Ethics of Telling a Team "No"

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by valeriemoore

The thing that makes this years game interesting (and frightening) is that the actions necessary to win the match are not necessarily the ones that attract the attention for scouters. Every robot wants to prove their shooter and their ability to pass.

No. Scouts don't just look for robots that can shoot. If they do, they're bad scouts.

Unless you're one of the best shooters at the regional, shooting will likely not get you picked. Being a meh shooter is actually worse than not shooting this game, as you'll lose your alliance much more time chasing down the ball than you'll gain in points if you happen to make it in the high goal. Smart scouts know this, and won't really care I'd you made 8 high goal shots or 3 if your drivetrain isn't there or you don't appear to pass well.

Passing, on the other hand is something that every team can and should demonstrate to scouts, and something that will contribute to almost any qualification alliance. Probably one of the easiest and best things for a robot to do in quals (given even a KitBot drivetrain and extremely basic ball handling skills) is to sit in front of the human player, receive the ball and pass it to another robot, and then go play defense. This isexactly what scouts are looking for, will make a positive contribution to your alliance, and stay "out of the way" of other robots.

[Yipyapper]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

No. Scouts don't just look for robots that can shoot. If they do, they're bad scouts.

Unless you're one of the best shooters at the regional, shooting will likely not get you picked. Being a meh shooter is actually worse than not shooting this game, as you'll lose your alliance much more time chasing down the ball than you'll gain in points if you happen to make it in the high goal. Smart scouts know this, and won't really care I'd you made 8 high goal shots or 3 if your drivetrain isn't there or you don't appear to pass well.

Passing, on the other hand is something that every team can and should demonstrate to scouts, and something that will contribute to almost any qualification alliance. Probably one of the easiest and best things for a robot to do in quals (given even a KitBot drivetrain and extremely basic ball handling skills) is to sit in front of the human player, receive the ball and pass it to another robot, and then go play defense. This isexactly what scouts are looking for, will make a positive contribution to your alliance, and stay "out of the way" of other robots.

I disagree with the "meh" shooter thought; if one has a men shooter, then they can still shoot over the truss and not have to be accurate, while at the same time being a team player that helps out the main shooter of the team.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Unfortunately, this is year is unusual in that the actions of a single team can completely undermine the efforts of its alliance members.

The thread can end here.

This is why Aerial Assist is a terrible game for rookies/less experienced teams.

Teams at the top of their game often need to convince detrimental alliance partners to not use a majority of the features (pick up/catapult/auto mode/etc) they've spent 2 months pouring their heart and soul into because they are inconsistent and/or slow down the cycle. Occasionally, coaches get creative and re-purpose a design to provide the needed assists. Often though, this is not possible. This is heartbreaking, but FIRST has put top teams in this spot.

Please don't do this again FIRST.

-Mike

[FrankJ]

I take the opposite view. It is a great game for rookies/less experienced teams. It is a great opportunity for the teams at the top of their game to use their GP and mentor the less experienced teams. Unlike some previous games you can drive & play defense with little risk of fouls. So coaching a willing team can be effective.

The playing only for a team's self interest to the detriment of the alliance is not just a rookie issue. You can't tell those teams no because they will not listen to you anyway.

[pandamonium]

Helping a team maximizing their scoring potential is in everyone's best interest. Unfortunately some people either live in magical christmas land or they value trying to show off over team performance. Sitting in the corner nundging the ball against the wall to trap it is not a bad strategy for some teams. It all depends on how the other teams approach pre match but everyone should buy into the overall strategy to optimize performance.

[Citrus Dad]

One last point about FRC games in general--they are a team sport. It is 3 on 3 alliances made up of teams of individuals who make robots. If FIRST wanted this to be an "individual" sport, they would have designed one-on-one games. In a team sport individuals make sacrifices to help the team. Would you expect the left offensive tackle on a football team to grab the center snap and attempt a pass? But many of you would be amazed to find out that the left offensive tackle is often paid more than wide receivers and other "stars" because that tackle is the most important player in protecting the QB (who is usually right handed.) Remember that that not everyone can be the QB, but your team can be the best possible offensive tackle for the alliance.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

One last point about FRC games in general--they are a team sport. It is 3 on 3 alliances made up of teams of individuals who make robots. If FIRST wanted this to be an "individual" sport, they would have designed one-on-one games. In a team sport individuals make sacrifices to help the team. Would you expect the left offensive tackle on a football team to grab the center snap and attempt a pass? But many of you would be amazed to find out that the left offensive tackle is often paid more than wide receivers and other "stars" because that tackle is the most important player in protecting the QB (who is usually right handed.) Remember that that not everyone can be the QB, but your team can be the best possible offensive tackle for the alliance.

