Quote:
Originally Posted by Swampdude
The week 1 results won't show this because they didn't start figuring it out until Saturday.
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Pish-posh. Many of us figured it out a few days after kickoff -- and just assumed that most teams would play to win *anyway* in the *spirit* of the game, as opposed to by its letter. Please give the rest of us a bit more credit in the smarts department than you are. Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swampdude
However, those who can't convince alliances of 6v0 are kind of screwed.
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118 qualifying points and 22 hanging points shows that your statement here is false. We faced several situations where our alliance partners and our opponents wanted us to engage in this 6v0 shenanigans, and my drivers and field coach (who is a student, by the way) would have none of it. And good on them.
We were quite decidedly *not* screwed.
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Steve (by the way you're the best MC ever, even if you are from that weird, freezing area north of the Big Lake), I think it *is* fair to criticize teams who make decisions based solely on "winning", as opposed to "winning the right way". We can argue all day and night about the fuzzy definition of "winning the right way", but like GP, it's something that probably doesn't need a fully codified definition.
The biggest problem with 6v0 is that penalties will cause the "winning" team to "lose" every time -- and there's something terribly wrong with that. By negotiating a 6v0 game, whoever the "winning" alliance is chosen to be has a better chance of getting less points than the "losing" alliance, and that's just plain not right.
This is the first FIRST competition that has ever left a bad taste in my mouth. Like something smelly on the bottom of my shoe, I don't have to see it to know what it is.
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On a side note, 6v0 is patently unfair to teams that would otherwise be breakaway stars. It is not right to pressure them into a 6v0 game.
In week one, we *owned* the tower. We got 22 hanging points -- which is higher than any other team at any other regional by 6 points. (Except perhaps Peachtree -- their stats aren't coming up on usfirst.org, so I can't check them.) If we were chosen to be on the '0' team, and we had non-assertive drivers who could be intimidated -- even unintentionally -- by older and/or generally more successful teams, then we would deliberately *not* hang from the tower and would deliberately *not* use ball starvation in the mid-zone -- denying us the opportunity to show what we are so darn good at.
I really, truly feel for any team that enters into a 6v0 game and loses the opportunity to present the greatness of what they have accomplished over six weeks to the scouts of the other teams, to the judges, to the fans, and to their sponsors. Most of these people want to see you *win games*, and won't care much about a long-winded explanation of why it's ok because of qualifying points and seeding strategies.
Not trying to win every game with the most impressive feats of robotism you are capable of is equivalent to *selling out*. Like selling out, it might be clever, and it might benefit you in the short term, but...
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On a final note, I predict that, in the end, 6v0 will not be all that effective. We didn't engage in it even once -- not even a little.
What was effective? Good game strategy, a well-engineered and robust robot, good communication amongst alliance partners, and a winning spirit. And charged batteries -- don't forget those.