[StephLee]

While I wasn't around during the years without alliances, I don't think I'd like to play a game without them. The only way you could avoid the unofficial alliances that would form would be to isolate each robot in its own section of the field, each doing their tasks with no interference from the others. I'm sure if you thought hard enough you could make a somewhat interesting game this way, but it takes away from the excitement, especially for the spectators.

Also, from the perspective of a three-year drive team member, the easiest way to get to know people from another team is by playing with them in a match. The bond you can form with your partners in the eliminations is almost like the bond a sports team has at the end of their season, just condensed into a few fast-paced and adrenaline-filled hours. I don't think that would happen without alliances.



This isn't necessarily on the topic of "alliances vs. no alliances," but it's a similar subject (and my personal feeling on how to make alliances "better"):

Last year, a single good shooting robot could usually win a match by itself if paired against less-than-great opponents; 7 balls in a match plus one robot on the ramp would negate the ramp bonus of all three opponents. We ended up in such a situation last year quite frequently: all our opponents and partners in the qualifiers had about the same scoring capability, and we knew we could outscore most of them (with a little defensive help from our partners, of course). This year, however, one good scoring robot is hard-pressed to beat an entirely defensive opposing alliance if that alliance has a set of 12-inch lifts, especially if the scoring robot has partners that are only partly working during that match - or ones that can't make it to the field for whatever reason.

The point of all that? I'd personally like to see the GDC make it easier again for one good scorer to outlast an alliance of "non-scorers" (meaning robots that can't score anything but bonus). While bonus is obviously incredibly important this year, it also isn't possible for one robot to score bonus alone. If one robot can make up for "deficiencies" in alliance partners, individual rankings might better reflect the individual robot's capabilities without taking away the partnership aspect of the game.