Changing the Elim. Format...

[Powers]

i think that changing the elimination rounds only would not change the game all that much, it would just make it like a single qualifying round, play to win. you dont need to change the scoring system or anything, just eliminate QP's for elim's like last year. and what college are you at sensel?

[Don Knight]

Things maybe aren't perfect but they should stay the same for the Championships.

In my humble opinion...

The best two out of three, while keeping the EP's would be a nightmare. Try and explain to Grandma that you won two of the three matches and still lost because you didn't have enough QP's.

The best two out of three, while eliminating the QP's and you would have a different game in the elimination rounds than you have in the seeding rounds. How many times have we heard at the team forums at the end of each year that the eliminations rounds should be the same game as the seeding rounds.

There are solutions to the problems - using different strategies is the key

Seeding Matches - Big Scores
Don't beat yourselves by using the simple solution

Elimination Matches - Little Scores
Don't beat yourselves .

[Todd Derbyshire]

This thread frustrates me to the point of no end. Why you ask I called this disaster way back on Week 1 thread is called "Impending Disaster" if my memory serves me right. What do you guys tell me suck it up and play the game and you guys loved the rule. Fine first week of competition comes and people start complaining but everyone still says suck it up and play the game. National championship comes everyone wants to change the rule but now you can't because its too late. Don't mind me for saying that I told you so.

[Kevin A]

i agree with changing it. As the driver, and dont get me wron that im into this competition, i dont have any mentors to tell me to win or lose the match. it sux. change it!!

[Joe Johnson]

Andy,

I agree that it will not be easy for FIRST to change this system (especially the scoring program). However, to say that it is not easy is not to say that it should not be done. FIRST should score it by hand if they have to but I believe it is in the best interest of FIRST to make the change.

The Championships are THE showcase for FIRST to media and, perhaps as importantly, the execs who decide to pay the bills at FIRST (or not) based largely on their view of FIRST from the Championship Event.

It is my belief that this will do damage to the image of FIRST with some of the most important supporters that FIRST has. Confusing them and/or giving them a bad image of FIRST is not in FIRST's best interest.

Exciting elimination rounds with teams fighting to win to advance is important for FIRST.

FIRST can change this if they want to. I believe that even at this late date, they should want to.

Joe J.

P.S. As to why I did not push for this earlier, I was willing to give the system a chance, but the more time I gave it, the more I became convinced that the system was damaging to FIRST's long-term interests. At Grand Rapids, I spoke to a number of folks who were saying things like "I've heard that FIRST was considering changing the elims in TX" The more I heard it, the more I thought it was worth the bother trying to convince FIRST of the wisdom of changing, even at this late date... ...so I am trying. Perhaps in vain but with the best of intentions.

P.P.S. To those who say that they have always played to win and that the events are just as exciting as is, all I can say is you were not viewing the same matches as I saw. Certainly at the Great Lakes Regional, at the Midwest Regional and at the Western Michigan Regional, the winners of the first match were not trying to win their second match so much as trying to make sure they could not lose the ROUND by making sure the score of the MATCH was low enough to guarantee advancing (It was clear from the actions of the teams that winning the match was secondary).

[Ben Mitchell]

FIRST could score the matches by hand if need be: They can multiply and add, can't they?

Mr. Johnson is right on, in my opinion. If there was ever a year that FIRST had to make a strong showing to both the public and the corporate spectators, this is that year. I know that many teams, including mine, are at risk at being cut due to monetary costs.

If corporate execs look at the FIRST finals, and see a team win the first round, and intentionally lose the second, what would they think?

Why would they be sinking tens of thousands of dollars on FIRST, in order to watch the robot with their corporate logo lose a match on purpose on NASA TV? That would not leave a good impression in my mind, if I was in charge of justifying a FIRST team in a corporations budget.

I strongly urge FIRST to make the change, for the sake of all teams.

[David Brinza]

Mr. Johnson has it right!

If FIRST wants the big media and big sponsor attention, they need to go to 2-out-of 3 with total points used as a tie-breaker. With the present scoring approach, a first match score 90 to 89 makes the second match totally anti-climatic. The winner of the nail-biter has a totally insurmountable lead and can sit idle (or just knock over a stack) and walk away with the trophy. Not at all compelling to spectators that would expect the next match to be even more exciting. Not viewer friendly!!

