Effect of Coopertition Points

[EricH]

Originally Posted by rawrxp

And coopertition points I believe are worth 2 wins in qualifying score.

I strongly believe that you should read the rules on this...

5.3.3 Qualification Score (QS)
Qualification Points are awarded to each team at the completion of each Qualification Match and are dependant on the final score:
Each team on the winning Alliance will receive two (2) Qualification Points.
Each team on the losing Alliance will receive zero (0) Qualification Points.
In the event of a tied score, all six teams will receive one (1) Qualification Point.
Additional Qualification Points will be awarded to each team on an Alliance equal to any Coopertition Points earned.

The maximum amount of Coopertition points earnable in any given match is 2 points for each alliance per [G41]. Therefore, Coopertition points are worth at most 1 win per match.

Coopertition points can double your effective win total. However, the Coopertition points themselves are worth only one win each time you get them.


Back to the matter at hand:
I've seen some of the rankings changing. The coopertition score really boosted some teams quickly--if a team got a run of coop balances and wins at the same time, they could go from low to high in a few matches. I've seen that when monitoring Fantasy FIRST points live. However, I have no hard data.

I think that the coopertition bridge is the single biggest contributing factor to the relatively high number of elimination upsets this year. Teams that weren't doing so well could balance and score and seed high--and then get taken down by teams that were doing well. But in the process, they could sure split up powerhouses. OTOH, the powerhouses realized very quickly that the Coop bridge was extremely important, and someone on their alliance would go for it every match. This shot them to the top of the rankings at many events--but the triple balance could take them out of competition.

The coopertition bridge, IMO, is one of the best strategic elements the GDC has ever put into an FRC game. It forces you to think about ranking strategy, strategy for relating to other teams, and split-second decisions without good communication with the person you're working with (a real-world challenge). And they got it just about right. Could they have minorly tweaked the point values for either coopertition or winning? Probably. Would it have been nearly as effective? No.

[waialua359]

Eric,
I am not a firm believer in Co-op points as is. Some tweaks need to be done, but I can't seem to come up with suggestions even after reading about the whole GTR East thread and the events that unfolded prior to our last qualification match 89 at Lone Star. Let's just say there is a correlation between the team that 359 chose as its second partner and the same team that played in that match.

[Cory]

It sucks that to seed well you now have to rely on your opponents being good and not just your partners.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Cory

It sucks that to seed well you now have to rely on your opponents being good and not just your partners.

Well Cory, at Lone Star it was about us not getting that Co-op points because it "wasn't in the best interest of other teams."
Too bad, we did.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Cory

It sucks that to seed well you now have to rely on your opponents being good and not just your partners.

What? Blasphemy! Next thing you know, they'll be doing something crazy, like have our ranking based off our opponents' score.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

What? Blasphemy! Next thing you know, they'll be doing something crazy, like have our ranking based off our opponents' score.

You could always directly control your opponent's score when rankings were based upon it.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Cory

You could always directly control your opponent's score when rankings were based upon it.

Except when you weren't allowed to score for your opponent.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by EricH

Except when you weren't allowed to score for your opponent.

2011 you could lose the minibot race to improve your RS.
2010 you could directly score for the opponent.
2009 same as 2010
2008 you could leave the balls on top of the overpass or push them across the finish line if you wanted to.
2007 you could not do anything to affect score.

I don't feel like going back further, but it's pretty clear that this is the first year in awhile in which you cannot directly contribute to, or take actions to not reduce your opponent's score.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Cory

I don't feel like going back further, but it's pretty clear that this is the first year in awhile in which you cannot directly contribute to, or take actions to not reduce your opponent's score.

If you're referring to 2012 by this statement, you can score for your opponent. Nowhere is it disallowed. I also recall a Q&A answer to the effect of "It matters that it goes in, not how it goes in." (The question, IIRC, was something along the lines of "If a ball bounces in off *probable object for stuff to bounce off of*, does it still count?", or it might have been a direct "Can we score for our opponents?")

However, it helps you not one bit in the rankings. The win+coop are the only things that count.

Also, just a minor quibble: I distinctly said "score for your opponent". I made no reference to failing to score points, or not scoring as many points as you could, which has always been on the table. If you take my words as I said them, then 2007 and 2011 are both cases where you could not legally score for your opponent. If, however, you choose to take "score for your opponent" as "take actions to not reduce your opponent's score", then you have to go back to 2001, where you had no opponent but could raise or lower your partner's score (or your own) with some careful maneuvering, or 1991, when FRC had yet to run a single competition.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Cory

It sucks that to seed well you now have to rely on your opponents being good and not just your partners.