That's a good way of putting it. When you negotiate strategy with alliance partners in qualifications, it's good to come in with scouting data of their team and say "here is where we see your strengths as an alliance partner" instead of "we need you to NOT do x, y, z". It's a lot easier to work with an alliance partner by telling them "I want you to give #### hell the whole match because we've seen you do it and this will give us all the win" instead of "just stay out of our way."

Granted like I've said in other threads, these challenges are not exactly unique to this year, they are just made far more obvious because situations where these challenges arise are far more prevalent.

[JesseK]

In 7 seasons of driver coaching, 3 of which my team has been successful out of the gate, there have been relatively few instances in Quals where I felt it may have been prudent to ask an alliance partner to not do something.

Want to do your 1-ball autonomous? Who are we to say no? My driver can probably get an errant ball regardless.
Want to put your ball on the field but not move it in autonomous? It's not the worst thing in the world.
Want to do your 2-ball autonomous you just created? Well, if you've done it on the practice field then sure. Otherwise we want to do our own 2-ball autonomous, depending on how "hard" the match is expected to be. If it's expected to be a blow-out, then generally I'll agree that you can do yours.
Want to play uber defense after consistently acquiring 100 foul points? I'm fooling myself if I want to believe you'll agree to a "no", especially on Saturday morning. You can do it, but you should at least touch our inbounded ball first.
Want to play high-goaler but you're typically 25% accuracy? I think the TRUSS is much better for you and (honestly) would play a key role in getting massive assist points if you do it right.

Finally, it has historically been easier for a team to agree to uber 'wingman' than uber defense, but I have yet to play this 2014 game. I have watched 8 streams at once though

[Dival]

As a couch in the 1st seed at our regional, I must admit I've played terrible strategies in the qualifications. While we could get 70-100 doing cycles alone, most of the times I chose to play many assists in the match, often causing us to make much less score than we could do playing alone. Most of the times I knew that we can play the match better if we work alone and let the other teams play defense, but I couldn't let the other teams stay outside the game. It's important to remember that while most of the teams you play with have no chance to enter the top 10 in the seeding, most of them would want to show themselves, hoping to get some nice 2nd pick.

Of course, in some cases I found myself dealing not only with teams that try to show things they can not do in the match, but also with plain lies. In one match one of the teams claimed that their auto worked in every single game, even though my scouters said that they didn't try it even once. I could not stop convince them to give up the auto, and needless to say, it failed.

There will always be those teams that are hard to convince to play for the good of the alliance rather than for their own, but even they have to be accounted in the strategy. Even strategically, it's important to play with your alliance rather than against them. Hopefully, if you give up some part of your ideal strategy (like letting a team try their auto) you will more easily be able to play other parts of the game as you wish, or even "take" the game if it is needed.

Overall, I must agree with Michael. I hate the fact that teams should give up showing their abilities in order to win a match. While in last year, for instance, team needed to play as creatively as they could in order to win the elimination matches, this year teams have to play in a very conservative way, in order to avoid hurting the whole alliance.

[IronicDeadBird]

