Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You answered it yourself:



The game is okay. The existence of the fouls is okay. The thing that's not okay is the system by which the referees, using too-slow touch panels, are tasked with assessing not only fouls but scores as well.

If you must blame someone, blame the engineers who implemented that system. (But don't blame them too harshly, because they're working within the limitations of using the materials at hand.)

I blame whoever made the decision that dedicated scorers weren't needed and placed the extra work on the refs.

[themagic8ball]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

I'm sorry if your team has had a bad year, seriously. But my team, in our first regional, had an apparent victory in QF snatched after the fact due to the difficulties of reffing this game, and in the rematch their robot was torn in half. They have rebuilt from scratch the frame and shooter/collector to get ready for the next event. And they are HAPPY. In fact, the kids who came back from Utah say that it was life changing for them. I agree. They have done everything in their power, which was more than they ever thought possible. And that's enough to make me like FRC, and this (flawed) game.

This is exactly what FRC is about. If you measure your success by winning you are doing it wrong. Yes winning the game is awesome, and I get wrapped up in the moment as a mentor, but this year's game is about teamwork. We knew our biggest challenge going into Wisconsin was figuring out how to help getting less able robots to help get assist points. We still don't have any great insights, but it sure is awesome when you win a match with the help of some partners that didn't think they would be able to contribute.

It isn't as if less able teams aren't trying to win. They want to win just as much as you. But as veteran teams we need to find ways to help them become more successful. You cannot just tell a team 5 minutes before a match that they have this and that responsibility and then just ignore them when they don't come through. If you find yourself showing up to Regionals without competitive teams its up to your team to reach out and help them during build season. This organization is much better when we collaborate and help each other out, instead of letting new teams flounder and eventually die out because their students never get a chance.

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Find me a FRC game in which two immobile robots wouldn't severely harm your qualification score.

I think, if you overlook the reffing issues, this game is fantastic.

I do agree that the game concept is not awful.

Most years, the elite teams could, by themselves, win most qualification matches. There were so many 2012 robots that couldn't get any balls in, or had extremely low accuracy. This year, a single elite team partnered with two boxes on wheels can do nothing against an alliance of three very mediocre robots.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by compwiztobe

However, this year, the dominant strategy is undoubtedly to get at least one assist and consistently truss and score for 10, along side a consistent auto mode. While in Duluth, the rankings reflected this very well, with the best robots all in the top 8, at North Star, the 5 best robots were scattered across the top 30, with the third best machine (by my judgment), 3883, all the way down at 29. This was not because they chose a strategy that lost its effectiveness as the season progressed. This was because they played against literally every other good robot at the event, and never with one of them. 3928 was stuck at 12 and had no choice but to accept the number 2 seed, 4244, a box on wheels that never touched a ball once in their two quarterfinal matches. North Star also had several upsets in elims, while Duluth had none (the blue alliance won a single elimination match). All of this corresponds very neatly with my observation of the reffing and field reset quality at both events, as well as with the strength of schedule of all teams in question. Maybe you could say that the refs made drawing fouls and not having field faults a more competitive strategy at North Star, so the dominant strategy I'm talking about was no longer effective. But I think that would make a lot of people pretty unhappy, and I think that's what this whole conversation is about...

So it's a little rough to tell people to just "Deal with it" when they clearly have been and they clearly should not have to.

Your own anecdote shows that there are plenty more factors in play than simply game design and reffing. The scheduling algorithm can carry certain teams or doom others to mediocre qualification records, regardless of game. The not-so-random algorithm in 2007 skewed rankings towards functional younger teams. Similarly, this isn't the only year a "box on wheels" has ranked in the top 8, and having them rank in the top 8 is proof that the disadvantages presented by lower quality partners is not a dominant factor in the ranking system.

[Mastonevich]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

This is certainly possible at events this year, but in many cases, that involves taking away their auto balls, pulling the circuit breakers that control their catapults/shooters, zip-tying some protruding appendages into place, zip-tying their human players' hands behind their backs, and telling them to drive to the inbound station and sit there the whole match with their intake constantly spinning in reverse.

Is that more inspiring to those teams than a game where they could simply do what their robot was designed to do without the risk of dragging down their partners?

I believe it would be more inspiring for more teams to work with other teams during build to make them capable partners in a game where it was clear on day 1 that viable partners were a necessity. I know that is probably a pipe dream given the constraints of a six week build and the limited resources of even "successful" teams.

Originally Posted by compwiztobe

So it's a little rough to tell people to just "Deal with it" when they clearly have been and they clearly should not have to.

Playing devils advocate, why should you "clearly not have to" deal with it. Most adults have had to "deal with it" hundreds of times in thier lives. Why should this be any different?

