Best FRC Games

[~Cory~]

Its still pretty surprising that breakaway ranked so low. IMHO: aim high and breakway FTW.

[TheMadCADer]

Originally Posted by ~Cory~

Its still pretty surprising that breakaway ranked so low. IMHO: aim high and breakway FTW.

I personally disliked Breakaway, mostly because it discouraged different designs (even by FIRST standards) and every robot looked the same. As far as the past few years are concerned, FIRST already ends up being a bunch of very similar robots, with the most well refined design winning, but 2010 was worse than usual (really only 469 had a successful 'unique' design). Also, the issues in the ranking system early on really turned me off to it.

The only redeeming part was the end-game, which encouraged a ton of innovative designs.

To be fair, I was raised on BEST Robotics, so I have a thing for solutions that can do about 7 separate operations at once using 2 motors and maybe a servo or two. I also love plywood, PVC, and duct tape. I mean, in 2010 I made a (ridiculously successful) sub-assembly that was composed entirely of 1 motor, bits of string, an entire roll of duct tape, and two small sections of PVC pipe. Now, it was all very precise (we made at least 12 prototype versions of that thing to perfect it) and looked quite good by BEST standards, but I never saw anything quite like it the whole year.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by TheMadCADer

I personally disliked Breakaway, mostly because it discouraged different designs (even by FIRST standards) and every robot looked the same....

Not to go too far off track, but all the paintings in the Louvre "look the same" if you don't know what to look for. I saw LOTS of design variance in the Breakaway bots... you just had to look beyond the low centre of gravity requirements.

Admittedly, I wouldn't be able to put up any favorites from before '03, but not only was "Aim High" the best game I've ever played, but that robot has been our "go-to demo robot" ever since. When other robots got pulled apart and scavenged for parts, the "Nerf Ball Shooter" was too cool to touch. (Okay, we stripped a couple redundant CIMs off of it... but its pushing battles were over.)

Of course, it's like picking The Beatles vs. The Stones vs. Michael Jackson vs. Elvis vs. Madonna vs. AC/DC as the best rock act ever. Fun, but relatively pointless.

Jason

[TheMadCADer]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Not to go too far off track, but all the paintings in the Louvre "look the same" if you don't know what to look for. I saw LOTS of design variance in the Breakaway bots... you just had to look beyond the low centre of gravity requirements.

...

Jason

The issue I had was that most of the top teams had the same ball-grabber (clamp, with a few rollers out there too) and kicker (elastic powered blunt object, wound up by some sort of cam system). The main differences were in the drivetrain for crossing the bump (though few teams did more than just a 6-8 wheel setup. Some, like 1625, had very cool drivetrains, and others made neat suspension systems) as well as endgame devices.

Whenever I watched a round between multiple 'good' robots the difference between the winner and loser was usually whoever was able to line up their shots best and not have balls bounce out of the goals. It was just too driver-dependent for me. I'd rather see a team win because they found a way to play the game that its designers never expected, and built a completely unique robot. That's what I loved about 469, it was nearly game-breaking while being elegantly simple.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by TheMadCADer

I'd rather see a team win because they found a way to play the game that its designers never expected, and built a completely unique robot. That's what I loved about 469, it was nearly game-breaking while being elegantly simple.

Alas, if only figuring out what makes or breaks a game were that simple. Particularly in the method that FIRST presents the games, it's hard to think outside the normal configuration when Breakaway was described best as robot soccer or Rebound Rumble as robot basketball. The description really drives the design, as many teams forget that Breakaway was not soccer reliant, but simply a name of the game where the goal was transport a ball to a hole in the wall.

Personally, I'm a Breakaway fan (With heavy bias as it was my rookie season.) Everything that year, from being the third pick of the second alliance at Greater Kansas City with 16 and 1625, to rising to the #1 Seed and first alliance captains in Oklahoma City, to striding across the floor of the Georgia Dome, was amazing. The robots, IMHO, were totally different that year too. As stated, it takes an eye that sees past the exterior generic box shape and sees what's within the box that truly amazed me.

[Tim Delles]

This discussion has come up before, and it really needs to be separated out between 3v3 and pre-3v3.

Also, how many people on the forums now actually experienced some of the older games, personally I know the games going back to 2000, but how many of the forum users now can go back to pre-3v3 games?

[Kyle A]

Originally Posted by Tim Delles

This discussion has come up before, and it really needs to be separated out between 3v3 and pre-3v3.

Also, how many people on the forums now actually experienced some of the older games, personally I know the games going back to 2000, but how many of the forum users now can go back to pre-3v3 games?

3v3 didn't start until 2005 with Triple play. my 1st 2 years 2003 stack attack and 2004 FIRST Frenzy Raising the bar were 2v2. The first game I ever saw played was 2000 and I was a FLL student then.

Out of All the Games that I have been involved in 2003-now I have to say my favorite was 2006 Aim High. We did not have the best robot, and even rebuilt the robot at our first event, but I had the most fun watching that game. All the poof balls everywhere, the wide open field, the matches that you could go from winning to tied in a matter of seconds, and the race to the ramp at the end. That is also the robot that we still use for most demonstrations, the kids love throwing the balls into the hopper and watching the balls fly back out onto the ground from the rollers.

[Lil' Lavery]

Breakaway was a lot of fun to watch at Championship or at events with multiple elite teams. But a vast majority of the time, it was painfully boring and had more 0-0 ties than just about any game I can remember (and I remember 2007). It was painfully boring in qualification matches and even during the eliminations at many regionals. While every game improves dramatically when the level of competition is increased, that curve was way too steep in Breakaway.

