Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
Yet what happens in qualifiers with regards to seeding doesn't indicate what can happen with a given bot on an alliance. Who in their right mind forms an alliance based upon robots that are best at deciding which alliance to score for (including the opposition)?
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Every alliance should go in to a qualification match with a strategy to maximise their seeding pts (which post TU16 includes 5 pts for winning). Should every alliance so into a qual match looking to play defence? No, I'd say its generally not in the alliance's best interest to play more than situational defence unless one or more robots are incapable of moving balls. So why use a statistic that assumes that everyone is trying to play defence all match if defence isn't necessarily sound strategy.
If you are playing defence all match you better win and get those seeding points (successfully executing your strategy). Depending on the depth of your regional, the best 2nd picks probably are flexible and play a mix of offence and defence depending on the situation in their matches. From my observation bots that play "defence only" in qualifications either do so because that's their mentality/bot speciality (very few) or that's all they can do effectively (includes dead bots placed in front of one goal). Do you really want to blindly pick a "defence only" bot based on DPR statistics?
I actually dont think you can find a 2nd pick defender this for this year's game using DPR statistics nor will the statistics even point you in the right direction. Last year DPR was pretty good at identifying how much your trailer got scored on, which was very important to consider. Anecdotally, I looked back at DPR stats for the regional I attended (MD) and 2 of the top 3 DPR teams were dead in 2+ of their matches. The other had a defensive mentality and ended up an Alliance captain. However the best defender from my viewpoint was in the middle of the pack in both OPR/DPR. You have to look at machine/driver capabilities and project them into your elim strategy.
Can they change zones? Are they quick and manoeuvrable? Good driving instincts? Can they clear ball out of the zone? There arent statistics for these.
Keep in mind that your best defensive bots could be playing striker and scoring all through the quals. Defence and striker are very similar roles. Unless the defender is completely shutting the striker down, I'd pick the striker over the defender to play defence.
The seeding pts system is far from perfect. However, they should be the goal of any good qual strategy. They may be too noisy to derive a good statistic from but atleast in a way they reward successful execution of strategy. If you could normalise them by taking into consideration partner and/or opponent I think they would make a better statistic than DPR for this year.