Why does everyone hate this game so much?

[pfreivald]

A few thoughts on this contentious subject:

A. Everyone should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conver.../dp/0071771328

Tantrums/rants not only don't solve anything at best, they are almost always counterproductive. The catharsis is not worth it.

There are ways to disagree passionately and vehemently while being both gracious and professional about it. Most people are pretty bad at it. I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be. We could all use the improvement. This book is an excellent start.

B. "Everyone" doesn't hate this game. As with everything else in life, complainers drown out the satisfied. Unless we have polling data, we don't know what the percentages are, and pretending that we do is simply confirmation bias.

C. Anyone who has ever been in any kind of administrative position (be they a judge or a head ref or a teacher or a coach or a school board member or a member of the GDC) knows the fundamental fact about making people angry:

There are only two ways to make people angry: do something, and do nothing.

The GDC is in a hard spot every year, because no matter what they do--literally--a vocal minority will complain about it. (For example, if they update the rules mid-season or late-season or on some Thursday, people complain that things have been changed and that's not fair to those who built/planned for the rules as originally presented, while if they don't update the rules, people complain that they're unresponsive and don't care.) It's a lose-lose for them no matter what, and I for one am thankful that they're willing to do it at all.

I strongly suggest cultivating some empathy for the decision-makers, even if you disagree with their decisions.

D. Yes, this game has flaws. EVERY game has flaws. If you've ever studied game design, you'd know how hard it is to create an open rules set (as opposed to a closed rules set) game. Professional game companies spend literally thousands of man-hours playtesting and revising game rules before they hit the market, and at least hundreds of man-hours playtesting any rules changes before they're made, and yet they still have unforeseen issues once the game is released to the creative and motivated public. This is not possible with FRC, which means that more flaws will make it to the field.

E. Both "sides" of both the penalties and robustness arguments have merit--but I'm not certain it's possible to satisfy either one, much less both, of either argument. ("The rules are what they are. Build your robot so that it won't be a problem and it won't be a problem" will satisfy one side, and enrage the other.)

Compromise is the art of making sure that everyone walks away equally unhappy.