Week 1 Analysis

[Ether]

Quick links to Week1 Match Results and Team Standings:

CASB Match Results
CASB Team Standings

ILIL Match Results
ILIL Team Standings

MICEN Match Results
MICEN Team Standings

MISOU Match Results
MISOU Team Standings

NHNAS Match Results
NHNAS Team Standings

ONTO2 Match Results
ONTO2 Team Standings

SCMB Match Results
SCMB Team Standings

TXSA Match Results
TXSA Team Standings

WAAMV Match Results
WAAMV Team Standings

[vhcook]

The foghorns are back. I've been watching fairly casually and intermittently, but I've observed at least four field faults and/or match replays. Two yesterday were announced as scoring errors, and the one I just saw was announced as an error in transition from auton to teleop (gave an alliance a new ball before the auto balls were gone). Never did find out what the deal was on the fourth one as I had been watching with no audio.

[pfreivald]

Things I've noticed watching matches this morning, besides the massive human player penalties:

1. Ball pickup must be awesome, every time.
2. Every time your ball hits the ground, your opponent can screw you.
3. Accuracy is king--if you can't shoot, don't try.
4. Truss points win games, but only if it doesn't result in an uncontrolled ball.
5. Robots that can take a direct load are much, much faster than robots that can't (due to #2).
6. This game is much more interesting to watch than I expected it to be.
7. Team communication is not where it should be for most games.
8. Defense is crucial and absolutely killer, but if you need two robots to stop one, you're gonna have a bad time....

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by Madison

..and also decided to provide teams with instructions to build a field element that was substantively different than the real field?

I don't buy it. If the bar knocking balls out of the goal was meant to be part of the 'fun', that characteristic of gameplay should be present in the low-cost field parts.

When was the last time a team field drawing matched the real field? I don't even want to think about trying to build a pyramid last year that came anywhere near what was at competition. Teams should understand this by now, and rookies should be mentored by teams that already know. This like when teams complained about discs bouncing out last year after they shot them into the goal at 100 MPH with 15000 RPM on the disc. FIRST changed their design for that, but I don't think they ever should have.

The field drawings have shown this potential since day one, if a team didn't address it in their game analysis they will face the consequences.

We might have problems with our high goal shot from a certain distance, but we have a range to shoot from if we find an issue. I think it is a great engineering challenge.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Madison

..and also decided to provide teams with instructions to build a field element that was substantively different than the real field?

I don't buy it. If the bar knocking balls out of the goal was meant to be part of the 'fun', that characteristic of gameplay should be present in the low-cost field parts.

I understand the frustration (and agree it sucks) but a round metal bar that long and that high off the ground plus required support would run up costs for teams on the low-cost version, correct?

[Grim Tuesday]

I flipped on some webcasts today and honestly, for someone who has been out of the loop for the entire season (since week 2), the game is very difficult to watch. I was expecting that the two balls would help focus gameplay, but it seems that robots almost forget what to do when they don't have the ball, milling around and making the field a mess. Just like 2009, the game is focused not on the goal but on other robots.

I think it just isn't very fun to watch. None of the tasks are instantly interesting to the public (climbing was cool no matter what) or immediately obvious what robots are doing: putting basketballs in hoops simply made sense but robots picking up and dropping balls just looks disorganized. With the lack of an endgame, there is no task to wrap up the match so it just kind of fizzles out.

This is an odd change of direction because in the last few years, the games were only getting better and better with regard to that, and the GDC was making a conscious effort. I wonder if they thought this game would be interesting to watch and it isn't, or if they didn't have that as one of their primary goals anymore?

Edit: I've been watching a little more and am warming up to the game a little bit. Good alliances, like the 525/1986 one in Illinois that manage to actually execute a strategy make the game much more interesting. I based my original post on qualifications at GTR, so maybe I spoke too soon.

[PVCpirate]

I'm watching the Palmetto Eliminations right now, and I have to say this is fun! As a sports fan, I'm seeing everything I love: matches coming down to the last shot, hard hitting defense, robots hitting shots with said defense in their face. Haven't seen a tech foul in the 3 matches I saw. Sure the teamwork could be better, but I think that will come soon.

[Ether]

Some stats based on Twitter feed

[JohnSchneider]

A ref committed a field fault in finals at Alamo just now and then when contested said it didn't matter....

Balls going out of play are the biggest problem with consistently.

[Paul Copioli]

This game ranks right up there with 2003. May even be "better".

[PVCpirate]

What happened at the end of Alamo? I just caught the end where they announced that 118's alliance won.

[Canon reeves]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

What happened at the end of Alamo? I just caught the end where they announced that 118's alliance won.

Probably one of the best matches I've ever watched, it was a tie 85 to 85, red alliance had already won the first final, texplosion played amazing defense, robowranglers were scoring great, so were robonauts, but in the end after further review robonauts alliance won by ten points! Can someone post a video of that match?

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I flipped on some webcasts today and honestly, for someone who has been out of the loop for the entire season (since week 2), the game is very difficult to watch. I was expecting that the two balls would help focus gameplay, but it seems that robots almost forget what to do when they don't have the ball, milling around and making the field a mess. Just like 2009, the game is focused not on the goal but on other robots.

I think it just isn't very fun to watch. None of the tasks are instantly interesting to the public (climbing was cool no matter what) or immediately obvious what robots are doing: putting basketballs in hoops simply made sense but robots picking up and dropping balls just looks disorganized. With the lack of an endgame, there is no task to wrap up the match so it just kind of fizzles out.

This is an odd change of direction because in the last few years, the games were only getting better and better with regard to that, and the GDC was making a conscious effort. I wonder if they thought this game would be interesting to watch and it isn't, or if they didn't have that as one of their primary goals anymore?

Edit: I've been watching a little more and am warming up to the game a little bit. Good alliances, like the 525/1986 one in Illinois that manage to actually execute a strategy make the game much more interesting. I based my original post on qualifications at GTR, so maybe I spoke too soon.

Yep, I am glad that I waited to post until after I had watched the elimination matches today.

Eliminations provided for a consistent alliance to execute a good game plan. But it was interesting to watch how they had to improvise when defense arose. Co-opertition indeed.
Alamo Final 2 just finished, whoa what a match! The human player caught an errant truss shot and inbound it as he fell out of his boundary area.
It ended in a tie, but I think a truss score that I thought was missed may have been added upon review. (uh-oh, booth reviews)

GDC done good creating a game that is complex with reasonable point values (Except for some of those fouls).
Referees were better today. (must have been some calibration) They are still being asked to do too much though.
This game should get better and better through the next eight weeks.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

What happened at the end of Alamo? I just caught the end where they announced that 118's alliance won.

Apparently they decided after review of the cycles that the real-time score of 85 to 85 was wrong. I believe it would have been a tie otherwise.

Would like to see a video of that match, not because I think they were wrong, but just to see what happened...

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

This game ranks right up there with 2003. May even be "better".

Are you talking about an excess of defense? I think most of that is teams not knowing how to pass the ball, or lacking any kind of strategy to counter defensive robots. Yeah, there's more defense then recent years, but is that really a bad thing?

Either way, you can't deny it makes for exciting games!