What do you think of this year's game?

[jon-s]

Originally Posted by HumblePie

Defense is almost legislated out of existence.

Defense wasn't as easy or simple as last year, but nowhere near negligible. Defense this year pretty much consisted of guarding the fender, occassionally tagging robots in your lane, slowing down other teams from getting balls, or possibly pushing robots back over the barrier, but the best defensive bots I saw typically stole balls from the opponent's side of the field (eg. team 16).

I like the overall game, my only gripes (the same as other peoples)

1. I think both alliances should have been able to use any of the bridges without penalty until the last 30 seconds (at which point they can be fouled).

2. The Co-op bridge was worth too much I think.

[HumblePie]

Originally Posted by jon-s

Defense wasn't as easy or simple as last year, but nowhere near negligible. Defense this year pretty much consisted of guarding the fender, occassionally tagging robots in your lane, slowing down other teams from getting balls, or possibly pushing robots back over the barrier, but the best defensive bots I saw typically stole balls from the opponent's side of the field (eg. team 16).

I like the overall game, my only gripes (the same as other peoples)

1. I think both alliances should have been able to use any of the bridges without penalty until the last 30 seconds (at which point they can be fouled).

2. The Co-op bridge was worth too much I think.

Just 1 line from a lengthy old post, but I'll expound. Overall, I LOVE this game, my only minor issue was that I would have preferred a little more balance between offense and defense. Think NBA Finals versus the NBA All-Star game. Limiting the defensive strategy primarily to the fender doesn't provide that balance IMHO. A pure defensive robot didn't seem to provide the value to an alliance that a shooter or balancer could. Think of how many times you saw robots balancing inside of the first 1:00 when they could have been defending?

From a Demo Day standpoint, this year has been AWESOME. We've had 2 STEM Day events so far. We bring our portable hoop and let our visitors see if they can make more baskets than Hugo. Very few did, but they get a little something for trying. Our booth was the busiest at both events, allowing us to spread the word of FIRST and get a leg up on recruiting down the road, as well.

[loudpipes]

This was my team's first year, so I can't really compare Rebound Rumble to any of the previous games... but I'd definitely say that this was a great one to kick off our FRC careers with. I absolutely loved it.

The comparability with an actual sport made watching fun and strategizing addicting. The whole coopertition aspect--though it did seem to have a few faults--really placed importance on interacting with other teams and their drivers, which was nice.

...and let me tell you, having this be our rookie year game made the whole idea of FRC incredibly easy to market to our community. My team did a ton of demos (especially with younger kids); everything flowed well and grabbed attention.

[Robogineer1649]

I really liked the game this year. I found the game this year to be a good year for a rookie member. I found both the bridges and the shooting enjoyable. I really liked that you where able to cooperate with either your team (bridge) or your opponent (co-op bridge).
What I didn't like was how often the balls got stuck underneath the bridge. Since our game strategy was all about crossing the bridge the balls where irritating. Another point about the bridges that I didn't enjoy was that the KOP wheels had a low friction on the bridge and this caused us to slip a lot. To reiterate this was very unenjoyable because we needed to cross the bridge.
Overall I loved the game it was extremely fun there is a few things they could have improved on but I can't wait for next year.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by loudpipes

...and let me tell you, having this be our rookie year game made the whole idea of FRC incredibly easy to market to our community. My team did a ton of demos (especially with younger kids); everything flowed well and grabbed attention.

+1 to this. Shooting robots are almost infinitely more exciting to demo.

- Sunny G.

[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by loudpipes

...and let me tell you, having this be our rookie year game made the whole idea of FRC incredibly easy to market to our community. My team did a ton of demos (especially with younger kids); everything flowed well and grabbed attention.

+1 to this for getting the word out to your community! It's great to hear of rookie teams with a presence like this. Keep it up!

It certainly does make a difference trying to market a robot that shoots hoops as compared one thats rather obscure and hangs inner tubes on a wall.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

From my perspective, considering all things, this was a good game. It is unfortunate all the field problems that plagued FIRST at competitions throughout the year, especially at the Championship, but the game itself was complex to play but still easy for spectators to follow. Also a very easy year to talk to non-FIRSTers about the competitions; robots playing 3on3 basketball. i.e. improved marketability.

Being from a class that got to experience the last true year of solid, unrestricted defensive play (2007), I once again am disappointed that defense kind of takes a massive back burner to putting up points, but it was basketball after all, so I kind of expected it from the start. Not to mention that with how expensive and intricate the hardware is on these bots nowadays, much of the defense limitations are certainly helpful in extending the usage-lifetime on key parts, such as the cRIO. No longer can you frisbee your RC across the room and still have it work like nothing happened.

I liked the Coop Bridge and it's associated worth. It added an interesting facet to gameplay, giving a few underdogs a chance at a legit playoff run. Still don't like the lane restrictions that carried over from last year. I kind of felt that the Kinect was completely worthless, but it didn't bother me any since I wasn't forced to use to it.

One thing I'd like to see improved upon by next season is the speed and reliability of field connectivity. Generally, it took WAY too long for robots to linkup and even when green, we still had problems. But I have faith HQ has bright minds working on this.

[Brandon Zalinsky]

I would like for there to never EVER be co-op points like what were given for middle bridge balances. The rankings system is supposed to rank teams from best to worst, not from who has the best alliances to the team that is the most unlucky. Case in point: we were 3-6 on Archimedes this year ranked 93. There was another team that was 3-6, and they were ranked in the low 30's (32 or 34 I believe). There were teams below them that were better than them. It all boiled down to luck of the draw.

[Ekcrbe]

I don't think coop points necessarily have to be luck of the draw. It usually only takes one good balancing robot/driver to complete a double. Look at teams like 67 or 2337, who consistently balanced very well, and seeded well as a result. Teams that had high coop scores often did because they took it upon themselves to represent their alliances on the coop bridge almost every match, and succeeded nearly as often.

I thought the coopertition was one of the best facets of this year's game. As our drive coach said, it was a difficult moral dilemma, trying to both win and keep your word by getting to the bridge on time. That was what made the coopertition points frustrating, but also very intriguing.

[AlecMataloni]

I think that random qualification alliances are already enough Coopertiton. A team has to come up with a completely new strategy depending on whatever partners they are matched up with, and those very same partners could end up playing against them later. Why do we need the bridge at all? The only thing that the Coopertition bridge did was add useless baggage to the game.

Just my $0.02.

[ttldomination]

See, we can argue this over and over again, but bottom line is that FIRST games will always a part of the game where your opponents performance factors into your rankings.

This year, it appears that the overall reaction was position, so I feel like we're going to see similar types of tools in the future.

I'm not really saying that I choose a side, I'm just saying that if we need to have a system that factors in our opponents, this system works kind of well.

- Sunny G.