How can you help GDC make this game better?

[Jim Zondag]

<G28>
What we have here is nearly the identical situation we had in 2008:
- The GDC chose a very large playing object.
- Because the object is so large, it is essentially impossible to obtain the object without extending beyond the bumper zone.
- In order to play offense in Arial Assist, teams must have extensions in order to pickup and/or pass the ball.
- because there is only one playing piece per alliance, many teams are assigned to pure defense roles.
- What we saw at Southfield this weekend was defensive teams waiting until the offense reached out to collect the ball, and then hitting them in an attempt to draw a foul. Often this worked. Once a defense team successfully drew a penalty for this, either accidentally or purposefully, we observed them seemingly doing this more deliberately in later matches. Honestly, who can blame them?; if a team built a robot which cannot score, and they suddenly realize that they can quickly score 50 points by ramming others at the right moment, they will modify their game play to try to do this again.

- So, when it comes to rule enforcement on G28, the key question is this:
Should we penalize teams who are simply attempting to play the game as designed when defenders attack them as they attempt to collect the ball?

- Team A builds a complex machine which can collect and throw the ball as intended by the GDC.
- Team B builds a box with wheels.
- The <G28> rule as it stands puts all of the risk burden on Team A and none on Team B. Is this what we want? Continuing to enforce this rule as we saw in week 1 will discourage teams from rising to the challenge of the Arial Assist game design. I believe we should reward teams who try to solve the problems FIRST presents to us, not penalize them for trying.

Enforcing this rule with respect for offense and defensive roles will help.
Defense team do not have to crash into other teams' collectors. It is quite obvious that many of them are willfully engaging in these collisions.
Obviously this is a tough thing to police. Certainly, enforcing it only in situations where "damage" occurs will help as others have already suggested. My own team got one such penalty this weekend, and ironically it was our robot which was damaged, not the defender in that case.
Better defining exactly what constitutes damage will also help. The FRC manual states: FRC is a full-contact ROBOT competition and may include rigorous game play. While Game and ROBOT Rules limit severe damage to ROBOTS, Teams should design their ROBOTS to be robust.
To me this means that minor, incidental damage is to be somewhat expected. There does not seem to be universal agreement amongst the refs on what exactly damage is. If a team makes a fragile robot, who's fault is it when it breaks?

Eventually, most of the reffing staff got it right in 2008, so I think this can be done properly in 2014. The Southfield refs seemed to be already handling this better on Saturday IMHO.

In addition, this penalty is much, much too heavily valued. 50 points is simply way too much. In week one, the average per team contribution per match was 19 points. Having a situation in which a single infraction costs more that 2 matches worth of team contribution is a complete game killer. This penalty should only be 10 points.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

It must be emphasized to every single ref during training that one robot cannot force another to take a penalty.

I agree with that concept, but please cite the rule that allows me to do that. We don't have a "but he made me do it" rule this year.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

I agree with that concept, but please cite the rule that allows me to do that. We don't have a "but he made me do it" rule this year.

This one:

G14

Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

3. Make it clear to field reset they are an integral part of the game and train them well before the start of the first match.

Field reset seems to never get that much respect or training... I was field reset for several years and read the rules closely, just as I always do, but there was very little training for those that haven't, and some of my fellow volunteers were quite confused over what they should do during the match and how. Even when the human players could have a big impact on the game, they weren't asking for conflict of interests forms, which seemed a bit off to me, too... I know I would have felt somewhat uncomfortable doing it with my former team on the field in a game where quick replacement of game pieces was critical.

[bitty]

1. Have 6 refs out ont the field rather than 5. Each ref will be assinged a bot to watch throughout the match and will let the refs catch g14.
2. Have scorekeepers to free up times for the refs because of the lag at the scoring tablet.
3. Have balls that go out of play be put back where they were tossed out instead of taking 5-15 seconds for them to be moved back to the driver stations.

[orangemoore]

Find 1 person per alliance to score possession for each alliance, the truss points, catch points and when they are scored.

So basically separate scoring and penalties. This would make the game a lot like last year where the refs are concerned by the rules of the game and not the score.

[YAK'ker]

as it was mentioned above:

"It must be emphasized to every single ref during training that one robot cannot force another to take a penalty. This has long been a core tenet of FIRST except in very special cases. Being pushed into goals, into opposition balls, and out of field perimeter by another robot should not be a foul."

I saw this happen yesterday....a 50 point foul. Same game, another robot intentionally capsized another robot with their arm, only a 20 point foul. I saw a LOT of battle bot action during the meet; especially in the final rounds. while it's exciting to watch, it's heartbreaking to see robots intentionally damaged in defense. What is this about gracious professionalism?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Find 1 person per alliance to score possession for each alliance, the truss points, catch points and when they are scored.

