Do we want another game without defense?

[Loose Screw]

Recycle Rush had to be one of the most controversial games since 2009. Separating the field and eliminating defense was a bold decision, and we must now ask ourselves: was this decision the right direction for FIRST?

Let's start with some of the complaints that we originally had. The game would be boring with the lack of defense. This was true for week 1, but as teams made final adjustments, they started to contribute more to their alliances. With the lack of defense, teams could spend less time repairing their robots and more time making improvements. Watching teams constantly improve is very exciting to see, and is a major component of FIRST.

Autonomous mode would be overpowered.
Scoring in autonomous mode was useful, but never was overpowered. Teams that could score 20-28 points in auto were rewarded, but would still have to score their best to win.

Teams can't upset or make comebacks.
This year was rather predictable. In Michigan, 17/18 districts the #1 alliance won. Even at MSC the #1 alliance won. This was reflected at most regionals. However, 4 out of the 8 alliances that won their divisions weren't #1. Upsets can happen. As for comebacks, the #1 alliance in Archimedes scored only 43 points in their first semi-final. They scored 197 in their next, but not enough to bring their average up. It was in their last match when they scored 274 and went on to win their division. Comebacks and upsets did happen.

Now let's look at some of the positives that came from a lack of defense.

Teams could build unique and creative robots
Without robots clashing against each other, teams could build outside of traditional frame perimeter restrictions. Back in 2010, there were two robot designs: 469 and a box. There were very few teams that could have creative designs. This year, however, every team could be a 469. There were teams without drive trains, with unique drive trains, and even dual robots. Teams could focus more on solving the challenge than surviving it.

Teams were competing against themselves, rather than each other.
Teams had to constantly evolve to compete. The high score from last week would be the average for the next. Teams would compete against each other at events, but learn from each other when they're not. Some saw others use a tethered ramp, then proceeded to double their average at their next event.

Scoring was more visible.
In previous years, scoring was in real-time. Soccer balls and Basket balls were automatically counted as they were scored. Frisbees were stored in the goal; the final score being announced after they counted everything. With Recycle Rush, totes stayed (hopefully) where they were scored. People looking at a field could easily see which alliance was scoring more. This is a small nitpick, but looking at a row of perfect stacks your team put up is pretty cool.

I would like to now address the cans in the room.

Recycle Rush was an experiment of trying to have a "competition" without defense. Or that's what it looks like. Recycle Rush had a single element of defense: can wars. If you look at Einstein, the alliances that won were the ones that won the can wars. Once an alliance lost the can war, they lost. They couldn't score anywhere close to the can race winners. This led to matches being determined in the first few seconds. Those matches were still exciting to watch, but you knew who would win.

Recycle Rush was an experiment. I personally enjoyed watching this game. I loved seeing all the creative and unique ways of solving the challenge. Teams could learn from each other and try new things, preparing them for years to come. I would love to see future games without defense. However, if we see another defenseless game, I want it to be free of defense. No can races, no stray litter, just teams scoring their best.

So what do you think, would you like to see a split field in future years, or go back to more outplays and upsets?

[Paul Boehringer]

no step please. not again.

[Brad Hanel]

On contrary to "Teams can't upset or make comebacks," at the two regionals I went to, the winning alliances were the #6 and #7. Prior to this year I had never been to one where an alliance outside the top 3 won.

I loved Recycle Rush, and I feel the awesomely creative robot designs are more fun to watch than a game with defence. What other game would have harpoons and multiple robots?

If there's an issue I have with this game, it's the average points ranking system, not the lack of defense.

But by the poll it seems I'm in the minority on this one.

[jman4747]

I can't say yes/no, but I would say not back to back. There is a place for another later though.

[The other Gabe]

I had no major issues with this game, except that it encouraged me to root for others to fail so that my alliance could move on (which happened a lot time at worlds: the Curie finalist alliance of 3663 1574 2046 and 5586 got there because other teams messed up big time and we only had minor screw ups. that and canburglaring). however, I really liked 2014, where it was easy for a team with few resources to do well by getting really good at defense. In all, I dont really want another year of no defense next year, but I dont think it would be harmful for this to happen every once in a while

[smart1]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

I had no major issues with this game, except that it encouraged me to root for others to fail so that my alliance could move on (which happened a lot time at worlds: the Curie finalist alliance of 3663 1574 2046 and 5586 got there because other teams messed up big time and we only had minor screw ups. that and canburglaring). however, I really liked 2014, where it was easy for a team with few resources to do well by getting really good at defense. In all, I dont really want another year of no defense next year, but I dont think it would be harmful for this to happen every once in a while

That bothered me rooting for others to fail.

