Problem's with 2015…

[frasnow]

The game design appears to be an attempt to fix the problems with stack attack, which turned into a game of attacking (http://youtu.be/uiZQJLMgXVU), instead of building, stacks. Removing all defense went too far. One of the best aspects of Rebound Rumble and Ultimate Ascent was watching teams maneuver around defense to get to the protected zones.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I truly believe that this game is in alignment with a cycle...

Not just 'odd year vs. even year' or 'round game piece vs. other game piece' - but more in terms of the life-cycle of the RoboRio and the accompanying components.

We saw two games in that allowed for wide open fields in 2013 and 2014. Why? Because the CRio was in it's last stages of its life-cycle. Why not allow teams to 'have at it' and go after each other without question of the CRio? I know that FRC 4607 had it's share of CRio reboots on field when hit hard...

However, if the GDC allowed this style of gameplay (open field hits) and team's RoboRio resetting in the middle of matches - we would all be calling foul. I think that the GDC is safeguarding their investments and will eventually open up the field as the RoboRio matures (and more teams become acclimated to its nuances). This is a perfect game to keep the RoboRio 'safe' while the GDC works out other bugs...

So in my estimation - do not hold your breath waiting for another AA or UA style field for at least 2 more years. When that happens, hopefully you have stockpiles of the RoboRio... and when it does - Have at it!

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by themccannman

At SVR last year 2 qual points was the difference between 1st and 8th seed. It was also the difference between 9th and 42nd seed, that's a larger variation from a single match win/loss.

I'm not seeing how this is true. 2014 SVR results Am I missing something?
1st seed was 11-0, 8th seed was 8-3 (6 QS difference)
9th seed was 8-3, 42nd seed was 5-6 (6 QS difference)

Each of these was a 3 match difference.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

I truly believe that this game is in alignment with a cycle...

Not just 'odd year vs. even year' or 'round game piece vs. other game piece' - but more in terms of the life-cycle of the RoboRio and the accompanying components.

We saw two games in that allowed for wide open fields in 2013 and 2014. Why? Because the CRio was in it's last stages of its life-cycle. Why not allow teams to 'have at it' and go after each other without question of the CRio? I know that FRC 4607 had it's share of CRio reboots on field when hit hard...

However, if the GDC allowed this style of gameplay (open field hits) and team's RoboRio resetting in the middle of matches - we would all be calling foul. I think that the GDC is safeguarding their investments and will eventually open up the field as the RoboRio matures (and more teams become acclimated to its nuances). This is a perfect game to keep the RoboRio 'safe' while the GDC works out other bugs...

So in my estimation - do not hold your breath waiting for another AA or UA style field for at least 2 more years. When that happens, hopefully you have stockpiles of the RoboRio... and when it does - Have at it!

While I found your observations incredibly astute and thought provoking, I don't necessarily think the assertions made hold.

[Loose Screw]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I completely disagree. We just removed some factors from it. A match where you are playing with two toasters is a hard one not to have drop your ranking.

Playing with two "toasters" is always hard to carry. However, unless they are directly interfering with your robot, they should not affect how many points your robot can put out. For example, look at 1114 and other "powerhouse" teams, and compare that to last year.

Last year if you were placed with two "toasters", the other alliance could focus your robot and easily outscore you, resulting in the same amount of QP as the two "toasters".

With this year though, if your two alliance partners can't score, their average scores will show that. Likewise, if you can consistantly put out X amount of points, your average will show for it. For example, two "toasters" get placed with 1114. Sure their average score will get a boost, but because it's only for one match it won't matter in the long term. For 1114 though, even though they didn't score as many points as they could have, they still scored what their robot could put out, so their average won't be dropped that much.

The only robots that are affected by alliance partners are the robots that focus primarily on the RC. They could steal all 4 RC in auto and be able to cap 7 6-stacks, but that doesn't matter if their partners can't make them. That is a risk that I can imagine they took into account when they were designing their robot. Those robots, however, will do very well in high levels of play when their partners can easily spit out 6-stacks.

