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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:05
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Alliance Selection System

I've seen a few gripes about the serpentine draft system lately. My heavily truncated summary of this debate is as follows:

1-8, 1-8: Rewards the best teams more often
1-8, 8-1: Makes elimination rounds more interesting

So I have a pointed question for the 1-8, 1-8 proponents. Would you support a draft system that went 1,1,2,2,3,3... ? It is the logical extension of the arguments favoring 1-8, 1-8. The top captain gets a big advantage. If Alliance 1 wins, then the first and second picks of the draft both qualify for the Championship.

Some old (closed) threads about serpentine draft:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37145
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=41298
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=44986
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=45667
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66374
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:11
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Re: Alliance Selection System

I just want the best teams to win, and the worst teams to not win.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:25
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Obviously your method would pretty much guarantee that the first seeded alliance would win the regional. If you pick the best three teams and put them all together it is too big of an advantage.

I have coached under both 1-8-,1-8 and 1-8, 8-1 and I think that both give opportunities for a somewhat balanced elimination round.

I also don't think that given the way qualifications have determined the top 8 for quite a number of years, that the #1 Captain necessarily has the best team/robot at the regional.

Many years you will see that the qualification schedule is a great equalizer and many times the best team on the field will not necessarily be the #1 Alliance Captain.

That being the case, a better indicator of the most desirable or best team at a given event is given by the #1 picked robot.

The 1-8 8-1 picking system gives the eight teams the best shot at forming competitive alliances...

Alliance #1 gets the first pick and the 16th pick (ave = 8.5)
Alliance #2 gets the 2nd pick and the 15th pick (ave = 8.5)

....
Alliance #8 gets the 8th and 9th picks.... (ave = 8.5) and has the advantage of making those picks consecutively....which means they can actually pick a pair of robots that have complimentary features.

The real issues in picking come when teams decline. It is conceivable that the #1 alliance could try to pick several good alliance partners that decline (because they are in the top 8) So this can work against the strategy.

I, for one, like the 1-8 and 8-1 system... I think it makes an interesting elimination....


Whoever said that FIRST is trying to get the three best robots to go to Championship? from a regional?

How would you ever figure that out? Certainly seeding can't do it unless you have a huge number of matches....pick order can't do it really because of the opportunity to decline...unless you just take the pick order and not the acceptance order...and where do you place the #1 Alliance team (they CAN'T be picked by anyone.)

A point system similar to what districts are using could be used...but then again without individual stats you still have problems... points from a match may have nothing to do with all three of the robots that were on the winning alliance.

You have to pick a system and use it... nothing is ever going to give you perfect results.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:25
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Re: Alliance Selection System

The best teams don't always seed first.
Especially this year, with the coop bridge worth so much.

Non-serpentine rewards a better performance during qualifications, which I don't think should be done.

Serpentine also gives the lower seeds a higher chance of being successful, which (in my opinion,) is important, because everyone deserves a chance to win, and because sometimes great teams seed low, especially in tougher tournaments (and with coopertition being such a wild card.)
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:32
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Want to make it real interesting? What if you could not pick within the original 8
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:44
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Re: Alliance Selection System

I can understand your gripes. but a 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3... draft would almost eliminate all the competition in FRC. Even if the best team didn't seed first, they still have the pick of the next two best teams at the event. If the best, or one of the best, seeded first, they would just kill all the competition.

I personally like the 1-8, 8-1 draft. Some members of my team disagree, but if the best team already has their pick of the first team, giving them the (theoretical) 17th best team at a competition, they still have an amazing chance at winning (likewise with the next few seeds, who still get comparatively amazing picks). a 1-8,8-1 draft adequately rewards teams for earning their seeding place, while not putting an unnecessarily high winning chance on the 1st seeded alliance.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 18:57
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by GBK View Post
Want to make it real interesting? What if you could not pick within the original 8
This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 19:04
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Smellie View Post
This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.
^This!

