2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?

[safiq10]

Maybe have fouls incorporated more heavily in ranking system by adding an additional column that would weigh down team on the amount fouls they commit ( I forget if this system is already implemented) but I think a sports foul would more appropriate for a game like this years, but it all depends on the game.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by safiq10

Maybe have fouls incorporated more heavily in ranking system by adding an additional column that would weigh down team on the amount fouls they commit ( I forget if this system is already implemented)

Only in eliminations, where fouls are the first tiebreaker: cleaner match wins.


Might not be a bad idea, except that a by-team ANYTHING is just about impossible in the rankings currently, so aggregate fouls would have to be used. Then you get the whole "my partners stink at clean play why do I have to suffer" debate. If used, I'd call it the 2nd tiebreaker: lowest foul points committed.

[Abhishek R]

Though, if something like the sports-style penalty were to be implemented, it can't have a irrecoverable effect. For example, in soccer, a penalty kick can easily decide a game because of the low scoring nature of the game. It does take a large infraction to initiate a PK, but still something to think about nonetheless when you aren't able to be responsible for an alliance partner's mistake.

[Pault]

First of all, I think we should make it so that the FMS requires refs to enter which team(s) commited every foul. Then, I would say that during quals, you subtract a certain ammount from the offending team's qual score for the match. An example system for scoring would be:

+10 for a win
+5 for a tie
-1 for a foul
-3 for a tech foul

For any given match, you cannot earn a negative qual score (eliminates embarrassing negative overall scores and makes it so that you can't ruin your chances of ranking high with 1 really bad match). For elims, go back to the current style, only subtract points from the offending team's score. I understand that we have it add to the other team's score to reduce scores of 0 and make teams feel less self-conscious about committing the foul, but in elims that shouldn't be a problem, and I am annoyed of having to preface every conversation about good scores with "penalty free." The score you get should be the score you earn.

[Chris is me]

The way games seem to be made now is that a concept is developed and then anywhere from a month to a year is spent thinking of all of the holes in the concept and "patching" those holes with penalties either too subjective to accurately predict or too objective to be flexible.

The problem needs to be dealt with earlier - use the design of the game to incentive the kind of play you wish to see. Don't just make it a penalty to play a certain way - make playing that way a dumb idea for other reasons. Protected zones limit penalties to certain, obvious areas of the field and seem to incentivise offense effectively.

Fouls are going to be a part of any game design at this point, but putting more active thought into them throughout the process and figuring out how to make a game that just doesn't need that many fouls is key.

[Alpha Beta]

All fouls which do not affect fair play should move to the yellow card / red card system. If the violation does not give a competitive advantage to the alliance then penalize the offending team only in a way that reminds them what the infraction was. Many safety violations are already handled this way like G1 and G2. Really wish G40 had been handled this same way.

Some additional candidates.
G16 - Crossing the white line too early after auto.
G21 - Robot momentarily extends outside field boundary.
G24 - Robot extending more than 20" beyond frame perimeter, especially in the instances when something on the robot breaks loose, but does not break free.
G39 - Stepping outside of the marked team areas.

[Jared Russell]

I'd prefer to see a game that does not need to use fouls/penalties to ensure that it is played as envisioned by the GDC. Adding fouls to the game is a last resort for when game design, field design, and robot/inspection rules cannot adequately constrain the gameplay on the field.

Momentary "your robot/foot/hand crossed an invisible line and you gained no advantage from it" fouls should be warnings and not penalties, like Aaron pointed out.

All fouls (and hopefully there aren't many of them) should be announced with the final scores, including the team number(s) that incurred the fouls. Always. Otherwise, it is hard to scout.

Foul points make for a really controversial first tiebreaker, and just about anything else should be more heavily weighted (since a large percentage of foul calls involve some subjectivity).

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Foul points make for a really controversial first tiebreaker, and just about anything else should be more heavily weighted (since a large percentage of foul calls involve some subjectivity).