TL;DR
Average score > Win/Loss
RC bots struggle with Quals, but will kill in Finals.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

Playing with two "toasters" is always hard to carry. However, unless they are directly interfering with your robot, they should not affect how many points your robot can put out. For example, look at 1114 and other "powerhouse" teams, and compare that to last year.

Last year if you were placed with two "toasters", the other alliance could focus your robot and easily outscore you, resulting in the same amount of QP as the two "toasters".

With this year though, if your two alliance partners can't score, their average scores will show that. Likewise, if you can consistantly put out X amount of points, your average will show for it. For example, two "toasters" get placed with 1114. Sure their average score will get a boost, but because it's only for one match it won't matter in the long term. For 1114 though, even though they didn't score as many points as they could have, they still scored what their robot could put out, so their average won't be dropped that much.

The only robots that are affected by alliance partners are the robots that focus primarily on the RC. They could steal all 4 RC in auto and be able to cap 7 6-stacks, but that doesn't matter if their partners can't make them. That is a risk that I can imagine they took into account when they were designing their robot. Those robots, however, will do very well in high levels of play when their partners can easily spit out 6-stacks.

TL;DR
Average score > Win/Loss
RC bots struggle with Quals, but will kill in Finals.

While I agree with you in theory [1] in practice it doesn't quite work out. I watched a robot actively play defense on their partner in a few matches last weekend and it definitely hurt their average score. This robot was a toaster in the biggest sense of the word (incapable of scoring a point) and was simply getting in the way. It didn't help that they were ~4' long and had almost 0 control of their robot.

As for why my simulations didn't see it? Because I didn't want to deal with the flak for saying that, on average, probably 15-20% of teams are actually worth NEGATIVE points in that they do little more than get in the way of scoring robots.

[1] http://beyondinspection.org/post/108...-visualization

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

Last year if you were placed with two "toasters", the other alliance could focus your robot and easily outscore you, resulting in the same amount of QP as the two "toasters". ...

TL;DR
Average score > Win/Loss
RC bots struggle with Quals, but will kill in Finals.

Which is why 2014 was amazing for alliance play! Top tier teams couldn't take their QPs for granted. They had to get into the pits before matches and really work on their partners to get them up to snuff. Instead of 6 teams doing their independent thing, alliances had to develop new strategies to eek out assists (our playbook was changing well into the post-season!). Matches, even ones featuring big-budget teams, were nail-biting. It was a fun, dynamic game.

I really hope the assist mechanic (or something like it) returns in future.

[Loose Screw]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

Which is why 2014 was amazing for alliance play! Top tier teams couldn't take their QPs for granted. They had to get into the pits before matches and really work on their partners to get them up to snuff. Instead of 6 teams doing their independent thing, alliances had to develop new strategies to eek out assists (our playbook was changing well into the post-season!). Matches, even ones featuring big-budget teams, were nail-biting. It was a fun, dynamic game.

I really hope the assist mechanic (or something like it) returns in future.

2014 was great for those reasons. I'm hard on this game because of the troubles it had week one, but once those were corrected it became a very great and exciting game. It was alliance-dependant, but that added to the level of quality and GP teams demonstrated to help their partners, and the FIRST community as a whole.

[Loose Screw]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

While I agree with you in theory [1] in practice it doesn't quite work out. I watched a robot actively play defense on their partner in a few matches last weekend and it definitely hurt their average score. This robot was a toaster in the biggest sense of the word (incapable of scoring a point) and was simply getting in the way. It didn't help that they were ~4' long and had almost 0 control of their robot.

As for why my simulations didn't see it? Because I didn't want to deal with the flak for saying that, on average, probably 15-20% of teams are actually worth NEGATIVE points in that they do little more than get in the way of scoring robots.