Additionally if there are only 8 good teams at such an event, River Rage is a no picking inside the top 8, you have one good robot on an alliance and two not so great robots with them and it makes it extremely dull to watch and harder to win.

1-8, 8-1 is one of the best methods unless you have an extremely deep field like IRI where picking 1-8, 1-8 leads to some pretty even alliances of great teams surprisingly.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 19:25
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Smellie View Post
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.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 19:56
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Picking 1-8, 1-8 gives not only the best teams an advantage, but it almost completely limits the "niche strategies" that some newer or smaller teams utilize effectively (i.e. a balancing/defensive specialist like 4294) by making the main strategy extremely dominant. Since teams that can carry the potentially poor random alliances in qualifications are usually offensive, those types of teams tend to seed higher and are more desirable for the 1st round of selections. A team that excels at one particular aspect of the game may not do well in qualifications, but could play a very valuable role with the right alliance during eliminations (as 4294 did at Kettering, being the last pick of the Alliance Selections). I think this is a prime example of how FIRST gets the point across that you don't have to be good at everything, but you have to find one job and perfect it.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 20:00
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Re: Alliance Selection System

The #1 alliance already wins 70% of the time. I don't think they really need any more help. I say save 1-8 1-8 for IRI where the playing field is so high every alliance is stacked with good teams.

Bryan
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Unread 16-04-2012, 20:05
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Something one of my team members thought of: Keep the 1-8, 8-1 rule (that keeps it interesting), but make it so that alliance captains can't pick each other.

1 can't pick 2, etc.

That means matches will be the first seed vs. the 8th seed, instead of the 1st and 2nd seed against the 8th seed, most likely going on to win the regional. It would then require teams to build the best alliance of not-top-8-robots.

Thoughts on this method?

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't see the post above.

Last edited by Andrew Lawrence : 16-04-2012 at 20:09.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 20:07
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperNerd256 View Post
Something one of my team members thought of: Keep the 1-8, 8-1 rule (that keeps it interesting), but make it so that alliance captains can't pick each other.

1 can't pick 2, etc.

That means matches will be the first seed vs. the 8th seed, instead of the 1st and 2nd seed against the 8th seed, most likely going on to win the regional. It would then require teams to build the best alliance of not-top-8-robots.

Thoughts on this method?
This (from a couple posts ago.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Smellie View Post
This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 20:17
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Let me just share a quick story:

At the 2011 Rah Cha Cha Ruckus (Off Season event in Rochester, New York), a new rule was implemented this year to make things more interesting: Teams in the top 4 could not pick each other. Well, that was a great idea. Except there were 5 really strong teams at the event. All the strong teams seeded in the top 5, as expected. 1559 seeded first, and picked 610, who seeded 5th. 1507, 48 and 1126 seeded 2 - 4, respectively. In the elimination rounds, The #1 Alliance faced off against the #3 and #4 alliance. 48 and 1126 did the best they could to build strong alliances, and they certainly did, 1126 having 1518 and 191 backing them, and 48 having 188 and 379 alongside them. However, the two alliances were just no match for the two very strong teams in 610 and 1559, along with 578.

I'm not saying this could happen for all events. It probably wouldn't happen for all events. However, by closing the top 8 seeds from being picked, you could be severely crippling the competition. This, of course, depends on the pool of teams, but it is something to consider if you're proposing preventing the top seeds from picking each other. If a powerhouse team has bad luck and seeds out of the top 8, the #1 seed gets a top 8 pick, while the others are left 'sitting ducks', so to speak.
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Unread 16-04-2012, 20:22
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot View Post
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.
Yup... just what we need, MORE excuses for people to yell about teams being "unfair" or "ungp".

Also, yay for punishing teams for performing well... Yup, let's limit who they pick to teams that did worse than them via some artificial means just so it is fair. At this point let's just forgo qualification matches and randomly assign 24 3 team alliances. Least then it would be fair right?


Disclaimer, I hate the serpentine draft, it hurts the 3rd best robot at shallow events. I haven't found anything better yet though.
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