Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
What FIRST actually told me is that this is the way the algorithm is supposed to generate matches, and there is no means to vary the match-ups. So the intent seems to be that low numbered teams will alternate playing each other.
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It'd be interesting to know what the spec really said. I would think the intention would have been to "prefer" setting up low number teams to play each other, but I doubt that they really wanted to have the same teams play each other over and over and over.
As I see it, there's a defect here one way or another. It might be an implementation defect or it might be a requirements defect, but either way I can't see how the current situation could be considered "desired" behavior (certainly isn't to me and clearly a lot of others as well).
The other interesting thing about this is that it means FIRST is assuming that lower-numbered teams are somehow better. While there might be some truth to this when all the teams across the country are averaged, it would seem to seriously penalize low-numbered teams who aren't so good, or perhaps have had a rebirth and despite the team's overall age are basically rookies. The converse is also true for very young teams that happen to be very good (and are sometimes that way because they're essentially made up of a bunch of people from veteran teams).
Seems like this is probably a case of good intentions gone awry. Hopefully it can be fixed and we can move on.