Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
I'm sorry, but I don't see where you are coming from. I'd really like to believe that NO team would throw a regional just to have a good alliance partner in qualifications in Atlanta.
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I agree - as I said, I don't think anybody would actually do it. I'd also like to think that nobody would intentionally push someone into a lower goal last year to get them disqualified, but that doesn't mean that rules that allow that possibility are good ones.
There are also lots of ways to avoid a high "regional success score" without actively throwing a regional, several of which are neither particularly non-gracious or unprofessional. First is to not go to as many regionals in the first place, and concentrate on other things (using the money to build a practice bot, buy nicer parts, do community outreach, etc.). Second is to concentrate on building at a regional - could you really blame a team with a weak arm for taking it off and overhauling it at a regional, even if that meant they spent most of their matches as a box on wheels running around playing defence?
Some of the above is admittedly a bit sensationalist, but in general I worry about what happens when FIRST tries to artificially manipulate things to try to balance veterans and rookies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
You're saying that this system punishes teams who perform well at regionals. I can assume you mean 'punish' in the scope that they will paired with "not so good" teams in their Division. Now, what makes more sense? Creating equal alliances based on power, or continually punishing teams for having a low team number. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the match schedule from Boston. Most of the low numbered teams (121, 125, 126, etc) did not have alliances partners with numbers lower than 1500ish. Now, look at the top 4 seeded teams. 1626, 2079, 126, 1511. Notice anything? There you have 3 very good teams who, as you might say, were NOT punished for having a high team number. Were they there on merit, or were they there from the schedule? You make the call.
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Again, I don't really like either system, so I'm hesitant to argue for one over the other. I personally don't think any teams need a lot of balancing - in most things in life, one can't simply jump in and immediately be on anywhere near a level standing with the experienced veterans, and I'm not sure FIRST needs to be any different. I think most rookies can accept that they might not do so well in their first year or two, but that just makes it that much more of an accomplishment when they finally 'make it'. I'm worried that artificially helping rookie or low-performing teams could have the opposite effect when teams manage to take their robot and team to the next level and then realize that it hasn't really helped them that much.
As a bit of an aside, how do you propose doing the schedule for regionals if you use regional data to make the schedules for the Championship? Use the previous year's data? Default back to numbering?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
The best possible solution is to have a totally random match schedule. But obviously, this new algorithm is here to stay. I believe the system I proposed (or something similar.. basically anything that uses power to split teams and not number..) is a good way to make everyone happy in Atlanta. We get our competition, and FIRST gets their co-opertition.
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We're certainly in agreement that a totally random match schedule is the best solution. I don't think that the new system is necessarily here to stay, though; I think FIRST has done a pretty good job over the years of letting good decisions stand and correcting bad ones. (In my opinion, the move to alliances and the addition of bumpers were good decisions that were kept; the move to 4-vs.-0 was a bad decision that was reversed. On the other hand, the serpentine draft is still around.)