If FIRST doesn't implement 2-out-of-3 in the National finals , they're going to confuse the same viewership that could help push FIRST into every school in the country almost overnight.

My thoughts:


FIRST made these rules, they survived the regionals with these rules and they will be the rules at The Championship. These are the rules people...deal with them! Save your complaints and let the FIRST people hear them in the summer at the FIRST forums.

[camtunkpa]

I have to agree with Big Mike. Having been one of the finalist teams, 222, 87, and 103 never gave up. We came really close to winning the competition even though we did not win the first round. It made for an excitiing finals. If teams come to play the game the right way and dont' shut themselves out, the game gets very exciting. Great job on Rutgers to the winners!!!!!

[Bill Beatty]

Joe, Andy and All

I guarantee that FIRST has been thinking about the elimination scoring since early in the regionals, so it is not a new idea that they might just be now considering. I am positive that they would have no trouble making such a change if they decided that it is the best to do so. Also, I do not believe that it would have been fair to make the change part way through the regionals and have teams qualify under different rules, but now that the regionals are over, I don't think anyone would be penalized or helped by a rule change for the Nationals.

As for whinning/complannig, I am doing neither. If FIRST decides to leave it alone, we will be there and compete to the best of our ability. I am only suggesting that this change be made, because I truly believe that it would be in the best interest of the competition to do so.

Regards and best of luck to all

Bill

[Joe Ross]

First, I'd like to post a little bit of background for those people who don't remember the reference to 1999 in Dr. Joe's post.

1999 was the first year of alliances. Because of that, there were many bugs to be worked out. The two notable changes where that part way through the regionals, FIRST ruled that any team that declined an alliance could not be picked. This was in response to several incidents at various regionals.

The other change they made was done at the Great Lakes Regional (the last weekend of regionals). Originally, the finals were only 2 team alliances, just like the qualification rounds. At GLR, there were alliances of 3 for the elims, just like there are today. This was in response to teams having their partners break and being screwed.

In both cases, those rules have stayed in some form or another to this day. This shows that they were (for the most part) good rules.

More importantly, lets look at who was affected by these rules. The no rejections rule affected every team that had rejected a higher seed. In some cases, this was done because of a broken robot, in other cases, because of a deal with a lower seed. If your robot was broken, nothing changed, because in either case, you wouldn't be able to compete. Now, in the case of the deals with lower seeds (dare I say it, "collusion") it helped the higher seed that would have previously been rejected. It hurt both the team that would have rejected them, as well as the lower seeded team that they made the deal with. However, FIRST decided that it was worth it, in order to give the advantage to the higher seeded teams, otherwise, seeding high wouldn't mean anything if you also didn't make deals with the other teams. In that case, I believe that it was a net positive, but definitely not overwhelming.

For the other change, it was positive for everyone involved. It allowed more teams to compete in the finals, and allowed for more competitive finals. The only teams that it hurt are those who's opponents broke. Since that was a fairly random occurrence, the same team that could be helped at one even could have been hurt at the next event, so it really didn't affect one team (or a subset of teams). Remember that for later.

The other time that FIRST made a change to the eliminations during the middle of the season was 2001. That was the first year of divisions at nationals. Originally, there were going to be 4 alliances in the eliminations per division. This would have meant that each division was larger then the largest regional, but had half as many teams move on. Sometime at nationals that year (I can't remember which day), FIRST announced that alliances would be in the eliminations. Unlike the two rule changes from 1999, this was done at nationals. As far as teams that this hurt, it's really hard to identify. The only real argument that I heard was that helped an utterly dominant team (which Beatty was that year). With 8 alliances choosing, it was much harder to build a "super-alliance" that was needed to beat the dominant team. So, for 99% of teams, if was a definite plus.

All that, and I'm only about to begin on my thoughts for this year.

First off, I really do not like this year's elimination system. I think it leaves too much to chance (winning the first match) and then executing a boring strategy (descoring). I also think that it does not encourage the best teams to win. At the LI regional, I thought that the 5 best robots were (in no particular order) 358, 271, 353, 173, and 329 by far. 2 of those robots were in the #1 alliance, and the others were alliances #2, 3, and 5. Only the 5th alliance advanced past the first round, and they lost in the semis. At the Cleveland regional, I thought that the alliance of 47, 33, and 191 was the best and most deep. They also lost in the quarterfinals. At at least 2 regionals, the #5-8 seeds have all advanced. I believe that the #8 alliances have won at least as many regionals as #1 seeds. Some people (including a FIRST staff member that I talked to) have argued that this shows parity among the alliances, but I don't think so. Rather, I think it shows an elimination system that is severely flawed.

