2015 HINT DISCUSSION

[Alex2614]

I've been thinking about things that have not yet been done in FIRST, and things that are ALWAYS in the game manual, which can be changed or thrown out. Think about things that we usually think about as a FIRST game, that have been prevalent throughout all or most of the past games. Do not be surprised to see if the very idea of the FRC game is changed.. If things that we usually expect from year to year are not there anymore. They already changed the size of the field and got rid of the endgame last year, so what can be changed or deleted from this year that has not yet been changed?

Just some "stream-of-consciousness" thoughts that come to mind.

We have never (at least to my knowledge) had a game in which just one or two game pieces were shared like a traditional sporting event. We've had games in which the pieces were not segregated, but there were many. And we've had games (2008, 2014) where there were only a couple game pieces, but they WERE segregated between alliances. What about a game in which there is one large game piece (oversized hockey puck, for example?) or maybe even two that are shared between alliances. This will make the game easier to follow for audience members.

Also, think back to FIRST Frenzy. It was a "recycling" of sorts of the previous games. We are going into the 25th FRC season, maybe they want to combine some elements from multiple previous games?

I wouldn't mind having the white plastic (it's not acutally regolith, as I've discussed in previous threads), as long as we are allowed to use other wheels. While the challenge in Lunacy was an interesting one, it severely impeded gameplay and made the matches more boring at many events (well, that and all of the other gameplay issues).

As far as things that are usually in the rule manual are things like: robot size, weight, etc. The field size. The "safe zones" and other markings on the field.

A back-and-forth motion kind of game is kind of like recycling the game piece, isn't it? I wouldn't mind that kind of game, i.e. volleyball, hockey, etc.

Essentially, I would not be surprised by anything at this point. Usually when I discount an idea saying "FIRST will never do that" or "it will be impossible to make an FRC game that way," I usually get surprised. I never thought that they would do assists, the "regolith floor," the frisbees, among others were things that I was skeptical of at first. But especially after this game hint, I would not be surprised by ANYTHING they throw at us. As I told my team, brace yourselves for some drastic changes from what we think of as an FRC game. Things that we can usually expect from year to year may be completely different now.