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Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... That rule is not a penalty, it is a condition. Teams need to pay attention to that condition and make a decision as to if it's worth it or not to 2x or 3x their opponents score.
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Yes, the rule is a condition, but the effects of said condition are penalizing. What you say is true about making a decision of whether or not is it worth it to outscore an opponent by two or three times their score, but not in a game like this. The score was extremely hard to measure until after the game was finished and the balls were counted. I do not think that the drivers had enough time to make an accurate judgment based on an estimation of moon-rocks in
three different trailers. Also, with the risk of having the opposing alliance score super-cells, it was a much better option in most cases to just score as much as possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
FIRST is about people and inspiration, not robots.
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This is very, very true. However, during the actual game, one would think that the robots, not the humans, should be the ones doing most of the scoring. Compared to last year, human players had an infinitely larger role, especially with this year's endgame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
I'd like to see this as well, however the last few times that the endgame mattered people complained that it was worth too much (ramps in '07, hanging in '05).
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I would love to see a more intense autonomous period and an endgame as well. There were virtually no incentives to scoring in autonomous this year, apart from scoring on an immobile trailer (and that's only if the opponent's robot's autonomous mode did not last the whole period and if your robot had target-tracking and some darn good code.) Also, GDC seemingly took the massive amounts of points scored in the endgame the past few years into account. Overdrive's endgame bonus seemed completely fair and balanced last year. While it's true that some teams carefully loaded super-cells into their robot during the last twenty seconds, most teams left them in the hands of their HP's. Again, I don't think that the HP's should have played
such a large role. (That's not to say cross-court super-cell shots weren't epic!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
really? Then please explain 67 and 217 dominating their tournements. This year threw a curveball at the veterans, true ... but it, in no way, leveled the playing field, nor should the GDC try and level the playing field. IMHO
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Very true again, regarding 67 and 217. Though off the top of my head, I can think of numerous rookie teams that did just as well if not better than most of the veterans: 2753, 2775, etc. While it's true that veterans generally have had the upper hand, this year things seemed to be a bit different. I don't want to generalize teams, but as a whole, I saw more two and three digit teams fall to 4-digit teams than last year; heck, four digit teams in the 2000's to be more precise. I recall two teams (2655 and 2415) overcoming the 1st alliance in the quarterfinals at Peachtree. They went on to win the regional, with 2415 winning a second regional at Palmetto. 2775 made it to the finals of their division, and 2753 was on Einstein. These are just examples I experienced personally. There are probably many more that I can't think of. I
do think that the playing-field was leveled this year, and I think FIRST was right in designing a game that did so.