamics to learn to throw the frisbee corectly with the robots. And, being a human player would be a lot more fun. Balls are almost too simple to deal with ow and teams are learning how to pick them up really well. Throw us all a curve (so to speak).
Sorry, i wrote so much. I didn't even realize it. And, thanks Mr. Lavery for making this thread.
~Hubicki~