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  #31   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-04-2014, 09:30
Racer26 Racer26 is offline
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

I like Aerial Assist at a high-level. With 6 strong robots, solid strategy, and the improved penalty calling by CMP, Aerial Assist is a fun game to watch.

At a low level with teams that struggle to corral the ball, much less pick it up and actually score it? Its really painful to watch.

I think that both Ultimate Ascent, and Rebound Rumble were more engaging at a low level, but Aerial Assist is my favourite to watch for high-level awesome strategies.

I saw 51's alliance at champs making a nearly indefensible setup, truss-to-HP, then HP throws into a catcher-bot glued to the front face of the low goal to score it high. Not moving from that position unless necessary helped to keep defenders from getting between them and the goal. Its a significant part of how they toppled the #1 alliance in Archimedes.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 09:44
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Thumbs up Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Coming from the perspective of a driver for this year and last year, AA was much better by far. I loved having to come up with a strategy with your alliance partners and trying to find a way to use even the simplest robot. The strategy involved really got the crowd involved and each ball had so much potential to affect the game. Overall I liked AA much better than UA. I think it was a great idea on FIRST's part.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 09:45
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Justin Lawrence Justin Lawrence is offline
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

I don't think it was the worst game, but I don't think it's the best either. Autonomous seemed to have created the outcome of most matches, not giving the other alliance a chance to win. But it was fun to watch the finals matches on Einstein.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 10:21
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Racer26 View Post
I saw 51's alliance at champs making a nearly indefensible setup, truss-to-HP, then HP throws into a catcher-bot glued to the front face of the low goal to score it high. Not moving from that position unless necessary helped to keep defenders from getting between them and the goal. Its a significant part of how they toppled the #1 alliance in Archimedes.
That could not be more true. This game was great because it made it so the top teams weren't invincible during elims, any alliance with the right strategy can win.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 10:22
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

I think this game is better than Ultimate Ascent. It was designed to be played on Einstein and those final matches were awesome. One of the things that made the game great was the evolution of strategies as the competition got better. We saw brand new strategies show up AT WORLDS! Every alliance had their opportunity to win through excellent strategy and teamwork, making upsets more common and exciting. This is unlike Ultimate Ascent, which could be won by 3 similar robots that never interacted with each other because the game forced independence.

This year, it was extremely important that robots were consistent and drive teams worked together behind the glass. My team suffered at both MSC and Curie from not working well with other teams. We had a hard time getting picked or seeding high because of this, and while it was a little upsetting, we learned a lot about how to present ourselves. This game was an excellent opportunity for teams to learn how to be gracious professionals and better embody the ideals of FIRST, so in that respect this game was better than most. If you went into this year hoping to win alone, then it was probably a disappointing year.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 10:49
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Quote:
Originally Posted by wasayanwer97 View Post
We shouldnt have to wait for Elims or Champs to consistently see a game played well.
This.

I never really liked this game all that much, but it definitely got better as the season progressed. By the time Champs came around, almost every match I saw was well-managed, well-played, and exciting to watch. The Einstein matches were some of the best I've seen in a long time. They were without a doubt more exciting than the finals for Ultimate Ascent. However, the Ultimate Ascent matches were much better to watch during the early and middle parts of the season. Aerial Assist improved by leaps and bounds towards the end, but that doesn't make up for the flaws that made it so much worse in the beginning. Overall, Ultimate Ascent was by far the superior game.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 11:13
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

We have been playing in three team alliances for 12 years now, and Aerial Assist is the first game to even come close to a traditional "team sport", which explains all of the problems not related to rules or the game field. The game itself can very much be modeled like a team sport because you need everyone playing amazingly to succeed, which isn't a very far fetched idea since that's kinda how the best sports teams are as successful as they are. Surprise, the most sport-like game we've had in the history of FIRST plays like an actual sport! Nobody saw that coming. And that's the truth - nobody was prepared for this kind of game. Every game we've played in the past was all solo missions. It was like being back in FLL where the two robots are on separate tables doing their own things independently of each other. This is the first game that actually required coordination and teamwork. Just like a real sport, this game was absolutely amazing when everyone playing was a professional who knew what they were doing. But this wasn't always the case with Aerial Assist. Because you could be the leading team in March Madness and then be paired up with Hertz Middle School P.E class recreational basketball team. Imagine Jordan trying a last second pass to a 13 year old in the NBA finals. Aerial Assist, like any team sport, had high potential to be great when played by great teams, and it showed. The elims at champs were hands down the most exciting matches I have ever experienced in my lifetime. However it also had potential to suck completely, and because it is a "team sport", the team is only as strong as its weakest link, and the numbers show that even great teams lost because of partners who just couldn't play at their level.

I think Aerial Assist is a step in the right direction. We went from a game that you could play successfuly without even talking to your alliance partners (Ultimate Ascent) to a game that required complete team cooperation to win (Aerial Assist). We've found our two extremes - now to find a happy middle ground where actually playing with your partners can benefit you as an option, but is not required to win a match. You can't compare Aerial Assist and Ultimate Ascent, because they are two opposite extremes on different sides of the spectrum.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 11:40
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

What I liked about Ultimate Ascent was the fact that several viable strategies existed. There were a few cases where they interacted with each other in interesting ways, especially Blocker vs Full Court, and Full Court + Floor Pickup. It's fun when the robots have to respond to what the other robots are doing. But when it was six robots cycling + climbing, it was a bit like golf where everyone is just doing their own thing independently.

I'd rather have a game that provides a stronger incentive for teams to work together in interesting ways.

