Ring It Up! and Rack n' Roll

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The scoring system isn't even remotely close to how scoring was operated in 2007. Just because it has rings and a rack doesn't mean it's a similar game.

There weren't line "bonuses" in 2007, you only got points for rows, and the scoring progressed exponentially. A "row" of one tube was worth 2 point, a row of two was worth 4 points, a row of three was worth 8, etc. These bonuses are much closer to the tic-tac-toe style of 2005 than they are to 2007, though the highest tetra placed awarded control of a goal in that game rather than the largest quantity of scoring objects. In 2007, scoring on a peg guaranteed you ownership unless the peg was spoiled. The opponent couldn't place more ringers on that peg to attempt to negate it, unlike this FTC game or FRC in 2005.

Lifting robots in the end game only had two scoring levels in 2007, and didn't reward you for lifting further beyond that threshold.

There may be some surface level similarities, but in terms of game theory these games aren't very similar.

The scoring system is very different (and more complicated), but it's more than just rings and a rack. White autonomous keepers, owning pegs (total tubes instead of spoilers), tic-tac-toe-like completion vertically/horizontally/diagonally, playing on the other side of the rack... make match approaches between the two much more similar than, say, LogoMotion (which really is mostly a surface similarity). It also resembles Triple Play perhaps more closely, especially in terms of scoring and grid layout. However, this misses some critical strategic aspects like swinging around the rack, that are better exemplified in Rack 'n Roll.

As for the elevation, I'm not into FTC kit (or even VEX now) but I'll be interested to see what sorts of liftee robots the exponential rule creates. By and large, a fully-equipped robot could be lifted to maximum point bonus in Rack 'n Roll. I picture some really small box bots for rookies to be lifted the way the FTC crates were last year.