What was good about Aerial Assist?

[SkittlesCharge]

Taking a bit of inspiration from this thread, what did you like about Aerial Assist?

[nuggetsyl]

It ending.

[Jibsy]

The strategy. The value of an effective strategy and driving ability in eliminations this year was huge - and there was enough diversity and development throughout the season to keep things interesting.

In quals, due to limited time, chemistry, and robot ability, putting together a strategy can be less than exciting; however, when elims hit - it's a whole new game.

[Joe G.]

When played at a high level, arguably the best spectator game FRC has ever seen.

The dynamic where every team, no matter how offensively strong, needed to be able to provide defense at key points in matches.

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

When played at a high level, arguably the best spectator game FRC has ever seen.

Agreed. Because every game piece meant something. Games like Ultimate Ascent are hard to keep track of. With a game where there are only two game pieces it's easy to follow a "scoring drive." And every score is something to celebrate. There's a build and tension akin to playing a "real" sport that many spectators are familiar with. It's very impressive to watch at a high level. In previous years spectating went something like this:

1. Mayhem on the field
2. Game pieces flying
3. ????
4. SCORES!

Though the rules of Aerial Ascent are convoluted and complicated and difficult to explain, the gravity of moments on the field were not compared to previous years' games.

[TheHolyHades1]

While others may disagree with me, I think this is possibly one of the best games FIRST has come out with. The true alliance dynamic needed to score meant that a powerhouse team could not just go in and do all of the scoring, as has happened in the past and was the case with ultimate ascent, for example. The alliance needed to strategize (which also meant that scouting was more important than ever) and really work to each other's strengths while trying to mitigate the other's weaknesses. This allowed pure defense/inbounding robots to be very valuable to a team, and really gave rookies and low budget teams a fighting chance to make it to a high level. I've seen someone say that FIRST has rookie awards to get rookies to St. Louis for inspiration; I'd go as far as saying this year's game was designed to do the same ... and boy has it worked.

[GKrotkov]

Originally Posted by TheHolyHades1

While others may disagree with me, I think this is possibly one of the best games FIRST has come out with. The true alliance dynamic needed to score meant that a powerhouse team could not just go in and do all of the scoring, as has happened in the past and was the case with ultimate ascent, for example. The alliance needed to strategize (which also meant that scouting was more important than ever) and really work to each other's strengths while trying to mitigate the other's weaknesses. This allowed pure defense/inbounding robots to be very valuable to a team, and really gave rookies and low budget teams a fighting chance to make it to a high level. I've seen someone say that FIRST has rookie awards to get rookies to St. Louis for inspiration; I'd go as far as saying this year's game was designed to do the same ... and boy has it worked.

I agree wholeheartedly. This game has had some incredible matches, often in which if it were anything other than Aerial Assist, would have a different result. For example, in Quals 5 @ Hatboro Horsham (MAR); 1712, 4954, and 87 defeated 103, 25, and 1640. This is a match that we had no historical right to win, and would have lost in any other game. Even in the context of aerial assist, this was an upset. One low goal bot, one H.P. trusser, and a robot was broken faced a catcher/finisher, and two high goal robots (one a soft lob) and won.

EDIT: This was also a first week event. Perhaps that makes it less impressive, perhaps more so, but I'm pretty confident it's relevant.

[Pault]

This was a game designed to be played at a world championships level. When we got there, it was awesome. At championships eliminations, you were almost guaranteed to have a good inbounder and trusser that will get the ball to the finisher in a decent amount of time. Sure, some were faster and more reliable than others, and defense made a difference, but there was no anguishing over a ball that is stuck in the back half of the field for half the match. And so what happened was now the finishers got to really show off what they were made of. To some extend, we were back to where really good robots could dominate. And I was inspired to see a showdown between 2 amazing finishers, 254 and 1114. Because they built amazing robots that really shone above the rest. That is what made champs awesome for me.

I don't think FRC was ready for this kind of game though. There are still too many box-of-rocks on wheels at the regional level, and nowhere near enough teams with the capacity to shoot the ball. Maybe if they made the ball smaller so that more teams would be able to handle it, then this game would have been OK. But even then, I think we would be better off just going back to the days of every robot doing their own thing and giving every robot the chance to show off what they brought to the competition (i.e. being able to use your shooter even if it is really inaccurate). If FIRST is insistent on coopertition, something like 2012 would be awesome; coopertition is valuable but not the only way to win, and almost any robot could do it.

[Matt17]

This game, more than others, left more to strategy in determining who would do they best which I liked. Although this might have been one of the best finals I have ever seen, other games overall have been more interesting and exciting.

[seanthompson]

I understand the frustration of having weak robots on your alliance pulling you down, but a large part of it is how you could use these robots, even if they were unable to pick up the ball. Herding counted for possesion, and many succesful strategies involved the best team on an alliance in quals to be the "middle-man", transfering the ball between the weaker teams, and still getting the 3 assists. Overall, I thought it was such a great game because the only thing that really limited you was the quality of your strategy.

[thatprogrammer]

Originally Posted by seanthompson

I understand the frustration of having weak robots on your alliance pulling you down, but a large part of it is how you could use these robots, even if they were unable to pick up the ball. Herding counted for possesion, and many succesful strategies involved the best team on an alliance in quals to be the "middle-man", transfering the ball between the weaker teams, and still getting the 3 assists. Overall, I thought it was such a great game because the only thing that really limited you was the quality of your strategy.

At the SF regionals at least, I found that while weak teams did make a match harder to win, it was mostly teams that refused to follow strategy that made teams lose. Our robot was unable to pick up the ball from the ground, but we where a very consistent truss passer, allowing us to get the 6th seeded position. In matches that we played with team that weren't the best, we simply made them play defense *and that tended to help quite a bit*, but teams that refused to do that much where one of the reasons we lost the 3 matches we did before the elimination rounds. In short, I think that FRC was alright with encouraging rookie teams this year, but could have been better. Perhaps 2 game pieces per an alliance would be the best way to fix any issues with teams that don't listen to strategy and teams that aren't the best.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

When played at a high level, arguably the best spectator game FRC has ever seen.

The dynamic where every team, no matter how offensively strong, needed to be able to provide defense at key points in matches.

I would definitely agree with you - it was pretty darn entertaining when there were two high powered alliances on the field. I don't know which game I liked best - AA or UA.

[kghaemi96]

The fact that 99.99% of the game relied on the entire alliance rather than a single team carrying everyone else. It left everyone (hopefully) with a feeling of companionship and teamwork. I hope they continue the concept of working together in this manner. It is something that was executed beautifully.

Only discrepancy was the refs. They can only do so much in a game as complex as this. They should have gotten more refs to allow for fewer errors.

[Joel Glidden]

I loved every bit of it except for feeling sorry for the poor refs who needed to watch everything at once. This game was a blast to play and great to watch as well.

Bravo, GDC! Please don't stray too far from this model next year.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

It ending.

Originally Posted by Joe G.

When played at a high level, arguably the best spectator game FRC has ever seen.

The dynamic where every team, no matter how offensively strong, needed to be able to provide defense at key points in matches.

This may have been one of the worst games to watch at the regional level, and play at the regional level. However, the Division eliminations and Einstein play was beyond phenomenal, and when you have such great teams work together, it truly created what was oneo f the most exciting games to watch. But there lies our problem: It's only exciting when you have the best of the best play it. At the regional level when you have partners that can barely move and assist, the game fails, and tournaments are decided by the random number generator.