Defining Great Game Design

[JamesCH95]

Two things that I appreciate in a good FRC game:

1) Nearly unlimited scoring opportunities. I enjoyed years like 2012 where a team or alliance could expand their score the faster and faster they got. This is in contrast to 2011 where the scoring was saturated, or close to it, at high levels of play.

2) Game designs that do not have a choke-point. In years like 2002 and 2010 there were choke-point strategies that essentially broke the game. While it is interesting to see teams figure this out, it can lead to some very boring matches.

3) Games that demand cooperation and/or have enough activities where a niche robot can excel. I like building robots to fill an interesting niche that many teams can't or don't fill and/or I like to play the game a bit differently than most. What I disliked about 2014 was that so many robots were about the same as each other, scouting felt like just asking "what Ri3D clone are you?"

4) A balanced end-game can be a great thing. But, getting the weighting right is very hard. Years like 2003 and 2011 were considerably over-weighted and years like 2013 were under-weighted. 2010 and 2012 were well-weighted, they could close a big gap, but were not critical to winning or doing well.