And this is bad because...?

Seriously, if you don't like the idea of being handicapped by a deficient opposing alliance, do something about it. Don't just gripe about the situation. What can you do, you ask? The answer should be obvious: help your opponents to be good.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

And this is bad because...?

Seriously, if you don't like the idea of being handicapped by a deficient opposing alliance, do something about it. Don't just gripe about the situation. What can you do, you ask? The answer should be obvious: help your opponents to be good.

Hall of Fame FIRST Team 254 has arguably helped more teams become good than any other team in FIRST. I don't think they need a lecture on helping their opponents.

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Hall of Fame FIRST Team 254 has arguably helped more teams become good than any other team in FIRST. I don't think they need a lecture on helping their opponents.

Amen, Karthik:

To me, the real problem here is that someone at FIRST still misses the key point:

They keep trying to change the motivations of the teams by changing the Qualifying promotion system to depend on something other than winning matches. This goes back for over a decade and keeps coming in and out of the game design. They seem think this will somehow change who wins. This does indeed serve to change how teams will play the game in qualifying. However, all such attempts fail to change anything in the end because we then proceed to play an ELIMINATION series that is ONLY about winning.

So, FIRST's attempts at trying to change what we do on the feild really don't change much after all, since the teams who know how to win invariably end up as the leaders at the end of the tournament anyway. What these attempts do serve to do is:
- Make the game more bimodal and more confusing to the spectators, since the robots do different things on the field depending on what part of the competition you are watching.
- Make the game less sport-like, since bizarre concepts like this are found no where in any main stream sport.
- Drive a lot more 'noise' into the qualifing process, since advancing in the rankings can often be most out of an individual team's control.
- Set up a lot of built in upsets in Eliminations, since the teams best equipped for winning the tournment may not be the qualifying leaders.
- Cause a lot more frustration in the actual execution of the gameplay
- Open the door for attempts to "game" the qualifying system, since the motivations of the opposing alliances may not be the same.

With 3 on 3 alliance play, we already have so many reasons to help and cooperate with other teams that we do not need more deliberately injected into the game design.

I still believe that if we are legitimately trying to make FRC be recognized as a real sport than the GDC must treat it like one. These 'social engineering experiments' do not really belong here and they really don't work anyway. Good atheletes and good sports teams win tournments, and no one seems to have a problem with this. Good Robots should excel at Robotics Competitions.

If FIRST wants to try to level the field, maybe they should create some kind of handicap rankings. This is done in golf and other sports to allow players of different proficiency to play against each other on somewhat equal terms in the same league. I personally do not think this is necessary, but whatever the solution, messing with the Qualifying promotion system has never really worked, and probably never will. The best games are the ones in which the teams with the best execution will rise to the top in both Qualifying AND Eliminations.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Amen, Karthik:

To me, the real problem here is that someone at FIRST still misses the key point:

They keep trying to change the motivations of the teams by changing the Qualifying promotion system to depend on something other than winning matches. This goes back for over a decade and keeps coming in and out of the game design. They seem think this will somehow change who wins. This does indeed serve to change how teams will play the game in qualifying. However, all such attempts fail to change anything in the end because we then proceed to play an ELIMINATION series that is ONLY about winning.

So, FIRST's attempts at trying to change what we do on the feild really don't change much after all, since the teams who know how to win invariably end up as the leaders at the end of the tournament anyway. What these attempts do serve to do is:
- Make the game more bimodal and more confusing to the spectators, since the robots do different things on the field depending on what part of the competition you are watching.
- Make the game less sport-like, since bizarre concepts like this are found no where in any main stream sport.
- Drive a lot more 'noise' into the qualifing process, since advancing in the rankings can often be most out of an individual team's control.
- Set up a lot of built in upsets in Eliminations, since the teams best equipped for winning the tournment may not be the qualifying leaders.
- Cause a lot more frustration in the actual execution of the gameplay
- Open the door for attempts to "game" the qualifying system, since the motivations of the opposing alliances may not be the same.

With 3 on 3 alliance play, we already have so many reasons to help and cooperate with other teams that we do not need more deliberately injected into the game design.

I still believe that if we are legitimately trying to make FRC be recognized as a real sport than the GDC must treat it like one. These 'social engineering experiments' do not really belong here and they really don't work anyway. Good atheletes and good sports teams win tournments, and no one seems to have a problem with this. Good Robots should excel at Robotics Competitions.