In the 2014 game all points that were not scored in matches in autonomous, with assists, or on truss activity were placed into a little bin at the end of the table for teleop goals and fouls. Foul statistics probably should be kept in any form, but I would put it at or near the bottom in the sorting order.

[nuclearnerd]

I'm not a fan of foul points, but if there's no other way I agree with Jared - penalty point value alone is not enough to be a deterrent. The rules and game design have to be carefully considered to make sure fouls are a) clear-cut and b) avoidable

Take G28: "Initiating deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed" This rule fails both tests. By leaving qualifiers like "initiate", "deliberate" and "damaging", it is very difficult for refs to judge whether an infraction occured, and who is at fault. By the same token, drivers can't tell whether an impending collision will result in a foul, so they aren't able to change their behaviour to avoid one.

Imagine if G28 were instead worded "contact with an opponent Robot inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed". Now it's easy to see when a foul will be called, and who will be at fault. Had the rule been worded this way at kick-off it would have influenced teams' designs to minimize the chance of entering an opponents frame perimeter (fewer extensions outside the frame perimeter, fast retract for any extensions there are, and the ability to perform with extensions retracted). Drivers would know not to deploy their extensions near other robots. The combined effect would have been fewer foul calls.

(Note - I'm not saying this is the way the rule should be written, and I'm certainly not saying it should have been changed mid-season, I'm just demonstrating how clearer rules will influence teams to reduce fouls.)

G12 is a similar situation. Possessing an opponents ball is reasonably a) clear-cut (at least as far as possessions of any ball were this year), but for the most part they were b) unavoidable as written. There were instances of crazy bounces or even human players causing G12 violations. Creating a new "incidental" version of G12 with a smaller penalty did not address the avoidability problem. A better version of this rule might have been "possession of an opponent's ball for *more than 2 seconds* is not allowed." This would have ensured that teams designed their bots to discharge any ball within 2 seconds, and given drivers clear boundaries on what they can and can't do when the wrong colour ball approaches.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

I'm not a fan of foul points, but if there's no other way I agree with Jared - penalty point value alone is not enough to be a deterrent. The rules and game design have to be carefully considered to make sure fouls are a) clear-cut and b) avoidable

I agree here. Clear rules, clear fouls, and design the game so that fouls aren't a good idea. But the specific examples you suggest, and your proposed solutions, could have been better chosen.

Take G28: "Initiating deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed" [...]

Imagine if G28 were instead worded "contact with an opponent Robot inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed". Now it's easy to see when a foul will be called, and who will be at fault.

And it's REALLY easy to get 90% of all event attendees ticked at the ref who just happened to be looking elsewhere when team X barely taps team Y, doing almost nothing to them, in a close match that team X wins. You want to stand in front of 3000 FIRSTers and announce that that sort of foul, which may or may not have affected the match play, or may or may not have been called, changed the winner, be my guest. I'll be in the volunteer lounge until the mob goes elsewhere.

Please note that the key word for Week 1 was "deliberate" or "damaging", not "initiating". (This was changed after tons of fouls were dished out during that week, some apparently due to Team X running into Team Y and Team X taking damage.) It can be pretty clear when there's deliberate contact, and definitely clear on damaging contact. (Though... I must say, in passing, that the RSLs are pretty poorly protected by most teams in a high-contact game. At least a couple of damaging calls were made during Week 1 because the RSL broke on contact.)

G12 is a similar situation. Possessing an opponents ball is reasonably a) clear-cut (at least as far as possessions of any ball were this year), but for the most part they were b) unavoidable as written. There were instances of crazy bounces or even human players causing G12 violations. Creating a new "incidental" version of G12 with a smaller penalty did not address the avoidability problem.