My answer would be for the amount of money spent going to these competitions, one has a reasonable expectation that the competition is played out fairly to all.


Going back to the original question of buyer's remorse, I feel that the game still accomplishes the goal of "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology". That is what I signed up for. It is a proven means to inspiring the students on my team for sure.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Go watch some videos from 2013 Lake Superior, and then try and tell me the seeding was because the nature of the game changed - there were plenty of matches we won where our robot climbing had absolutely nothing to do with it because we screwed up on getting set up for the climb. We were carried in those matches and ranked much better than we really deserved, based purely on robot performance.

I must have misunderstood your original post. My apologies.

I do think your climbing helped you more in Duluth than it did at North Star. There is also something to be said for the fact that the 1st seed selected you in Duluth for your climbing ability, but the same climbing ability was not selected until coming back up the serpentine at North Star. But it sounds like this is irrelevant.

You have a good point. There are ranking inconsistencies every year, produced by the schedule. However, some people (myself included) feel that there are more severe inconsistencies introduced by the foul points, the field reset, and the inconsistent and unreliable refereeing.

Originally Posted by Pranit T

Implying that blue alliance should never win because they clearly have the inferior robots. Nicely done.

The point of the ranking system is to predict robot performance in elimination rounds. An inaccurate ranking system is one that fails to do this. In elimination matches, the higher seed alliance (or the one which beated the higher seed) is red, while the other is blue. So blue winning is what is considered an upset, and is generally thought to be correlated with an inaccurate ranking system. It's just statistics, not an absolute.

Originally Posted by Pranit T

You said it "so and so's machine was easily in the top 5 robots" according to your judgement. Why can't it be that they were ranked lower because maybe they DID adopt a strategy that lost its effectiveness as the season progressed. You are now simply undermining the improvements that the opposing teams could have made before or during the event. If you really think that a team can pick one strategy and stick to it from Week 1 of competition all the way thru Week 6 and Champs, I'm afraid you've got it wrong my friend.

From watching their performance both in Duluth and at North Star, 3883 improved their game and consistently demonstrated excellence at the game tasks during qualification matches, more so than many of the 28 teams who outranked them. Yes, anyone's judgment will be flawed and subjective, but I watched many of the teams at North Star play and actually put some thought into this, I hardly think it's just because I "like their robot."

Originally Posted by Pranit T

You really cant rant about you getting the short end of the stick in a randomized draw. Thus, deal with it.

My point is that there are ranking anomalies because of the refereeing. The schedule is a randomized draw every year, but the claim is that something makes the rankings less accurate this year, and I believe I have shown some evidence of that. The refs make an admirable effort to catch everything and do it right. However, we have had the misfortune to interact with some who are not so professional about making mistakes or missing calls, and some even stray from the rules and updates openly. This may be because they already have too much to worry about, but whoever is at fault, if anyone, it's a problem, and I would like the situation to improve. We can argue about this stuff, or we can recognize problems and try to improve.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by themagic8ball

We knew our biggest challenge going into Wisconsin was figuring out how to help getting less able robots to help get assist points. We still don't have any great insights, but it sure is awesome when you win a match with the help of some partners that didn't think they would be able to contribute.

A bit off topic, but this stuff is amazing for quick robot mods (especially for building quick backboards/hoops to hold the gamepiece).

http://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite...B100/202033006

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

A bit off topic, but this stuff is amazing for quick robot mods (especially for building quick backboards/hoops to hold the gamepiece).

http://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite...B100/202033006

We ended up designing an Assist mechanism that passively contained and possessed the ball, easily loaded by a Human Player, until the drive base accelerated and it would dump it out. Made from Home Depot PVC pipe and fittings for <$15.

We marketed several of them at our event, but found it very difficult to work with the teams that had not read the rules and did not know how the game played. Even making the assembly and use as simple as possible, human players would have difficulty loading it and drivers would have difficulty using it. We learned a lot from this experience, mostly that these teams need help long before the event starts if it's going to be effective.

We have been using the same PEX pipe for various catcher and ball guidance prototypes. Really great stuff.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

A bit off topic, but this stuff is amazing for quick robot mods (especially for building quick backboards/hoops to hold the gamepiece).

http://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite...B100/202033006

Give us Colin back. I know that was his idea.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

It's more ineptitude than refusal.

We went into Waterford with the idea that we would play for 3 assists in every match. Things went well our first match. Then over the next 3 matches we accumulated a grand total of 10 assist points (not 10 points per match - 10 points TOTAL over those 3 matches).

