Alliance Selection System

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by David Smellie

This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.

I've heard this argument a lot for not being able to pick from the floor, and to me, it has always had a few flaws.

First, FRC really stresses GP. Lowering your rank purposefully in this system would definitively not be GP, at least in my opinion.

Of course, just because something is not seen by some as GP does not mean other teams will not attempt it. So, yes, having a rule about not picking within the top eight would tempt teams to lower their rank purposefully.

However, even now there are situations where teams can try to "game the system" in order to get on a more competitive alliance. For example, many have mentioned the hypothetical team that pretends to be broken, but is selected by the first alliance and magically is functioning by finals. Even now, there are incentives to engage in less-than-honest behavior. Luckily, very few teams seem to do this.

Despite past selections (which have been described to me as "chaotic"), I believe that most teams would play honorably under that system as they do now. I know not everyone agrees that this "no picking the top eight" rule would be the way to go about increasing competitiveness, and that not everyone believes that regionals should be more competitive. Just offering my opinion on a good idea that often appears to be discarded rather hastily.