Would you like End Game back?

[MrTechCenter]

When Aerial Assist was first released, I was pretty upset that there was no end game, but once competition season came around, I understood why no end game was a good idea. The end game has always been, "Who designed their robot to score these extra points and who didn't?" and you could do very little to stop the opposing alliance from scoring those points if they were capable of doing so. With this year, especially in elims and at stacked competitions, there were often instances where alliances had to hold the opposing alliance from scoring a (often assist-loaded) ball to win the match and there were times when this won critical matches. To me, this is more exciting than an endgame where either the alliance gets bonus points, or they don't.

We tried to create a sort-of endgame for Capital City Classic this year, and it consisted of placing a "special" ball (the trackball from Overdrive) on top of the truss, and teams could knock it off of the truss with a shot or a human player could throw the Aerial Assist ball at the trackball to knock it off (although this would not result in truss points if the Aerial Assist ball made it over the truss). Whichever alliance had the ball completely in their alliance's zone at the end of the match earned a ten point bonus. While the endgame was not a core part of the competition, there were instances where alliances fought over the ball and the result decided the match.

I believe that end games like this, where the two alliances have to fight for the bonus points and only one alliance or neither alliance will earn the points, are much more exciting to watch.