Comparing this situation to previous, similar situations, I would say that changing the scoring system, while not good, isn't a problem, because it had to be modified in both 1999 and 2001 days before nationals. Granted, the scoring system this year has been completely rewritten, so I don't know if it is easier or harder to modify, but there is at least precedent for it. I also know that the scoring program(s) have been updated before each regional, so modifying it before nationals isn't unheard of.

In all cases where FIRST has changed an eliminations rule in the middle of the competitions, it has been in the first year of the thing they changed. It was the first year of alliances in 1999 when they added teams and dropped rejections. It was the first year of divisions when FIRST added the extra round of matches to the eliminations for each division. In that case, there is precedent for a change to this year's elimination system, since this is the first year that it has been tried.

The last criteria that I use is the teams affected. The rules for the eliminations have not changed since the rules were release. There are some teams that have used these very successfully. It is these teams that would be very strongly hurt if the elimination rules were changed. On the other hand, a new system would help teams who have not been able to find a winning strategy for this year's game and now have a second chance.

Personally, I don't think this is a fair trade. There are enough teams that benefit from the current system that it makes it very unfair to change it. Unlike the other situations (in past years), this hurts many teams, that are following the rules and acting graciously and professionally. For this reason, no matter how much I dislike the current system, I do not think that FIRST should change it.

I do think that teams should continue talking about whether the system should be changed, identifying flaws with the current system, and dreaming up ideas for new systems. I was very interested to read everyone's reply in this thread.

I hope to see some alternate elimination formats at off-season competitions

PS. Anyone interested in reading more about 1999 and 2001 should search the 1999 forum for either alliances or rejections, and the 2001 forum for divisions

[DougHogg]

My hope is that FIRST has been thinking about changing the format for some time, and that the people at FileMaker have been helping them to do so. After all FileMaker is known for being flexible and easy to use, versus other such programs. So here is a challenge. Let's see if you can pull it off in time.

I am very keen to change the format, because I want to know which is the best robot. Sure some luck is always built into the game, but part of what I come to the events for is to see whose solution is the best, and to learn from that solution.

This year, there is too much luck. If a team wins 70 to 65 in the first match, they have not shown that their solution is clearly the best.

True, after 2002, FIRST teams wanted scoring consistency between qualifying and elimination rounds. Well we were wrong as far as this year's game is concerned. I am sorry. Please don't beat me over the head for my error.

FIRST, please change the scoring to best 2 out of 3 and restore the excitement of previous years. I don't want to sit threw any more matches where the leader is deliberately not scoring, turning it into a non event.

(If you need help with the FileMaker stuff, let me know.)

[JamesJones]

Thank you Joe!

The elimination scoring system was a mistake from the beginning and an unfortunate blight on what is otherwise an excellent game. Nobody's robot robot is specifically taylored to this elimination scoring system and the change would not force any team to restrategize. Everyone has already figured out how they want to win the first match. Now they just have to try to do that twice. Earlier polls showed that over 80% of the participants didn't like this scoring. FIRST CHANGE IT.........PLEASE!


James
Engineer/Coach
Team 180 SPAM

[Scott358]

... You're vision in seeing this issue so early on was right on the mark, and you should be applauded for this. Your term "Impending disaster" is still a quite a bit overstated, and may have caused many (including myself) to think you were "the boy crying wolf".

Since it has not yet changed, and probably won't, the real trick is to understand the rules, and play accordingly.

Although this rule can cause teams to take points "off the table", which isn't that exciting to watch (which is a concern for FIRST), especially when 2 robots are just sitting there in the end, it is what it is.

Let's play bin!!! (sorry for the lame attempt a comedy, but baseball season did just start).

Regards,
Scott358

[Powers]

Who needs to change the scoring system, just get rid of a scoring system for elims. and have the refs tally up the scores post the results on the board (w/ qp's if it cant be changed, just ignore them) and keep track of who wins two matches first.