Week3 cumulative Twitter stats & OPRs

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Excerpt from the above post:

win foul points awarded:
20 average (mean)
220 max

lose foul points awarded:
5 average (mean)
110 max

The above is a very simple assessment of how the foul points affect this game. 4X as many foul points to the winning alliance....this means that fouls swing a large percentage of matches.

50 point foul is effectively a automatic loss most of the time.
Tragic.
Worst game design since 2003, yet no real action to correct....
Tragic.

Agreed that the impact of foul points is tragic... and that foul points swinging the outcome of the match is likely a significant contributor to this statistic; however, I do think there is another possible/probable cause.

Fouls "take advantage" of less experienced, lower-performing teams. The teams that are more likely to get careless HP fouls, struggle to pickup a ball when inbounding, play hard defense that involves a manipulator flipping out and getting inside an offensive bot, or pin for too long are the teams that are less familiar with the rules, haven't kept up with the Q&A, and haven't designed as effective an offensive bot.

The fact that the teams most likely to suffer from the heavy fouls are also the teams that FIRST is having the hardest time retaining isn't a good thing for FIRST growing at or above average next year.

Consider me more and more on the side of "bring foul values down to 10 and 30." Keep in mind this is still 333% and 150% the value of fouls in 2013.

Big, Bad, Bobth Post! (#319)

[billylo]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

The fact that the teams most likely to suffer from the heavy fouls are also the teams that FIRST is having the hardest time retaining isn't a good thing for FIRST growing at or above average next year.

^^^ This says it all. Thank you Nathan. ^^^

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

50 point foul is effectively a automatic loss most of the time.
Tragic.
Worst game design since 2003, yet no real action to correct....
Tragic.

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

The fact that the teams most likely to suffer from the heavy fouls are also the teams that FIRST is having the hardest time retaining isn't a good thing for FIRST growing at or above average next year.

This can be a double whammy for District teams on the cusp of making it to the District Championship. The points for winning qualifying matches can function as the tie-breaker for determining who makes the cut-off and who doesn't. Your team can do everything right, but if a partner makes a mistake or doesn't know the rule, there goes 2 points. (And vice versa, you can do everything wrong and still get 2 points!) We do not have the manpower or experience to pull a 51 and record every foul and coach other teams through their problem areas. At our next event we will make a point to bring it up before every match so everyone knows.

At the end of the season I would be curious to see how many teams make or do not make the DCMP by foul points.

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

This can be a double whammy for District teams on the cusp of making it to the District Championship. The points for winning qualifying matches can function as the tie-breaker for determining who makes the cut-off and who doesn't. Your team can do everything right, but if a partner makes a mistake or doesn't know the rule, there goes 2 points. (And vice versa, you can do everything wrong and still get 2 points!) We do not have the manpower or experience to pull a 51 and record every foul and coach other teams through their problem areas. At our next event we will make a point to bring it up before every match so everyone knows.

At the end of the season I would be curious to see how many teams make or do not make the DCMP by foul points.

I agree that would be an interesting metric, although the match data doesn't show how deserving the fouls were or how consistently they were called.

As you are probably aware the twitter data (caveats apply) shows 1778 lost one match and won another at Mt Vernon due to fouls, so no net impact.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by MikeE

As you are probably aware the twitter data (caveats apply) shows 1778 lost one match and won another at Mt Vernon due to fouls, so no net impact.

Yep, and that make me wonder if they are uniformly enough distributed so that it is a net zero effect. I think the safest thing to do is assume that they are deserved. At Mr. Vernon I thought the refs did a great job.