A problem that was designed into the game. Now, I disagree that possessions of an opponents' ball were unavoidable; many teams managed to avoid possessing an opponents' ball. A number of others were victims of a bad bounce. I think the HP possession cause is already dealt with by G14--intention to cause a violation of a rule. That said, I would agree with having a clause to the effect of "This penalty shall not be applied if the offending robot immediately removes the ball from their robot to the field, and assuming such removal happens in a timely manner (<X seconds)". And, of course, the refs get some kind of signaling method to let teams and the audience know about said foul being imminent, similar to the pin count.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by EricH

...Now, I disagree that possessions of an opponents' ball were unavoidable; many teams managed to avoid possessing an opponents' ball. A number of others were victims of a bad bounce. I think the HP possession cause is already dealt with by G14--intention to cause a violation of a rule. That said, I would agree with having a clause to the effect of "This penalty shall not be applied if the offending robot immediately removes the ball from their robot to the field, and assuming such removal happens in a timely manner (<X seconds)". And, of course, the refs get some kind of signaling method to let teams and the audience know about said foul being imminent, similar to the pin count.

Speaking of poorly written and inconsistently enforced rules, G14 was not used this way at a lot of events, but was at others. If the refs (potentially correctly) deemed that the HP just threw poorly rather than intentionally loaded an opposing bot, the opposing alliance got the G12 foul (a tech, before the rule changed).

If the refs ruled a bad throw intentional, they had no choice this year but to give the HP a G14 tech foul. What they really needed was a no-call rule to allow no call when the opposing alliance causes a violation. Why wasn't there a no call rule this year?...ahem. I'm calm.

[Chris Hibner]

I think hockey-style penalties would be kind of fun. If you pin someone for too long, the ref pushes a button and your robot is disabled for 15 seconds. That will make it easy for the pinned robot to escape and add a tangible penalty to the alliance.

If you commit a technical foul - 30 seconds of being disabled.

The only issue is this system wouldn't have worked so well this year since it could create dead balls. Then again, the refs could wait until the offending robot gives up the ball before assessing the penalty.

Another issue is that it probably wouldn't be too much of a disincentive for barely functional teams, so maybe it wouldn't work at the low level competitions, but at the high level events I think it would be interesting to try.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I think hockey-style penalties would be kind of fun. If you pin someone for too long, the ref pushes a button and your robot is disabled for 15 seconds. That will make it easy for the pinned robot to escape and add a tangible penalty to the alliance.

If you commit a technical foul - 30 seconds of being disabled.

The only issue is this system wouldn't have worked so well this year since it could create dead balls. Then again, the refs could wait until the offending robot gives up the ball before assessing the penalty.

Another issue is that it probably wouldn't be too much of a disincentive for barely functional teams, so maybe it wouldn't work at the low level competitions, but at the high level events I think it would be interesting to try.

Another issue here is that these calls can't be reversed without replaying the match. Point penalties can be adjusted after the match, but not live disabling. We would need a rule set far less ambiguous and subjective for me to be comfortable with this idea.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

If you pin someone for too long, the ref pushes a button and your robot is disabled for 15 seconds.

Time to put a giant roughtop-covered plate on the bottom of my robot deployed by a single acting solenoid.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Pault

First of all, I think we should make it so that the FMS requires refs to enter which team(s) commited every foul. Then, I would say that during quals, you subtract a certain ammount from the offending team's qual score for the match. An example system for scoring would be:

+10 for a win
+5 for a tie
-1 for a foul
-3 for a tech foul

For any given match, you cannot earn a negative qual score (eliminates embarrassing negative overall scores and makes it so that you can't ruin your chances of ranking high with 1 really bad match). For elims, go back to the current style, only subtract points from the offending team's score. I understand that we have it add to the other team's score to reduce scores of 0 and make teams feel less self-conscious about committing the foul, but in elims that shouldn't be a problem, and I am annoyed of having to preface every conversation about good scores with "penalty free." The score you get should be the score you earn.

The more I think about it, the more I believe this is the way to go.
I would be on board with sports-style fouls, but in most sporting models, that involves stoppage of play or extended periods after the 'end' of the match. I don't think adding complexity to the timing of matches is a good thing for competitive robotics games.