Quote:
Originally Posted by dtengineering
If there were too many matches decided by penalties, I would suggest that is the fault of the teams rather than the fault of the game. I humbly suggest to those teams that do not like receiving penalties that they try very, very hard to avoid them.
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I agree. Seriously, it isnt very hard to stop your robot from going back over the line. The penalties were not put in just for kicks, or to add another dimension to gameplay (even though they arguably did add another dimension to a team's strategy). The purpose of the penalty was to keep the teams moving in the right direction. With a penalty so harsh and with the clearly stated rules, it seems obvious to me that they want continuous flow of traffic. The penalty was designed to negate the sequence of hurdling and then passing under the overpass. If the penalties were fewer points, it would be worth it for a team to go backwards for a trackball, because after they hurdle it and get the two points for a lap they will have gained ten points. In this situation the point of the game is ruined because teams would go backwards, and there wouldn't be continuous flow of traffic in the right direction. Clearly when the game was created that is what they were trying to avoid.
My team recently competed at WPI BattleCry and they modified G22 so that the entire robot must cross over the line to get a penelty as opposed to just a small portion. With this addition to the rules hardly a single match was decided by penalties, not only that but I would bet that more than half the matches were penalty free.
Even with the penalties I still think overdrive was a great game, it was really exciting, and seriously, has there ever been a game piece as great as a trackball.