All three of those matches involved 2 boxes on wheels or a box on wheels plus an unusable intake. We tried our best to help them assist, but after 20 seconds of fumbling around in teleop and the referee still hasn't given an assist credit, the most recent bump into a ball by the partner sent the ball way across the field (with no assist credit), and all the while the opposing alliance is building up a lead, what can you do? At this rate we'll be lucky to get a single cycle completed and lose the match, or we can decide to scrap it and get 20 points a cycle using the one-man-show truss then shoot strategy. Since wins are still more important than assists, we had to abandon the assist strategy and just try as hard as we could to catch up and win the match.

Every one of those matches we had a good plan to get the assists, and every match it became clear that an assist just wasn't going to happen.

With all of that being said, that doesn't mean I hate the game. As was already mentioned, we would have difficulty with those matches in any game.

Perhaps on offense, rules can be changed to credit an assist for mere CONTACT with a ball in a unique zone. Are you a statue of sadness? Partners can just plink balls off your motionless frame and get credit for the assist. Problem solved! Woot woot.

Defensive possession rules would remain the same as before.

Let's rolllllll for it.

[stuart2054]

[quote=Mastonevich;1368054]I believe it would be more inspiring for more teams to work with other teams during build to make them capable partners in a game where it was clear on day 1 that viable partners were a necessity. I know that is probably a pipe dream given the constraints of a six week build and the limited resources of even "successful" teams.

I agree with helping other teams but obviously the 6 week build schedule makes it difficult. I would like to see rookies and perhaps 2nd year teams have an extra week of build season after bag night for veterans so that veteran teams would have more opportunity to help without loss of their own build time.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by magnets

I do agree that the game concept is not awful.

Most years, the elite teams could, by themselves, win most qualification matches. There were so many 2012 robots that couldn't get any balls in, or had extremely low accuracy. This year, a single elite team partnered with two boxes on wheels can do nothing against an alliance of three very mediocre robots.

You're kidding, right? 2 boxes on wheels and a robot that can do nothing but pick up the ball can still turn out 31 point cycles. Put a launcher on one of them and you're talking 40-50 point cycles.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but "elite teams" like 254, 118, et al are still winning regionals. 118 cleaned up in Alamo and I can tell you as someone who went there only 10-15 robots could even play the game. When I mean "play the game", I'm telling you our scouting meeting eliminated 32 of the 64 teams on Friday night because the robots could not move, had repeated no-shows, or demonstrated a lack of understanding how the game is played. 422 is not an elite team, which is why we went 5-5 in quals. 118 is an elite team, which is why they went undefeated. As a drive coach who personally worked with them, their robot is a well engineered machine, but what really mattered was the collection and execution of data from the competition.

Please go look at results of regionals. Elite teams are still winning regionals.

People who have giant issues with the core tenets of the game are people who refuse to accept that some games do not cater to their teams. I don't think it's breaking news to anyone that this is the most fundamentally unique game in the 3v3 era, if not ever. And because it is unique and because of the turnaround for FRC games, there are blemishes. This is not an inherently bad game. The core of Aerial Assist is the part that is very well received. In both surveys I turned in, I marked the game as "very good" but detailed out what everyone already knows: the administering of the game is damaging to its potential and transitively the potential of teams that play it.

I'm mostly concerned that FRC is going to take feedback from the wrong people: those who fail to understand the difference between the game achieving its core objectives and the game functioning at its correct capacity. I think FRC's GDC has earned another shot at trying a game like Aerial Assist next year instead of reverting back to more traditional games.

The ranking system has been and will continue to be at least a litte screwy, and this year's ranking system ranks somewhere behind Ultimate Ascent's pretty good sort and far ahead of the comedy that was 2012 and 2010 sorting.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by magnets

This year, a single elite team partnered with two boxes on wheels can do nothing against an alliance of three very mediocre robots.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? Also, as noted above, I'm not sure it's true.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

I blame whoever made the decision that dedicated scorers weren't needed and placed the extra work on the refs.

After reading the rules at kickoff I told our RD that she'd need more ref volunteers to act as dedicated scorekeepers/assist trackers. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to later discover that something I recognized after 2 hours with the rules was technically impossible due to the design of the scoring system.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

This is certainly possible at events this year, but in many cases, that involves taking away their auto balls, pulling the circuit breakers that control their catapults/shooters, zip-tying some protruding appendages into place, zip-tying their human players' hands behind their backs, and telling them to drive to the inbound station and sit there the whole match with their intake constantly spinning in reverse.

Is that more inspiring to those teams than a game where they could simply do what their robot was designed to do without the risk of dragging down their partners?

I'm kind of disappointed this seems to have gotten lost in the thread. Beyond the technical issues (pedestal, slow ref touch screens, confusing defense rules, weird interpretations of possession at some events, overpowered fouls, etc), this is the real beef I have with this game.

OP, if you really feel like FRC was a waste of money this year, there's no reason for you to of continue to compete next year. Not that I like the game, but I don't think it was so terrible we won't register next year.