Modern Upgrrade

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

I can't believe how many people liked 2003. Do you know how hard it was to clean the field after a day of competition? The ramps had to be moved so we could get debris. At one competition, we were picking up nearly a 5 gallon bucket each day.

We all know "ease of cleaning the field" is one of the main indicators of game quality.

-John

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

And if you didn't say Pre-2005, I would have said 2005.

I think the reason its pre-2005 is because the OP asked which game to bring back with 3 robot alliances, which if I remember right Triple Play was 3-on-3, so if you're talking about modernizing it that way, you can't because it was the first 3 robot alliance game.

[rcmolloy]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I think we can all appreciate power and hitting things, but this wouldn't make a good FIRST game at all.

I have to agree with Adam on this one guys. I even remember a story that he told me during season about how he was explaining 2011 to one of our sponsors and they were simply puzzled as to why that game challenge was created. If FIRST wants to have success year after year when it comes to games, they need to recognize that the games need to emulate simple tasks but tasks that people can follow play by play. (Real time scoring helped improve that mentality this year and I hope that the same continues to play out)

The yearly challenges don't have to be hard to understand and FIRST nailed that on the head this year given the task was playing basketball.

I would like to see FIRST take one of the more abstract games and make it just as fun and understandable for next year. *cough 2005/2000 *cough

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

I can't believe how many people liked 2003.

Me either. I thought that was the worst game ever. Most of the robots (my team included) were just booooooring that year. However, it had potential to be a great game. I think with a few changes, it could be great.

I would start with getting rid of the Sterilite containers and make the game pieces symmetric about all 3 axes. The problem with stacking that year is you first had to be able to manipulate the bins into the proper orientation before you could even think about stacking them. It was just too difficult of a task to bother with (especially considering how easy it was to knock the stach over). Make the objects cubes and it becomes a much more realistic task. The only problem is will be tough finding off-the-shelf game pieces.

The second thing is that it was too easy to destroy stacks once they were made. There needs to be some stack protection, either in an area on the field, or after a time. A rule was needed like you can't destroy a stack in the last 30 seconds of a match, or maybe you can't touch stacks in the colored area of the field.

With those changes to encourage more stacking robots, the game could turn out to produce some of the coolest robots we've seen. I think I could get on board with that game.

Even with all of that being said, 2000 was BY FAR the best game FIRST ever had. That game would get monster ratings on television. My 2nd favorite was 1998 (Ladder Logic).

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by JVN

We all know "ease of cleaning the field" is one of the main indicators of game quality.

-John

Ya 'cause I'm so looking forward to resetting a field with 102 sacks!

[Brandon Holley]

It's funny how polarizing 2003's game was. Stack Attack was either loved or hated by those who participated in it.

I have always felt adding one tweak to Stack Attack would help gameplay. Basically this:
-For any robot to score points by being "King of the Hill", their alliance must have a stack of at least 2 high.

I haven't really fully baked out how the gameplay would evolve, but my thoughts were that it would force alliances to worry about the bins. You would also get collaboration between team members to "stack" robots on each other, as most likely you will have one representative from each alliance parked on top. A team member would have to be designated as stack builder/protector, less your alliance risks scoring 0 King of the Hill points.

Just a silly idea I've had for a while.

-Brando

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

It's funny how polarizing 2003's game was. Stack Attack was either loved or hated by those who participated in it.

I have always felt adding one tweak to Stack Attack would help gameplay. Basically this:
-For any robot to score points by being "King of the Hill", their alliance must have a stack of at least 2 high.

I haven't really fully baked out how the gameplay would evolve, but my thoughts were that it would force alliances to worry about the bins. You would also get collaboration between team members to "stack" robots on each other, as most likely you will have one representative from each alliance parked on top. A team member would have to be designated as stack builder/protector, less your alliance risks scoring 0 King of the Hill points.

Just a silly idea I've had for a while.

-Brando

What if stacks multiplied the bridge bonus points? Maybe 5-10pts/robot instead of 25, but you see the idea. That might engage stacking as a real part of the game.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

I can't believe how many people liked 2003.

I think it was the whole everyone speeding towards a huge wall of bins that did it for me. The tele-operated portion was pretty flawed, but I loved this autonomous portion of the game. It was so unpredictable.

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I would start with getting rid of the Sterilite containers and make the game pieces symmetric about all 3 axes. The problem with stacking that year is you first had to be able to manipulate the bins into the proper orientation before you could even think about stacking them. It was just too difficult of a task to bother with (especially considering how easy it was to knock the stach over). Make the objects cubes and it becomes a much more realistic task. The only problem is will be tough finding off-the-shelf game pieces.

Perhaps something like the foam cubes used in gymnastics or stunts? I've always thought something like this would make a cool game piece since we rarely have cube/square pieces.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

Perhaps something like the foam cubes used in gymnastics or stunts? I've always thought something like this would make a cool game piece since we rarely have cube/square pieces.

They wouldn't hold up... just look how many foam balls were chewed to death this year and in 2006.

Maybe milk crates would be a better option?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

They wouldn't hold up... just look how many foam balls were chewed to death this year and in 2006.

Maybe milk crates would be a better option?

At a certain point it's almost impossible to pick a game piece immune to destruction.

I can't think of a single game that didn't have issues with breaking pieces.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

At a certain point it's almost impossible to pick a game piece immune to destruction.

I can't think of a single game that didn't have issues with breaking pieces.

I cant remember a time in 2010 when someone popped or flattened a soccer ball.

[EricH]

At one point, shortly after the 2003 game, Dave addressed the bin-breaking issue. He said he was working on a design for a bin made out of concrets so it wouldn't break.


I think it's also a good idea to note that I'm currently looking at about 3 of 330's practice bins, which are currently being used for storage... After hitting concrete and bricks due to persons on dollies, robots going up and over the ramp, and I think we were even able to get 2 robots going at once at some point.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by dodar

I cant remember a time in 2010 when someone popped or flattened a soccer ball.

I never saw one popped, but I saw their surfaces severely damaged on many occasions which prohibited proper function of most team's intakes.

2010 brings up a point about gamepieces that I wish FIRST would focus more on; use actual sports gamepieces when possible, ideally quality brands. They are likely going to be more consistent and durable than other options.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I never saw one popped, but I saw their surfaces severely damaged on many occasions which prohibited proper function of most team's intakes.

2010 brings up a point about gamepieces that I wish FIRST would focus more on; use actual sports gamepieces when possible, ideally quality brands. They are likely going to be more consistent and durable than other options.

Define severely damaged because I saw a bunch of balls with some cuts or big scrapes where the outer paint was taken off but it never seemed to impede the team's using them.

I also do agree that first should use brand name, quality sporting goods as future game pieces. 2 good reasons why are because they are quality and if they are name brand they wont run out at Wal-Mart.