Design wise this game has very easy tasks that rookie teams can try for the low goal or attempt a defensive goalie bot. Both are simple and easy concepts but to be pulled off at the competitive level is something completely different. Since a working low goal bot in order to function just needs a drive base every team does it. So doing it doesn't really give a rookie team the biggest sense of accomplishment. The goalie bot while also simple in concept requires a lot of thought and planning an amount that I would be startled to see a rookie team do. Since the height extension is limited to within the goalie zone the front of the low goals is open. I have only seen a goalie bot pulled off really well where it covers the high goal and the top of the low goal in one instance (if I am wrong please please please send me links). While possible the rules make it very strict in how well a goalie bot needs to be designed. If the robot is too flimsy it will lean to a side and go out of its 6 inch vertical extension cylinder, if its blocker is too slow then it is ineffective. If the entire team consists of low goals then the front is always out of goalie bots reach and in that instance the goalie bot is useful. Remember what teams have robots capable of scoring low goal? Every team with a working drive base. I expect any team that wanted to make a goalie bot would need access to field elements to test the robot. A lot of teams regardless of rookie or veteran don't have the space required to do such things.
So there it is, 2 tasks a rookie team can absolutely aim above and fall back on in case they couldn't make a high goal consistently, to me that makes this game designed fairly newbie friendly.
There is one slight issue though, all of the students have spent a lot of time putting together a robot and they want to see it perform to only what they designed it to do. They expect the best, they expect that all the hard work isn't for nothing. They want to see every function on that robot work because of the time and commitment. Remember though that it hurts man and the feels when you don't see your idea brought to life or executed as well as other teams. We all spent a lot of time putting together a machine that competes in this environment where the veteran teams don't just do the task they look cool. We all want to look like that veteran team we all hope that our robot can perform what we designed it to, regardless of weather or not its smart for the robot to take a shot at the high goal, weather statistically it makes more sense to just go low goal that requires disregarding every night these students spent on the robot because alliance members want to win.
So the solution is obvious: "Don't worry about winning and every alliance member will be able to play how they want!"
....
So the solution is obviously unrealistic.

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Unlike some previous games you can drive & play defense with little risk of fouls. So coaching a willing team can be effective.

I feel that this game is actually harder on teams for getting penalties while driving. While there is no "safe zone" of the other alliance that drivers have to avoid, that doesn't mean that you can't easily get penalties while playing defense. At our district event, I saw teams be penalized for simple repeated bumper contact of an opponents ball, causing it to move in a certain direction. The opponent ball may be rolling around the field, making a moving obstacle. To be safe, you really have to avoid it or not be moving when you touch it. This is a much harder thing to do that to just "not go near the key" of your opponent or "don't touch them if they are touching the pyramid". Watch out drivers.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Design wise this game has very easy tasks that rookie teams can try for the low goal or attempt a defensive goalie bot.

Rookies... our apologies... I do this too and generically refer to rookie teams as weaker teams.

Having had my veteran butt kicked by rookies, and having been invited in to elimination rounds by rookies, on behalf of all of us who use the term rookie as a correlation to a weak team... I apologize.

Yeah, rookies tend to be weaker, and no, the relative abilities of rookie teams is not the key point of this thread, but we have to remember that not all rookies are weak.

Jason

[IronicDeadBird]

For all intents and purposes I do mean weaker teams when I say rookie.
I should clarify that when I talked about rookies I do not mean to call out any teams in particular nor am I just talking about the teams new to FRC. Really "rookie" would apply to any low tier team regardless of what puts them at a perceived disadvantage. Regardless of how its taken being called a rookie, or a newbie, is only an insult when you add negative intent.
If you call yourself a rookie that doesn't mean you are less of a team, it just means other teams will react to you differently. My hope is that most teams hear rookie and take it the right way and go "I wonder if I can help them?" Instead of "what a bunch of new rookies."

All flowers start with seeds nothing to be ashamed of so lets just get the fertilizer and bloom a little quicker.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Dival

I hate the fact that teams should give up showing their abilities in order to win a match.

See, I see this as more a failure/ intentional problem on the team's part than a failure of the GDC. FRC can basically be broken down half and half into strategy and execution. Executing a poor strategy/ set of design requirements perfectly (ie, prioritizing high goal shooting over drive train and intake) is as bad as executing a good strategy poorly (see teams that poorly mimicked Boom Done). Unfortunately, teams misread games and poorly execute designs relatively often (my own team is a very good example of this in 2013 and 2011). Personally, I think a better approach than blaming the game is to adjust my robot and match play to better suit the competition, even if this is a good deal of effort.

If a team is being asked not to do something, it's likely that they should be trying to either fix that something or find something better to be doing. This year, my team came to Northern Lights Regional trying to be an everything bot-- pick up, 10 point shot, truss shot, floor passes, the works. Our most successful matches came when we locked some of the mechanisms that we were trying to use effectively and focused on just inbounding or trussing. Now, going into North Star, it's quite likely that we'll still be trying to play those roles solidly and expand on our abilities from there.

I hope I didn't stray too far... it's late at night and I've been thinking about my team's robot a lot lately.

[Yipyapper]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I hope I didn't stray too far... it's late at night and I've been thinking about my team's robot a lot lately.

FIRST in a nutshell.