I don't think the solution to bad qualifier matches in regionals is to revert to non-interactive games. The game wasn't the problem - the problem is that many teams' robots are not capable of playing the game. Let's find ways to help those teams get to the next level.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 11:44
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Ultimate Ascent was the height of a well-executed game for FIRST. The game, while not taking full adavantage of its potential, still came out as a very pretty game to watch. Rebound Rumble had a much stronger concept behind it: the potential to create 40 point swings in elimination matches at the drop of a hat: the strategic weight of bridges vs baskets. Aerial Assist was a game unlike anything else that FRC or any comparative robotics competition has ever seen, and with it came some bumps in the road. While the GDC was excited at taking this idea of 40 point swings throughout the whole game, and strategy being in the spotlight even during autonomous, the game was plagued by the actual high point value swings coming in highly subjective tech fouls and strategy not being well executed until elimination rounds.

I honestly do think that FIRST, FRC's GDC, and the community have learned a lot about each other and themselves this year and I encourage the GDC to take another shot at a game like Aerial Assist while taking what we all learned this year into the meetings to put together our 2015 game. Think about how this game could have looked differently with, say, an alliance-agnostic white ball that didn't count assists but allowed teams to strategize acquiring and using that ball stategically throughout the match? How would the game look different if we tried x, and would we achieve a y positive result?
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Unread 28-04-2014, 12:01
Lil' Lavery Lil' Lavery is offline
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Poor quality of matches at the beginning of the season is not exclusive to Aerial Assist. It's been pretty much universal. Remember all the 0-0 ties in 2007 and 2010? Or the matches that were reduced to 0-0 ties after penalties in 2005 and 2008? Even in the much praised, offensive games in 2012 and 2013, the scores were significantly lower earlier in the season. There was a regional finals match in week 1 last year where the losing alliance scored only 16 points. You could win multiple regionals early last year without breaking 100 points.

Schedule strength has also been a critical factor in other games. Go look at the OPR predictions that were created once the schedule was released. OPR doesn't factor in team cohesion or the nature of the game, but raw numbers alone show how much of a driving factor your match schedule is.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 12:01
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

Personally, I thought Ultimate Ascent was boring to watch. It was just 6 robots performing the same cycles over and over again in opposite directions.

I thought the varying strategies of Aerial Assist were entertaining to watch and made the game more exciting.

I thoroughly look forward to more games where coopertition between alliance members is a major part of the game.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 12:30
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

This thread is like a Bizarro World of Chief Delphi for the last 2 months. Everybody has been berating the game and how it was poorly designed, and now people are singing it's praises.

As for what I think, this was a much better Spectator sport than in past years. And I think that was exactly what FIRST was going for in expanding their reach.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 12:36
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

The two past games were drastically different. I personally favored Ultimate Assent for its ability to allow good robots to seed high and then form amazing alliances for eliminations. Ultimate Assent had many different designs of robots and strategies from climbers to cyclers and full court shooters. sure, there was alliances were they just cycled, but that was a good strategy. I will never forget the image of seeing 469 and 1519 pounding full court shots while 33 cleaned up the mess in front of the goal. Areal Assist created a game where 3 robots that functioned together could pull of any upset imaginable, which created some of the best elimination matches that I have ever seen. The qualification matches however saw many matches where one robot or two robots were trying to come back against another alliances of 3 fully functioning robots. This left much of the seeding for eliminations to the strength of that teams schedule. I loved the way that strategy was incorporated this year, but even with a good strategy one robot could reduce their alliances chances of victory.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 13:03
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

I personally feel that Ultimate Ascent was better because the game was simpler to play, with less running around and debating strategy.
"Do you start middle? Yes? Alright, we'll start on the right. You have a 5-disc Auto? Fantastic, go ahead and take middle."

With this game, it's a logistical nightmare having to run around the pits, gather drive teams and talk about strategy, especially when you have 3 or even 2 match turnarounds because of scheduling.

As a member who does match strategy, I definitely enjoyed working with teams and finding out about each of their robot capabilities, and then working out a strategy together, but I think that the game eventually became stale, with the eventual strategy being Inbounder -> Outtake to Trusser -> Truss -> HP -> Score.

In Ultimate Ascent, I loved seeing different types of robots come together, such as an alliance with 2 Full-Court Shooters and a pickup. That was really fun to watch, with discs raining into the goal, and the pickup scoring any missed discs.

I also think that defense was far too powerful in this year's game, due to the presence of only one game piece. With my very limited experience in FRC (2 Years so far), I found that defense was healthy and viable in Ultimate Ascent, as there were ways to escape defense and keep the flow of the game going.

In Aerial Assist, due to there being one game element, the robot with the ball is immediately targeted, and due to the lack of a hardstop to escape around, the robot is forced into a pushing match, or a game of back-and-forth until you can fake out the opposing alliance robot.

Lastly, in Ultimate Ascent, the strength of schedule didn't matter as much, because a strong robot would've been able to carry their team to victory. In Aerial Assist, even the strongest robot would've been limited if their alliance partner's weren't equally powerful or responsive.

tl;dr:
I didn't like the game because defense was too powerful, strategy was kinda stale in Qualifications, and SoS was too influential in pick positions.
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Unread 28-04-2014, 13:06
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Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?

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Originally Posted by Edxu View Post
I personally feel that Ultimate Ascent was better because the game was simpler to play, with less running around and debating strategy.
This is precisely why I like Aerial Assist so much. Three robots playing in parallel is waaaaaay more boring than three robots forced to participate in a coherent strategy.

Also, the increased viability of defense is a very welcome change, IMO.
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