3 Teams Per Side Too Many?

[ben281]

hey everyone!
i just wanted the opinions out there whether the increase in robots on the field increases the luck involved and if so is it worth it to help move through more matches quicker? i know there were lots of good teams that got lower seeds than expected because of this. let me hear what you guys think!
Ben
TEAM 281

[DarkJedi613]

No, I think it worked out fine (but remember that almost all the floor was available for use this year, unlike other years).

And I think it'll be kept to allow larger regionals/championship and to allow more matches.

[blckconsolation]

I still think it's too many. I know during the 2005 Championships that were just over, Hrt was pretty high up, then shot down because of bad luck. T_T. I still think that it should be focused more on each individual robot... teamwork is nice, but it involves too much luck.

[MOEmaniac]

I think it worked really good and that since the field size was increased it worked even better. And with more teams per side it made it so that not just one team could be the deciding factor in a match.

[petek]

Originally Posted by MOEmaniac

I think it worked really good and that since the field size was increased it worked even better. And with more teams per side it made it so that not just one team could be the deciding factor in a match.

[Warning: one person arguing with himself here]

From a philosophical perspective, I agree on both points, and I thought the game was especially entertaining and exciting this year.

I think this question might be rephrased to "which is more important: striving toward field dominating performance, or gracious professionalism?"

(Making a rash generalization) I expect that many teams which had otherwise dominating performance negated by weaker partners would argue that this 3 vs 3 performance-averaging approach makes luck too important a factor in seeding.

My own team might fall into this category, but I am not ready to blame the system. Even though we don't believe our seeding in Atlanta represented what we actually did on the field, we had a great year and Atlanta pointed out those areas where we had weaknesses. Maybe the GP way to look at this is that 3 vs 3 raises the bar for strong teams.

[Joe Johnson]

I think 3 on 3 is probably too complex for its own good. I think the thinking was that we will get more folks playing more rounds. Partly that worked but partly it didn't. It worked in the regionals in that more matches were given, but it did not seem to work for the Championships in that only 7 matches were played per team.

In my opinion, 7 is to few to sort things out. I am not sure what the right number is but 7 with 84 teams was too low.

One think I DID like is that the entire alliance played every match not just at least once per round.

Read here for proposal for tournament structure that keeps some of the things I like and gets rid of some of the things I don't.

Joe J.

[Lil' Lavery]

I enjoyed 3v3 more than 2v2 for several reasons.
a) more matches
b)even if 1 robot breaks or doesnt show, 2 robots vs. 3 isnt always a loss, like it often was in a 1v2.
c)more strategic options
d)more action on the field
e)more room to create a "team" in the eliminations
What I mean by the last one is, in a 2v2 scenario, you have only 1 other robot to fill out your alliance during any one match, so you choose the robot that best helps you, and you alone. But with 2 others, you can create an alliance with more specific roles for each robot. Instead of 1 offensive bot and 1 defensive, or 1 capper and 1 hanger, ect., you have 1 "physical" defensive bot, 1 speed capper, and 1 height capper, or something like that.

[Jim Meyer]

Originally Posted by petek

I think this question might be rephrased to "which is more important: striving toward field dominating performance, or gracious professionalism?"

I don't think that gradious professionalism and "dominating performance" are at odds with each other in FIRST. If we want FIRST robotics to be more of a sport than a science fair I think competition is a key element. If FIRST wants to gain mainstream appleal good robots should seed at the top. Poor ones should be at the bottom.

Like Dr. Joe mentioned, the randomness isn't any worse than previous years if the numper of matches played goes up appropriately. I think this was the problem at Nationals. Didn't we play 8 matches last year? I was expecting 10 or more this year.

I think this year was better than last on a whole. The Regionals did play more matches to help with the randomness issues. I loved the fact that all the robots played all the time in the finals. It worked well with this year's game but could be pure chaos with a different type of game. I might be a little biased though.

[Amanda N.]

I agree with what a lot of people have been saying in here so far.. I definitely was glad to have more matches (my team usually only gets to go to one competition, so it's nice to have as many matches as possible there). I think the games are more interesting/exciting (but harder to keep track of) with 6 robotics out there. It's nice to get to work with more teams, too.

I think it would be wierd to go back to 2 vs 2 next year.. I got used to having 2 other teams in the driver station, and maybe this is just me, but I think it would seem more simple/small/boring (well, a robotics comp. could never be boring.. I just can't think of the right word for what I'm trying to say right now though) with just 2 teams per alliance again.

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by DarkJedi613

...And I think it'll be kept to allow larger regionals/championship and to allow more matches.

I like having more robots on the field - Tripleplay was fantastic. But having three robots allows either a larger regional/championship or more matches, not both. How many matches did you have in your division last year? We might have got one more match, not 1.5 times as many, as you might have expected.

----An aside----
Having more matches makes luck less of a factor. If each team played 100 matches, you can bet that the most robust, best performing robots would be at the top, and luck would have evened itself out. Of course, this isn't feasible or even necessarily desirable, but there has to be some number of matches that's between 7 and 100 that would give us an acceptable balance between luck and skill.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I like having more robots on the field - Tripleplay was fantastic. But having three robots allows either a larger regional/championship [b]or[\b] more matches, not both. How many matches did you have in your division last year? We might have got one more match, not 1.5 times as many, as you might have expected.

It can allow both, you increase both the amount of teams and the amount of matches slightly, instead of one by a lot. Personally I think too many matches is a bad thing, if you robot breaks you may have to miss two, perhaps three matches before its fixed instead of one.

I think it is a must.

• More teams on the field = more matches per team, more matches per team = more practice, more practice = better performances in Atlanta.
  
• 3v3 provides a completely new experience for strategy and scouting. For teams that have several scouts watching matches, it gives an extra job to someone who normally would sit there bored. From a strategy perspective it gives you another team to pay attention to and another partner to keep track of. It's a nice change.
  
• Finally, FIRST is just getting too big for 2v2. I'm willing to guess the 3v3 is on the same reasoning for why they went to 2v2 alliances in 99
  

[omutton]

I think 3 on 3 is fine, more Regional Champions . Also, it is more exciting to watch with 3 on 3.

[blckconsolation]

Haha okay... so I loose. But I still think that 3 is too many. T_T.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by omutton

I think 3 on 3 is fine, more Regional Champions

3 teams always win regionals just in the past when it was 2 vs 2 not everyone played all the matches but the number of winners stayed the same.

i think 3 vs 3 was great fun..there were alot more options and you are also less likely to get a bad alliance like in previous years. i think it also made teams think more about the dynamic of the alliance for elims because all teams played instead of swapping out every time.

I think we will see 3 vs 3 again and i will happily welcome it