Actually, only one person per alliance can do the end score. Two per alliance can input possessions and fouls, as well as trusses and catches. That's the current system. The problem is that they all wear stripes, and there are only 4 total (not counting the Head Ref) at the field at a time.


And I will say this: The IE field reset crew was quite good at getting the ball, regardless of color, to where it needed to go, very quickly, particularly by the end of Saturday, and they didn't slow down much today even with having to train a new half-crew or more.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

1. Make the human player box bigger and further from the field. A 6 foot tall hp can easily violate the line.

This is the best suggestion I read so far.
With so many penalties and the fact that it is very difficult to throw and not incur one, this makes the most sense and the easiest to fix.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by EricH

And I will say this: The IE field reset crew was quite good at getting the ball, regardless of color, to where it needed to go, very quickly, particularly by the end of Saturday, and they didn't slow down much today even with having to train a new half-crew or more.

I'll second this, the field reset crew at ie was great, no issues at all. Our issues were with the pedestal not being lit as the refs were preoccupied scoring the match and looking for fouls. I also noticed that the refs tended to call possessions in the case of a foul much more often than possessions for assists. Multiple teams we're penalized for herding opponents balls when they hit it once or twice while teams that were actually intentionally herding the ball almost never got the assist. This was even happening when the robots were fully supporting their own ball and not getting assist points. The refs need to be either stricter calling possessions on the opponents ball, or they need to be more generous calling assists on your own ball. Several other mentors noticed the same thing.

[Koko Ed]

What would really help is if teams read and understood the rules.
It's easy to blame FIRST and the volunteers for everything that is wrong but the teams also need to take ownership of alot of the poor play on the field. In the past teams that had no idea what they were doing was not such a big deal because they could be carried by stronger teams who did everything. This year you need everyone to do their job or else the alliance suffers which makes alot of team uncomfortable having to trust others who they never trusted before.

[mechanical_robot]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

1) Scorekeepers separate from refs.
However there would need to be a reconfiguration of the touchscreen input system, possibly adding two more screens. And you thought fixing the High Goals was expensive. They could always have a separate scorekeeper paper sheet like last year with the load cell debacle, but that may increase reset times. We used paper at the week zero Suffield Shakedown and it was quick enough, but it messes with the value of the Real Time Scoring. Ensuring that the pedestal lights up the moment a ball is scored in a goal is critical to the flow of the game.

2) Adjust penalty values.
Reduce G40 to a foul. Call possession of the ball by an opposing alliance.
I saw many instances of opposing alliances touching a ball twice or "herding" during defensive moves. This will improve the flow of the game by making it harder for a defending Robot to recklessly attack any Robot in possession of a ball.

3) More cowbell.
'nuff said.

I think defense bots should be allowed to attack robots with the ball. They shouldn't be allowed to take possession, but they should be allowed to try to delay a robot shooting into a goal or try to make the opposing robot drop the ball. Also they add excitement to the game.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

<G28>
What we have here is nearly the identical situation we had in 2008:
- The GDC chose a very large playing object.
- Because the object is so large, it is essentially impossible to obtain the object without extending beyond the bumper zone.
- In order to play offense in Arial Assist, teams must have extensions in order to pickup and/or pass the ball.
- because there is only one playing piece per alliance, many teams are assigned to pure defense roles.
- What we saw at Southfield this weekend was defensive teams waiting until the offense reached out to collect the ball, and then hitting them in an attempt to draw a foul. Often this worked. Once a defense team successfully drew a penalty for this, either accidentally or purposefully, we observed them seemingly doing this more deliberately in later matches. Honestly, who can blame them?; if a team built a robot which cannot score, and they suddenly realize that they can quickly score 50 points by ramming others at the right moment, they will modify their game play to try to do this again.

- So, when it comes to rule enforcement on G28, the key question is this:
Should we penalize teams who are simply attempting to play the game as designed when defenders attack them as they attempt to collect the ball?
...

By the end of the Granite state district it seemed like this was a no call, which is what it should be in my opionion. If you go outside the bumpers you better be robust to last and expect the hit, but you shouldn't be penalized unless you're damaging a robot inside their frame perimeter.
There were definitely teams trying to game the system on this one until the refs caught on.

[Taylor]

During qualification rounds, allow 2 red and 2 blue balls in play.
During elimination rounds, allow 1 of each color (as it is now).

[Chris Hibner]

G12 needs two penalty levels. I can understand a 50 point penalty if a robot picks up an opponents ball, but contact with the ball that is marginal should be a smaller penalty.

Here's a case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsyx0QmpPlk#t=138. Watch the action near the far blue inbounder zone at the 2:24 point. The ball bounces off the red defender while the defender was trying to play robot defense against a blue robot. The result was a 50 point penalty that turned a 34 point win into a 16 point loss.