[AndrewPospeshil]

I find that although this was a much more boring game, the robots became more exciting. 2014 had plenty of robot designs, but it was nothing compared to this year. Now for teams this is really exciting - I think I squealed when I saw 900's cheesecaked harpoons. However, for spectators this has less of an effect I think. The difference between a field with similar or varied robots is fairly negligible to someone who doesn't know much about FRC robots imo. Still, it was incredible to see so many different, unorthodox designs compared to other years. Not only that but these robots could win - they weren't simply gimicks (148 is the best example). I feel that the lack of defense/interfernce and multitude of game pieces/tasks really created an incentive for teams to think out of the box. In theory every game should do this, but it's definitely not easy.

On the other hand, this game could be really boring to watch. Every game trends towards being boring in the first few weeks then becoming insane on Einstein, but I feel this year that just wasn't the case. Week 1 and 2 events (especially districts, oh man) looked pretty much like this: a tote would be dispensed, a team would take 30 seconds trying to put it on the platform, and repeat (this was another issue: teams without a gamespec element were pretty much screwed). Many teams could make small stacks but that was about it. Einstein suffered a similar fate, albeit at a much higher tier. Each alliance would make 6 or 7 6-stacks in their own little areas, and there was very little variation between matches. The obvious exception is the can stealing battles: they were great to watch. Our 35 second tug-of-war in Archimedes playoffs was the best part of any match this whole season. Einstein was determined by who got the best can-stealing selections - this is why the 1023/2338 alliance got knocked out immediately; their can-stealers just weren't fast enough. And even then, the can-stealing created an arms race that becomes a little insane imo. Karthik said something at his seminar about how the minibot arms race a few years ago got to the point where teams were using dry ice to speed up their mini bots' motors. This arms race was probably less insane, but there was lots of surgical tubing involved still - a dangerous amount of potential energy. I feel this arms race wasn't as bad, but still could've created a disaster.

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

I had no major issues with this game, except that it encouraged me to root for others to fail so that my alliance could move on

THIS one was especially bad. Now granted that comes with the upside (in my opinion, at least) of an average score system vs a win/loss system, but I hated rooting against other teams. I really miss last year when I could pick an alliance I wanted to win every match - this year we almost had to pray for our friends to drop stacks if they were competing for the same playoff spot as us.

My post strayed a quite a bit from the actual lack of defense aspcect of this game (oops!) but I really can't cast a vote. At the beginning of the season I would've voted a definite "no", but after this year's metagame evolved to accomadate the lack of defense I just can't. But I also won't vote "yes", because that just presented a whole SLEW of problems this year.

[JohnSchneider]

No defense is fine as long as there's more interactions. You can't tell me an FRC sized "Clean Sweep" wouldn't be fun.

[MrTechCenter]

I personally dislike not having defense very much, but if FIRST is going to do a game with no defense again, they need to have only 2 robots on each side of the field. However, this would mean that everyone would get fewer matches at each event they attend. So...defense, please!

[cad321]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

You can't tell me an FRC sized "Clean Sweep" wouldn't be fun.

This was a very fun game to play in vex and I'm certain it would a great one to do in FRC. Autonomous ranged anywhere from basic drive forward, to a complex series of movements going about the field collecting and then scoring pieces in the auto period. Also in this game defense is an option. Should something like this come to frc, at least 1 team (most certainly more) would make a robot that could put up large wall to defend their side.

[Hjelstrom]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

No defense is fine as long as there's more interactions. You can't tell me an FRC sized "Clean Sweep" wouldn't be fun.

Yes!