[1] http://beyondinspection.org/post/108...-visualization

It's true that those teams exist, but they have always existed. Last year, for example, teams could slow down a match by holding onto the ball for a while, or dying. Those teams exist, and have about the same effect on both ranking systems (losing QP and lowering avg score), so we should not take them into account when comparing systems.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

It's true that those teams exist, but they have always existed. Last year, for example, teams could slow down a match by holding onto the ball for a while, or dying. Those teams exist, and have about the same effect on both ranking systems (losing QP and lowering avg score), so we should not take them into account when comparing systems.

So we should ignore a portion of the system just because it exists in both systems we're comparing?

It's not a valid comparison if we do that because the negative point teams have drastically different results on the point floor.

Last year a solo bot could ignore their partners completely and put up X points. There was very little the NP teams could do to interfere with this unless they were being outright in the way. Yes, an alliance could put up drastically more points but the point floor was almost always the best team running solo cycles.

This year the solo bot can ignore their partners completely and put up X points but just by driving the NP teams can drastically alter scores by knocking over stacks. Meaning the point floor is exactly 0.

The teams are present but, due to the game design (crowded field, easily de-scored game pieces), they have a much more pronounced impact on point floors.

[Loose Screw]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

So we should ignore a portion of the system just because it exists in both systems we're comparing?

It's not a valid comparison if we do that because the negative point teams have drastically different results on the point floor.

Last year a solo bot could ignore their partners completely and put up X points. There was very little the NP teams could do to interfere with this unless they were being outright in the way. Yes, an alliance could put up drastically more points but the point floor was almost always the best team running solo cycles.

This year the solo bot can ignore their partners completely and put up X points but just by driving the NP teams can drastically alter scores by knocking over stacks. Meaning the point floor is exactly 0.

The teams are present but, due to the game design (crowded field, easily de-scored game pieces), they have a much more pronounced impact on point floors.

I agree with you now. Last year "toasters" could still "help" by playing defense. This year, however, they can't really do anything. I hope that we will see less of these as the season progresses. I would still like to think that it's similar to last year in the aspect that powerhouse teams would want to help these teams to raise scores, but there's a problem with that: powerhouse teams don't need to rely on their alliances like last year. Why help out a team that needs a lot of time and focus when you could just increase your robot's scoring potential? There is no competitive edge to helping these teams rather than your own. That is a problem with this game.

[Nyxyxylyth]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

So far in FiM, the #1 Alliance is 9 for 9 (this isn't the case everywhere, but I don't live elsewhere). The best robot picks the 2nd best robot and that's the game, folks. Last year, you didn't know what to expect, and that's what keeps any sport interesting; the unpredictability of the outcome. Why do you think people don't like being told the outcome of a sporting event they've recorded at home.

But the biggest problem is that there is no way for a pure underdog to possibly win. After a bad match, my alliance sat on the sideline and knew (even though we had one more match left in the SF) that we were done unless everyone else screwed up. And I have to admit, when 469 (another awesome team filled with awesome people) knocked their stack over, I felt pretty internally conflicted. It was horrible that everything went so wrong so quick, but my alliance was done UNLESS this happened. That shouldn't happen. I should be allowed to stop them from winning myself, not have to hope that they goof.

We broke the streak at St. Joe, but it only underlines your point. It wasn't about strategy, as both alliances just went out and did the same thing seven times. I suppose there's something to be said for a battle of robot design, but it's not very dynamic.

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

There is no competitive edge to helping these teams rather than your own. That is a problem with this game.

if you look at the playoff round scores, i think you will find this is not true.

A quick look at some of the events shows a difference of 5 - 10 points for an alliance making it to the next round or packing up. That is 3 - 5 totes in 2 matches, just being placed on the ramps. Help you partners be able to score just a few totes, and that can make the difference.

Also, if you look at rankings, less than 1 point separates 3 - 4 teams. That can mean alliance captain or not getting picked. That is a difference of just a few totes scored over the course of the event by anyone you were partnered with.

So, unless you are so far above the crowd that you don't need any assistance, it is always in your best interest to help other teams. And if you are so far above the crowd that you don't need the assistance, you are probably helping the other teams anyway, just because it is the right thing to do.