Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

[AndrewPospeshil]

I'm incredibly conflicted. Personally, as someone who absolutely loves game strategy of any kind (chess, Pokemon, etc), and as someone who spent countless hours discussing strategy and match results with their dad (also the team's drive coach for most of the season), this game was astronomically better conceptually than anything FIRST has ever produced. It required all members of the alliance to be involved and strategizing. This meant that a single robot generally couldn't overpower a superior opposing strategy. It made the game much deeper than just flinging frisbees or basketballs as quick as possible. Roles were especially important during elims, as it seemed each alliance was seeking an inbounder who could defend once they received and got rid of the ball, a trusser who could quickly acquire the ball and truss it without being pushed around too easily, and a scorer who could get the ball from the human player and was generally maneuverable enough to get into scoring position. This also gave the chance for mid-level teams to be very good picks as they fulfilled a role that top-tier teams (often shooters) needed. Plus it was fairly easy for the crowd to get excited - as opposed to watching numbers rise on a screen for two and a half minutes as robots sat there or moved back and forth, they understood that one ball being scored earned a lot of points if a lot of robots touched it, and it could easily turn the tide of a match.

On the other hand this game might have been better suited to a college level competition. Having one or two rookies with no ball controlling mechanism could often lose a match for even the best of teams. The unfortunate fact of FRC is that there will always be teams that are not much more than rolling chassis (chassi? chassises?). This means that if they aren't exceptionally lucky with their matchlist, they might not win a single match at all. A college competition would be much more likely to not have near-useless robots. Regardless, a weighting system might be viable to give teams similarly-skilled alliances for more even scoring matches, but then a lot of teams would likely not be with rookies/skilled veterans at all, which isn't super GP.

Anyways I do think AA > UA, simply because the strategy aspect is second to none. That's why I like Ring It Up way more than Block Party; the game wasn't as exciting but strategy was much more fun. There were a few tweaks that could've been made possibly to create a smoother experience but overall I think Aerial Assist will be remembered as one of the best FRC games ever.