[Josh Goodman]

What makes a game boring? The rules or the gameplay? I think if someone explained to me how basketball is played, I would think that it was shallow and boring, but the players do some incredible things to make it not boring and fun to watch. I found, naturally, that the more creative and effective the machines on the field were, the more fun it was to watch due to the focus being on how effective the offense was and not, like previous years, overcoming defense as well. The "typical" style of FRC game makes the game more exciting for a wider range of random robots during qualifications, but I'd be shocked to hear anyone say that the playoffs this year were any less exciting than years past.

In a way 2008 was similar to this game. Limited defense, less room to maneuver, and limited alliance interaction. I think games like this are refreshing every few years. I prefer games that resemble offesnive/defensive-style play, but I absolutely don't think "olympic trial-style" play should be eliminated from the FRC vocabulary.

It's all about keeping it fresh which the GDC has been doing for many, many years and my hat's off to them.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by jman4747

I can't say yes/no, but I would say not back to back. There is a place for another later though.

Same here - not as a "new normal", but as one of the ways to shake things up and make sure that everyone's solving the challenge, not just rehashing what they did the past few years because they know it.

And there were definitely some upsets at the high levels - on Carson, the #1 alliance (lead by 254 The Cheezy Poofs) was eliminated in quarters and the #5 alliance went to Einstein. A tangled auto and a stack placed atop litter toppled another in the first round, and a robot fell over the second during auto - end of season. Once on Einstein, the other top alliance anticipated prior to CMP (148 Robowranglers allied with 1114 Simbotics) went down in semis - it was the #4 alliance that took the gold and the #5 that took silver. While I did not notice any 3/7 victories, I did see several 4/6 can splits which were won by the team with only four RCs.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Same here - not as a "new normal", but as one of the ways to shake things up and make sure that everyone's solving the challenge, not just rehashing what they did the past few years because they know it.

And there were definitely some upsets at the high levels - on Carson, the #1 alliance (lead by 254 The Cheezy Poofs) was eliminated in quarters and the #5 alliance went to Einstein. A tangled auto and a stack placed atop litter toppled another in the first round, and a robot fell over the second during auto - end of season. Once on Einstein, the other top alliance anticipated prior to CMP (148 Robowranglers allied with 1114 Simbotics) went down in semis - it was the #4 alliance that took the gold and the #5 that took silver. While I did not notice any 3/7 victories, I did see several 4/6 can splits which were won by the team with only four RCs.

The two seed alliance from Carson went to Einstein, not the five seed.

[Brandon Zalinsky]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

snip
Those matches were still exciting to watch, but you knew who would win.

snip

How? How can it possibly be exciting if the ending is already ruined for you? If someone spoils your favorite TV show, you're not going to extract as much enjoyment out of the dramatic ending that you would otherwise.

I think a good way to judge the excitement of a game is to watch Einstein and watch the crowd and the people there. This year, the crowd was completely dead, as far as I could see/hear. This was a far cry from any previous year, where sometimes it felt like a minor earthquake in the arena during the finals.

This was due, in my opinion, to exactly what you stated. The crowd knew the match would be decided in the first second of auto, and barring major screwup, they were guaranteed a win. It felt to me like, in football, if the team that loses the cointoss has all their players kneecapped and sent back onto the field with one less guy.

Also,

Originally Posted by Brad Hanel

On contrary to "Teams can't upset or make comebacks," at the two regionals I went to, the winning alliances were the #6 and #7. Prior to this year I had never been to one where an alliance outside the top 3 won.

I do not agree with the premise behind your statement. The "favorite" is not always about seed. At regionals, where scouting quality is lower, the alliance that will obviously win may not be the #1 seed. Often the 1 seed just won schedule roulette and picks a bad first pick. You could take one look at the alliances and say "Whelp the #? seed is stacked, it's all over" and be right most of the time.

At the district championship level of competition, the #1 seed holds much higher value because the scouting is far higher quality and the top team might not just be the schedule roulette winner. The 1 seed would usually pick the right teams and be the best alliance, therefore getting a near guaranteed blue banner. In four of the five District championships, the #1 seed took home the trophy. The exception was PNW, in which the #1 seed lost in the finals.

I promised in January to hold my judgement until I saw this game played. What I saw was incredibly creative and awesome machines playing an atrocious and boring game.

On to 2016.