Alliance picking

[Shu Song]

I would just like to suggestion an idea that would potentially make elimination matches more fair to lower seeded teams.

I've been to many FRC competitions and I seem to see a trend: the 1st seeded alliance almost always picks from the top 8. This should come as a surprise because to be in the top 8 means that your team is very good and should be in higher demand as a first pick. But this also means that the first seeded alliance will almost always ended up with the best alliance and the lower seeded alliances end up with not so good teams. Time after time, I've seen 1st seed alliance just roll through the elimination with ease.

In professional sport drafting, it's usually the teams with the worst records that get the first pick, which makes perfect sense, if your team is already very good, why does it need 2 more great teams to help them through eliminations.

Here are my proposalsthis is an either or, can't have both at the same time)
1. After the top 8 seeded teams are established, reverse the order so that 8th seed gets to draft first and 1st seed drafts last. This is more like professional sports, to help even the playing field, so that one team doesn't always dominate.
2. Make a new rule where no one from the top 8 can choose another team from the top 8. This helps to keep the alliances more balanced, so that 1st seed pick 2nd seed never happens.

I'm open to all forms of criticism, so don't hold anything back.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

You've worked you butt off all day coming up with strategy, coordinating with alliance partners, and executing strategy. You've put everything you have into trying to be #1. On Saturday, you finally achieve that and are ranked #1 at the end of qualification matches, BUT you don't pick first? I'm sorry that just isn't fair to the robots that are #1, 2, etc.
Why would I want my team to be #1 now? Instead, I'm going to try and be #8, even if that may mean losing a match or two.
I'm sure there a plenty of other people that will do almost any/everything to be #1 seed, or in this case #8 seed.

Lets say you have the top 10 teams. The team seeded #1 wants to be seeded 8th so that they can pick first, so they lose a match on purpose. Teams seeded 2, 3, 4, 5 all see how they did this, and they all go out and loose a match to get closer to the #8 seed.
This trend will start to snowball and eventually you will have teams trying to lose more than their opposing alliance.

Why shouldn't the top 8 seeds be able to form the strongest alliance they can?

The problem with comparing a FIRST alliance selection to a pro sports draft, is that professional sports don't have alliance partners. Only one teams wins a championship.
FIRST is unique, and has a unique draft system.

[Meyerman]

at the nj regional team 56 was #1 seed and picked 237 they werent in the top 8.

[Goldeye]

It's to reward them for getting the first seed, essentially. And what's to stop the 8th seed from picking the 1st? Teams would probably even try to drop their rank a bit, to get the first pick. It just wouldn't work.

Likewise, if two teams are good friends, one might blow a match so they can fall out of the top 8 and get picked by their friend.

[David Guzman]

I think that it is fine the way it is. A team woks hard during the event to be in the top 8 and they know that the higher they are the more chances of winnig because they get a better pick. Now if the top 8 couln't pick within the top 8 then maybe the finals wouln'd be as ecxiting because you would have alliances that aren't as strong as they could have been.

The way it is right now there are always strong alliances and it makes things a bit more ecxiting, but thats just me.

Dave

[DukesAZ]

The current system has worked fine for years. I don't see a reason to change it.

In fact of the seven regionals I have attended, I can't of a time where the no.1 seeded alliance has taken home the championship (including the time we were on the no.1 seeded alliance).

[Cory]

To be blunt, I think this is a horrible idea, for the reasons Jeff mentioned and more.

You think people throwing/making "agreements" about matches is bad now? Wait until you institute this system. I think you'd find after about 20-30 matches, that the game would have no point to watching it. They won't be playing triple play, they'll be playing the "Who can get more penalties?" game.

FIRST is not fair. Dean has said so repeatedly. It IS, however, fair to reward the number one seed for doing so well. It's a competition, there are winners, and there are losers.

If #1 decides to pick #2 and they can absolutely dominate everyone, more power to them for making awesome robots.

The game is as fair as it's going to get. Playing best of 3 in the elims gives ANYONE a chance to win. There's no reason we should handicap the best teams.

[StephLee]

Our team didn't go to Pittsburgh, but some of us went to watch. In the final, the lower-seeded team won because they had a better strategy; they had a little rookie bot pulled from the stand-by pool block team 365 (MOE), the best bot on the field in that match if you ask me, and definately the best capper. MOE didn't score as much, so the lower-seeded alliance won.

The point is, even the best bot in the world can be brought down by a well-thought-out strategy and a little determination. Teams on lower-seeded alliances can win. Why should the higher-ranked teams have to submit to letting the playing field be levelled to such a degree that it's not really a fair competition anymore?