If FIRST wants to try to level the field, maybe they should create some kind of handicap rankings. This is done in golf and other sports to allow players of different proficiency to play against each other on somewhat equal terms in the same league. I personally do not think this is necessary, but whatever the solution, messing with the Qualifying promotion system has never really worked, and probably never will. The best games are the ones in which the teams with the best execution will rise to the top in both Qualifying AND Eliminations.

Amen Jim! Well said!

[waialua359]

Jim,
Great explanation and good points!
Once again, you have shown why YOU should be on the GDC. Haha.....

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Amen, Karthik:

To me, the real problem here is that someone at FIRST still misses the key point:

They keep trying to change the motivations of the teams by changing the Qualifying promotion system to depend on something other than winning matches. This goes back for over a decade and keeps coming in and out of the game design. They seem think this will somehow change who wins. This does indeed serve to change how teams will play the game in qualifying. However, all such attempts fail to change anything in the end because we then proceed to play an ELIMINATION series that is ONLY about winning.

So, FIRST's attempts at trying to change what we do on the feild really don't change much after all, since the teams who know how to win invariably end up as the leaders at the end of the tournament anyway. What these attempts do serve to do is:
- Make the game more bimodal and more confusing to the spectators, since the robots do different things on the field depending on what part of the competition you are watching.
- Make the game less sport-like, since bizarre concepts like this are found no where in any main stream sport.
- Drive a lot more 'noise' into the qualifing process, since advancing in the rankings can often be most out of an individual team's control.
- Set up a lot of built in upsets in Eliminations, since the teams best equipped for winning the tournment may not be the qualifying leaders.
- Cause a lot more frustration in the actual execution of the gameplay
- Open the door for attempts to "game" the qualifying system, since the motivations of the opposing alliances may not be the same.

With 3 on 3 alliance play, we already have so many reasons to help and cooperate with other teams that we do not need more deliberately injected into the game design.

I still believe that if we are legitimately trying to make FRC be recognized as a real sport than the GDC must treat it like one. These 'social engineering experiments' do not really belong here and they really don't work anyway. Good atheletes and good sports teams win tournments, and no one seems to have a problem with this. Good Robots should excel at Robotics Competitions.

If FIRST wants to try to level the field, maybe they should create some kind of handicap rankings. This is done in golf and other sports to allow players of different proficiency to play against each other on somewhat equal terms in the same league. I personally do not think this is necessary, but whatever the solution, messing with the Qualifying promotion system has never really worked, and probably never will. The best games are the ones in which the teams with the best execution will rise to the top in both Qualifying AND Eliminations.

[JABot67]

Whether or not the Coop bridge is a "social engineering experiment", I pretend it's not and instead interpret it as just another aspect of the game. It is just another challenge - you have to cooperate with a drive team ~60 feet away from you in order to get an extra 2 qualification points. It makes the qualifications matches exciting.

I've anxiously watched numerous matches, rooting for either a non-balance or a balance on the Coop bridge depending on what would help my team. I've watched webcasts where it seemed like in every match there would be an attempted Coop bridge balance that failed at the last second, a heart wrenching way to end each match.

The Coop bridge is a GREAT addition to the game this year. Let's face it - it might be confusing for outside spectators to watch, but the vast majority of the people watching a qualification match are going to be familiar with the great power of the Coop bridge balance. What an amazing thrill it is to watch a Coop balance attempt.

Many people in this thread have complained that FIRST always tries to introduce elements of the game that are out of an individual team's control:

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

- Drive a lot more 'noise' into the qualifing process, since advancing in the rankings can often be most out of an individual team's control.

Originally Posted by Cory

It sucks that to seed well you now have to rely on your opponents being good and not just your partners.

In any FRC game there is going to be an element of luck, and that is directly built into the competition structure. That's what makes it great, in my opinion. If the BEST teams at an event always won, then my team should go to MSC with absolutely no hope of winning. Yes, our robot is good, but to be honest the improvements we are making to our robot and code are not good enough to be better than 67 and 469's entries at the event.

Yet I still have hope for winning. The competition structure might provide us with a little bit of luck, and what will make it interesting will be the elements of the game that are beyond my team's control. I'm not ready to give the state championship to 67 and 469 just because their robots are plainly better than my team's. And from the perspective of someone on a powerhouse team (I used to be on 67), I would still find it very boring to go to a competition knowing for a fact that my team will win. I am a fan of the "noise" at the competitions.