FIRST Game Survivor: Round 9

[Justin Montois]

Here's how it works. Each week we will "vote off" a past FIRST game until we have our "Survivor"

Voted off
Round 1: 2000- Co-Opertition FIRST
Round 2: 2001- Diabolical Dynamics
Round 3: 1995- Ramp n Roll
Round 4: 2007- Rack n' Roll
Round 5: 2003- Stack Attack
Round 6: 2005- Triple Play
Round 7: 2002- Zone Zeal
Round 8: 1993- Rug Rage

If you are unsure about past games, you can read up on them on the links below:

http://firstwiki.net/index.php/Game


Erich:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=17

Andy Baker:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...7&postcount=18

[Pat Fairbank]

Can you please add Lunacy to the options already so that we can vote it off?

[Travis Hoffman]

Can we fast forward to where 2004 and 2006 duke it out in the finals?

[dodar]

Lets fast forward to where 2004 wins

[EricLeifermann]

I don't get the love for 2006. I have to say I found the game rather boring to watch from the stands, the best part was trying to watch teams try, and mostly fail, to get up on the ramp at the end of the match. The time in between was utterly boring. I didn't find the robots throwing/shooting balls at all exciting. It was a rather easy game to build a robot for, the real challenge that year was to build your robot well enough to get up the ramp. Plus the robots pretty much all looked/did the same thing and that doesn't make for an exciting game to me.

So as you can tell from my post i have been voting off 2006 since 2003 got voted off.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I don't get the love for 2006. I have to say I found the game rather boring to watch from the stands, the best part was trying to watch teams try, and mostly fail, to get up on the ramp at the end of the match. The time in between was utterly boring. I didn't find the robots throwing/shooting balls at all exciting. It was a rather easy game to build a robot for, the real challenge that year was to build your robot well enough to get up the ramp. Plus the robots pretty much all looked/did the same thing and that doesn't make for an exciting game to me.

So as you can tell from my post i have been voting off 2006 since 2003 got voted off.

I beg to differ. Autonomous was the most lively it'd been since 2003, with a strategy that evolved all the way up to Einstein. Teams had to be able to dish out offense and defense; let a team like 254 or 71 get up on the ramp, and the resulting clogged goal made it easy to see that they were doing particularly well. And while many of the robots did the same thing, it was their ability to execute that made the difference.

That said, I agree; can we just skip to the inevitable Aim High vs. FIRST Frenzy finale?

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I don't get the love for 2006. I have to say I found the game rather boring to watch from the stands, the best part was trying to watch teams try, and mostly fail, to get up on the ramp at the end of the match. The time in between was utterly boring. I didn't find the robots throwing/shooting balls at all exciting. It was a rather easy game to build a robot for, the real challenge that year was to build your robot well enough to get up the ramp. Plus the robots pretty much all looked/did the same thing and that doesn't make for an exciting game to me.

So as you can tell from my post i have been voting off 2006 since 2003 got voted off.

I don't understand the 2004 craze, either. Autonomous was a joke and what's the deal with letting human players take away the scoring during the match?

The only problem with 2006, in my opinion, was the autonomous bonus. But come on, what's more exciting than watching a pair of robots simultaneously load up the center goal in the finals? I don't think any of the Einstein matches have been as awesome as the 2006 matches.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

I don't understand the 2004 craze, either. Autonomous was a joke and what's the deal with letting human players take away the scoring during the match?

Well we used that "joke" of an autonomous period to push one of the mobile goals across the field and park it securely in the floor opening on the same side of the field, cutting off 50% of the access those pesky human players had to balls herded from the field. So they can't both be bad things.

We've heard it before - in a nutshell, 2004 was one of the best years for robot functional diversity and design freedom. Everyone could find something to like about the game - that is why it is so popular.

[EricH]

Don't forget that you could get a minefield earlier. 60 (and quite probably 254) did that all the time--knock off the 10-point balls in auto to spill the 5-pointers, thus a) creating a traffic hazard and b) blocking the "mouth" robots, who were most likely still getting in position.