Originally Posted by Tim Delles

This discussion has come up before, and it really needs to be separated out between 3v3 and pre-3v3.

Also, how many people on the forums now actually experienced some of the older games, personally I know the games going back to 2000, but how many of the forum users now can go back to pre-3v3 games?

Add a further break for the pre-alliance era (1998 and before) as well. Possibly even another split for the much smaller scale robots of 1992 and 1993.

[Jared Russell]

Looks like people really enjoy shooting balls.

[apalrd]

Breakaway was fun to play at the highest level.

That said, if you could score 3 balls in autonomous and hang, you would almost guarantee a win in a rather high percentage of all matches. Without doing anything at all except hanging for the entire teleop period.

That is because the average OPR was just above 1, meaning the average match score was around 3.

The game was hard. 'Carrying' a ball was hard. Very hard. There was a lot of tweaking and a lot of minor improvement in even the best robots through the entire season, and there was a lot of slight variety in the ball control mechanisms.



I can't make a good comparison about the past games, but most of the post-2000 games sound really fun to play.

[Tyler_Kaplan]

I'm surprised Lunacy is ranked so low , it's one of my favorites, along with breakaway

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by CalTran

Alas, if only figuring out what makes or breaks a game were that simple. Particularly in the method that FIRST presents the games, it's hard to think outside the normal configuration when Breakaway was described best as robot soccer or Rebound Rumble as robot basketball. The description really drives the design, as many teams forget that Breakaway was not soccer reliant, but simply a name of the game where the goal was transport a ball to a hole in the wall.

It's not that hard to come up with the game breaking strategies. You just need some experience at approaching the game from the right perspective.

In 2006 you could win by not playing the game. If you kept the score low all that matttered was the ramp points, and pinning on the ramp was legal. Playing using these factors allowed a robot purely playing defense to control the game over scorers. Most teams didn't play this way or pick up on it but this was a way to break the game.

In 2007 the secret was to again not play the game. Don't go for long multiplier chains but instead break up the rack so the other team couldn't get the multipliers. Before they realize they're wasting time trying to get long chains they can't actually get the time ran out while you got 50 points for lifting 2 robots.

That said the GDC has been exceptionally good at blocking game breaking strategies in the the game/robot rules since 2008. That year 190 tried a game breaking strategy that many of us had come up with and discounted as illegal because as soon as they broke the plane into the previous zone it was a penalty.

Even in 2010 when the 469 robot became legal in week 2 due to a rule change it had originally been against the rules so most teams that came up with the design had already discounted it as illegal before the change giving 469 a jump on everyone else.

[Wetzel]

Stack Attack is my clear favourite as worst game. The rest are more difficult to rank.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by apalrd

Breakaway was fun to play at the highest level.

That said, if you could score 3 balls in autonomous and hang, you would almost guarantee a win in a rather high percentage of all matches. Without doing anything at all except hanging for the entire teleop period.

That is because the average OPR was just above 1, meaning the average match score was around 3.

Mean score based on OPR is probably not the best way to evaluate that. While the mean score may be 3, I'd be willing to bet the median score was underneath 3. If you score higher than the median, you're winning more than half of the matches on average.

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

It's not that hard to come up with the game breaking strategies. You just need some experience at approaching the game from the right perspective.

In 2006 you could win by not playing the game. If you kept the score low all that matttered was the ramp points, and pinning on the ramp was legal. Playing using these factors allowed a robot purely playing defense to control the game over scorers. Most teams didn't play this way or pick up on it but this was a way to break the game.

In 2007 the secret was to again not play the game. Don't go for long multiplier chains but instead break up the rack so the other team couldn't get the multipliers. Before they realize they're wasting time trying to get long chains they can't actually get the time ran out while you got 50 points for lifting 2 robots.

Those are much less "game breaking" than other game breaking strategies, and aren't even close to choke hold strategies. Not that either of those strategies couldn't succeed, but they were far from guaranteed wins (or even necessarily the most successful strategy).

If you could successfully force your opponent onto your ramp in 2006 (or they went there voluntarily), that strategy was legitimate. But if they avoided your ramp, they could easily get back to their own to counteract your ramp points. Not to mention if they outscore you in autonomous you're left with a relatively large hole to climb out of (equivalent to 2 robots on the ramp or 40% of 3 robots on the ramp).

In 2007, nothing about preventing/breaking up opponents rows stopped them from also getting their ramp points. And if the ramp points were equal, it came down to who had more on the rack. If both alliances placed 6 tubes, and your alliance placed them perfectly across the rack (to minimize potential rows) while the other alliance build two rows of 3 above one another, they win the rack by a 28-16 margin. It was a rare situation when teams denied themselves the opportunity for ramp points willingly (111 being the obvious example of a team that usually kept scoring rather than going for the end game points). And most alliances were willing to battle intensely for the key positions on the rack, and often would set defenders to stop teams from cutting off their rows.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Mean score based on OPR is probably not the best way to evaluate that. While the mean score may be 3, I'd be willing to bet the median score was underneath 3. If you score higher than the median, you're winning more than half of the matches on average.

On an alliance level the skew isn't particularly awful. On a robot level I'm sure it is much more pronounced since you miss out on the averaging across 3 robots.

(Across qualifying matches in the FRCFMS twitter feed in 2010, the mean match score was 4.2, the median was 4)

On a related note, I've always been surprised looking at historical data at how large the gap is between winning and losing alliances. I wonder if game "goodness" can be correlated to the size of that gap...