5.6.1 Four ROBOT Alliances

[pandamonium]

Do you foresee picking two very different teams such as a strong defender as a 4th robot and rotating them in strategically as needed? I guess I wanted to discuss how it will be used or not used and the effect it will have.

It would feel kinda funny I think winning the world championship and not playing in a single elimination match.

[Nathan Streeter]

I was very glad to see this rule change... it's a great way to improve the backup robot system and add another element of strategy at those higher levels of play!

What really bothers me about the prior backup system (which is still in place everywhere except CMP) is that the first backup robots tend NOT to be the best robots still available... The backup robots are the highest seeded, unpicked teams. Usually the alliance selection does a significantly better job of ranking robots than the qualification matches do (hence why some of the teams in the bottom quarter of the qual seeding will often getting picked)... which means that if a team "lucked out" in the schedule they will be ranked fairly high and may not be that good. This will be the backup robot.

So, I'm very glad to see this implemented at CMP... I would also like to see it implemented at DCMPs and potentially at Regionals though. At DCMPs it would be very helpful... you'd still have a good field to be drawing from, the teams picking have more experience, and the strategy would be more likely to enter in. I can't see it working as well for District events though, where you only have 40 teams and they've already played 12 matches... the backup robot pool would be fairly limited, and the quals should do a reasonable job of sorting the teams with the high match:team ratio.

As for how it'll play into strategy... I expect that to depend some on the game. In 2013, where teams generally filled specific roles because so few robots could do everything, I think you'd have seen the 4th robot being switched in for different match strategies by many alliances. I expect more robots to be effective at nearly all of the game tasks this year though... so don't expect most alliances to be swapping robots in and out. This year many alliances (especially one with 3 especially great robots) will never switch in their fourth robot. That said, there'd still be room to pick a fourth robot that would add an extra dimension to your alliance (i.e. specialized defense, good catching, etc.) that might be "too risky" to pick early on.

[eli2410]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

Do you foresee picking two very different teams such as a strong defender as a 4th robot and rotating them in strategically as needed? I guess I wanted to discuss how it will be used or not used and the effect it will have.

It would feel kinda funny I think winning the world championship and not playing in a single elimination match.

We were chosen as the 4th robot of the number 1 alliance at the 2013 Cowtown Throwdown, joining teams 1986, 1825, and 3284 (thanks again for picking us!). We didn't play in the quarterfinals, and played in the second semifinal. Our alliance chose us because of our defensive ability, so we went in for the finals to block 1806's amazing full court shooter. We ended up blocking somewhere around 123 points, or 43 of their frisbees.

So, to answer your question, yes I see that it is possible (depending on how effective defense can be) for the 4th robot to be a defensive robot. You put your three high scorers in when you know you can outscore them pretty easily. You put in two of the three high scorers and the defensive bot when you aren't so sure.

[karomata]

I don't find there to be an issue with 1st seed picking twice. This new system is identical to that of IRI, and often at IRI it is not over powered when the 1st seed pick both their 2nd and 3rd pick consecutively. Often times that is the most strategic pick and less based off of rank or qualification score, which will reward teams who "do their homework" by effectively scouting, and further lessen the value of teams that only focus on their own robot performance without keeping an eye on other teams. This adds another level of strategic play off the field, encouraging more inter team networking and communication, which in reality, is what this game is all about.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by karomata

I don't find there to be an issue with 1st seed picking twice. This new system is identical to that of IRI, and often at IRI it is not over powered when the 1st seed pick both their 2nd and 3rd pick consecutively. Often times that is the most strategic pick and less based off of rank or qualification score, which will reward teams who "do their homework" by effectively scouting, and further lessen the value of teams that only focus on their own robot performance without keeping an eye on other teams. This adds another level of strategic play off the field, encouraging more inter team networking and communication, which in reality, is what this game is all about.

Isn't it 1->8 8->1 1->8? so its not identical to IRI

[karomata]

Originally Posted by animenerdjohn

Isn't it 1->8 8->1 1->8? so its not identical to IRI

I concur. You are correct. Sorry for the confusion.