People have already made the point that FIRST is entirely different from professional sports, so I don't think I need to say anything about that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention team 53. They were ranked 53rd after the Qualifying Matches, and they wound up on the 1st seeded(and winning) alliance(congrats, guys!).

[sanddrag]

I think one thing that may be a problem is who plays who. I know there is not time for everyone to play everyone but to me it seems unfair for the strongest alliance (#1) to play the weakest alliance (#8) for their first match in the quarterfinals and then alliances 4 and 5 play each other (pretty equal matched). Usually, it is two wins right up front by alliance #1 and alliance #8 is hugely defeated right from the start and it is over for them. But if alliane #1 played alliance #2 and alliance #8 played alliance #7, the lower alliances would have a better chance of proceeding further in the competition and the higher alliances would have a tougher match to play. It would be a closer more competitive match because the robots would generally be more equal. Or maybe the who plays who should be selected at random after alliance pickings. This would eliminate knowing before hand who you have to play and it would also tend to equal things out a bit.

[dangerousdave]

At the Boilermaker Regional, team #93 was dead last (1-9) in the qualifying matches . However, they were picked by a top alliance and went on to be a finalist team. I do not know the reason that they were picked but you can never give up hope!

Perhaps a little tweaking in the way the alliances are selected but overall keep it the same. Dave

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I think one thing that may be a problem is who plays who. I know there is not time for everyone to play everyone but to me it seems unfair for the strongest alliance (#1) to play the weakest alliance (#8) for their first match in the quarterfinals and then alliances 4 and 5 play each other (pretty equal matched). Usually, it is two wins right up front by alliance #1 and alliance #8 is hugely defeated right from the start and it is over for them.

The "top seed plays bottom seed in the first round" is standard procedure for nearly all tournaments, and to me, it makes sense. Usually the #1 alliance beats #8 in FIRST events, but not always. Two examples where that didn't happen are quite memorable to me from last year's Championship. In our division, Currie, #8 beat #1, and #7 beat #2. We were #2, one of the "underachiever" alliances. Oh well.

[kjohnson]

The 8th seeded alliance at VCU beat the 1st seeded alliance in the quarterfinals.

Then they beat the 5th seeded alliance in the semi-finals.

They lost 2-0 in the finals to the 3rd seeded alliance - but they still made it to the finals with supposedly the lowest ranked teams and got plenty of recognition (good and bad). They used a very defensive strategy - sacrificing one robot that could not cap reliably (about 50%) to play very hard defense.

[Joe Ross]

Rather then reversing the top 8 teams, because that already shows favoritism for the teams that do well, why not allow the bottom 8 teams choose their partners? Let the last place team choose first. That's how pro sports work.

Pro Basketball uses a lottery, where the teams have different chances to get the first pick based on how they seeded. Wouldn't a random process be more fair?

Even better, since pro sports are for drafting personnel, why not let the bottom ranked teams draft mentors and/or sponsors. Wouldn't your team love the chance to pick up Andy Baker for your mechanical needs, or Al Skierkiewicz if your electrical is weak, or Andy Grady if you want strategy help. Or maybe you'd get to choose UTC as your sponsor, or maybe you'd prefer Delphi.

[Daniel Brim]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Rather then reversing the top 8 teams, because that already shows favoritism for the teams that do well, why not allow the bottom 8 teams choose their partners? Let the last place team choose first. That's how pro sports work.

Pro Basketball uses a lottery, where the teams have different chances to get the first pick based on how they seeded. Wouldn't a random process be more fair?

The problem with this is potentially as complicated as the problem of a "reverse" draft. People might try to lose every match on purpose so they are virually guaranteed a spot in the finals, unless they miss and don't get picked at all. I could forsee a lot of "thrown" matches because of this.

Personally, I would be in favor of getting rid of the draft altogether, and having a large tournament, like NCAA basketball. 1st, last, and middle against another alliance. The only issue with this is if a regional has an odd number of teams, some would be left out. Each method of picking has its problems, and this is no different.

-Daniel

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by DukesAZ

The current system has worked fine for years. I don't see a reason to change it.

In fact of the seven regionals I have attended, I can't of a time where the no.1 seeded alliance has taken home the championship (including the time we were on the no.1 seeded alliance).

We have been top seed at three regionals since I have been with Team 233 and have won all three times. There is always luck involved, both in being top seed and in winning a competition, but being top seed gives you a huge advantage over every other team in that you are able to pick one of your partners from the entire field. Occasionally they may decline, but not often.