IRI - Dates, Info and Rule Ideas

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I remember an off season last year (Battlecry if memory serves me correctly) got really lenient with the zone incursion rules and teams abused the lanes all day long to get tubes they would not have been allowed to get during the season.

You remember correctly about the rule change at Battlecry, but it wasn't just referee leniency and team abuse of the rules.

Last year, Battlecry made one of their official rule changes (for the 2011 game) to have the protected lanes end at the lane divider, instead of continuing to the tower. The change was an official rule change published and announced to all teams competing at the event, not just a leniency by the referees. Accordingly, it wasn't that the teams were abusing the rules -- they were just playing by the Battlecry-modified rules.

Actually, I think that Battlecry "shorter protected lanes" rule change was the best I saw all year for any of the off-season tournaments we attended -- it eliminated nearly all of the "accidental lane crossing" penalties. However, the rule change did tip the game balance a little more towards offense than defense.

Back to the theme of the original topic -- in general, I like rule changes (for IRI or other off-season tournaments) that are very minor tweaks that don't really affect the balance of the game but are instead to "fix" problems in the rules that weren't apparent before the game was really played but that are consistent with the original game design. I tend to like rules that get rid of "incidental" penalties that don't give a significant advantage/disadvantage to either team (this year's accidental touch of the other alliance's bridge for a 9-point penalty is a good example of a penalty that could be changed).

However, I really don't like rule changes that tip the balance to one kind of robot, as there are teams that designed their robots to play the original game, and changing the game rules often has the effect of essentially "playing favorites" to some types of robots.

For example, giving a 3-point bonus to all shots from the far side of the barrier would favor long-distance shooters over fender shooters, so I don't think such a rule change would be fair. Similarly, a rule change which gives more points for Kinect hybrid-scoring over non-Kinect hybrid-scoring wouldn't be fair to all teams, either. Add to that list rule changes that allow robots to hold more than 3 balls, or receive bonus points for balls scored from on top of a bridge, or

Part of the realization is that *any* rule change tends to favor some robots over others -- the trick is coming up with rule changes that really serve to help all teams!

Even rule changes that initially seem to help all teams equally are likely to favor some teams over others. For instance, increased match length will favor robots optimized for shooting rather than balancing, as increased match time gives more opportunities for teleop baskets, but doesn't give more opportunities for balance points. Longer matches would also favor teams which use less of their battery during a match -- however, those teams might have intentionally designed their robot to use most of their battery in a regulation-length match.

In sum, I tend to like rule changes which reduce annoyances in the penalties without affecting game play.