[bobwrit]

This is a repeat, Round #9 got closed about a week ago.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

I don't understand the 2004 craze, either. Autonomous was a joke and what's the deal with letting human players take away the scoring during the match?

The only problem with 2006, in my opinion, was the autonomous bonus. But come on, what's more exciting than watching a pair of robots simultaneously load up the center goal in the finals? I don't think any of the Einstein matches have been as awesome as the 2006 matches.

Really? 2004 was one of my favorite autonomous modes. While the IR beacon ended up being a joke, you could still knock the ball off by following the lines, position mobile goals, or even hang from the bar. What I really like was that there were multiple tasks you could go for, and while they did not necessarily net bonus points, they were strategically significant.

I'd have to agree with Einstein though. 2006 was absolutely crazy, I'm really glad I was in ATL that year.

[Akash Rastogi]

Did this many people really not like Overdrive? I thought it was pretty fun to watch with good robots out on the field like on Einstein and in the divisions.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Did this many people really not like Overdrive? I thought it was pretty fun to watch with good robots out on the field like on Einstein and in the divisions.

I like overdrive but not for the boring matches. The game was kind of boring if you knew what was going on. To the everyday Joe who just walked into the stadium that day the game was very exciting, but not to me.

I liked the game because it had a unique challenge for the robots and made people really think about how they wanted to get the ball over the overpass.

[Ian Curtis]

I wrote a note to the GDC immediately after my first (and only ) regional in 2008. I thought 2008 was the most audience accessible game in my 6 years of FRC.

Originally Posted by Immediately after 2008 Regional

I just returned from our first and only regional. And I'd like to thank the GDC for the amazing work all of you did on this year's game. Out of the 5 games I've played, this one was the most balanced and exciting to watch. It provided the right level of difficulty for teams to build good robots, the level of average competition was above what we usually see. Additionally, the alliances were so close in both machine and driver skill that elimination matches were literally down to the wire every time. Due to the fact that every hurdle was worth so much, the crowd reacted visibly and audibly every time a ball went over, and it was VERY exciting to watch teams desperately try for that last hurdle, place or knockdown as the clock counted down.

Additionally, we felt hybrid was right on the money. It was worth so much you simply had to do it, and I felt this year's hybrid mode was more exciting than 2006's autonomous mode. Additionally, the RoboCoach could be used with great effect. Several teams at our regional used it, and 175 used it extremely well to avoid other robots as they traversed the field. Hybrid allowed teams with limited resources but a bit of ingenuity to make it farther than has ever been possible before. I know the rookie team we've been in contact with made it to the elimination tournament due to their hybrid, and they were ecstatic! They had a tough time raising the money they needed to compete, and plan to use this in their fund raising activities for the upcoming year, as they definitely caught the bug!

Additionally, despite the limited number of scoring options, the robots were all so different! Overall a very, very impressive, balanced, and just plain fun and exciting game.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Did this many people really not like Overdrive? I thought it was pretty fun to watch with good robots out on the field like on Einstein and in the divisions.

It was okay... but it was pretty lacking in the strategy department. Game play itself tended to be fairly repetitive from match to match, making things generally more boring than other games. I did like Overdrive, and I did not vote against it this round, but there are definitely better games out there.


Edit: In response to the post below me (apparently I'm not allowed to post again, is the "ensuring equal participation" message new?)- Eric, I find it funny that you liked eliminations strategy better because I felt we didn't get to put our strategy into action until the finals on Archimedes. Every other match we played or watched before then involved a pretty typical combination of the two stronger offensive teams driving around, picking up the ball, hurdling, lather-rinse-and-repeat while the third alliance partner either drove in circles or played some sort of "prevent the other alliance from getting the ball/scoring the ball" defense. In the Archimedes finals, we kept switching our offensive players during the match which was somewhat interesting to watch, confused the other alliance to no end, and is the only reason we came back after losing the first match. And then we got decimated in semis on Einstein. But yeah... not too much dynamic strategy overall like we've seen in other games.