Tower Strength Raised to 10 for CMP

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

I think you made a typo...

I think they are accounting for a capture.

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

I think they are accounting for a capture.

Ah! Now I see it. Thanks!

[Chris is me]

Low goal robots in districts everywhere are mildly annoyed this wasn't a thing for DCMPs, which are generally stronger events than the Championship anyway.

But I'm happy with this change. Ball handling and ball starvation are much more important. Ball hoarding strategies where you deliberately don't score balls for extended periods are riskier. Teams that shoot high still have to play the seeding game and can't just shoot high a few times a match and be done with it.

[dv/dt]

I was hoping for 12.
I don't think this will affect quals much, high goal scoring still wins the match no matter how fast the low goal scoring all else being equal.
But I do think this will affect elims, mainly by putting a larger gap between the top two or three alliances and the others. The top alliances will have two good high goal shooters from the outerworks and still be able to capture the tower with the third robot feeding or playing defense. The other alliances will be forced to either play all three robots on offense to capture the tower or find some way of slowing down the opponent cycles, possibly by boulder starvation.
This game favors some complex strategies that are very difficult to pull off in quals but are a must for lower seeded alliances in elims. A very interesting game to play.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by dv/dt

I was hoping for 12.
I don't think this will affect quals much, high goal scoring still wins the match no matter how fast the low goal scoring all else being equal.
But I do think this will affect elims, mainly by putting a larger gap between the top two or three alliances and the others. The top alliances will have two good high goal shooters from the outerworks and still be able to capture the tower with the third robot feeding or playing defense. The other alliances will be forced to either play all three robots on offense to capture the tower or find some way of slowing down the opponent cycles, possibly by boulder starvation.
This game favors some complex strategies that are very difficult to pull off in quals but are a must for lower seeded alliances in elims. A very interesting game to play.

Just for a talking point, taking all Week 6 Regionals and District Events (with the exception of DCMPs), the capture rate in Qualifications was about 10%. Now only counting matches where the alliance captured AND scored 10+ boulders the capture rate drops to about 4%.

In Eliminations the capture rate drops from about 31% to about 15%.

Granted some of these alliances could have probably scored 10 if they knew they had to, I just really like numbers so I did some quick comparisons.

[dv/dt]

Originally Posted by P.J.

Just for a talking point, taking all Week 6 Regionals and District Events (with the exception of DCMPs), the capture rate in Qualifications was about 10%. Now only counting matches where the alliance captured AND scored 10+ boulders the capture rate drops to about 4%.

In Eliminations the capture rate drops from about 31% to about 15%.

Granted some of these alliances could have probably scored 10 if they knew they had to, I just really like numbers so I did some quick comparisons.

I guess I'm a little biased to low goal, fast cyclers (our robot) and comparing to PNW DCMPs. In that event, capture rate was 48% in quals and from that, the top 1/3 of teams make it to CMPs for even better capture rates. Once we weakened the tower, we went back to finish off the 5th defense and did not further weaken the tower.
I expect capture rates to be higher and will push the advantage to high goal robots. That leaves the low goal robots with a somewhat ambiguous strategy - do we focus on scoring many low goals to capture the tower in quals or do we play defense to help secure the win? In most situations, we can probably prevent more high goal points than we can score low goal points. But where does that leave us for alliance selection? There are many robots in this predicament and we will have to see what capture rates are.

[who716]

I don't think 2 more borders is going to make much of a difference if any from what I saw when the tower drops way down I was hoping for like a 15 power then it brings back the strategy of going low and come Einstein getting the tower down would be the difference between winning and losing and the team that gets it down maybe low goal robot wins

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by who716

I don't think 2 more borders is going to make much of a difference if any from what I saw when the tower drops way down I was hoping for like a 15 power then it brings back the strategy of going low and come Einstein getting the tower down would be the difference between winning and losing and the team that gets it down maybe low goal robot wins

Nearly doubling the tower strength would be a bit much.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by who716

I don't think 2 more borders is going to make much of a difference if any from what I saw when the tower drops way down I was hoping for like a 15 power then it brings back the strategy of going low and come Einstein getting the tower down would be the difference between winning and losing and the team that gets it down maybe low goal robot wins

If you raise the tower only to try to make low goalers more important, it wastes the time of the teams who spent large amounts of time building shooters, and basically throwing out the game strategy analysis that many teams did at the beginning of the season. It shouldn't be the fault of the high goal shooters that other teams didn't build one.

This isn't to say this wasn't a good change, but 15 definitely would have been too much. And Einstein, in my opinion should be a game of high goals, which is much more exciting.

[who716]

i don't see it as being overly aggressive maybe 13-14. I am thinking of it like this:
For the DCHAMPS and the final two weeks of regional events NOT getting a capture in eliminations was a rare thing. for the most part a capture would happen.

Even in qualification matches the majority of the alliance where able to get the tower down the reason the capture did not happen was because the 3rd robot wasn't able to get to the platform.

Going into championship the robots and drivers are going to be even better causing more and more goals to be scored. you have more and more robots that can get 10 ball in by themselves. by increasing it to 13-14-15 it would require a team effort strategy would key, and i think the matches will become more intense.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by who716

I don't think 2 more borders is going to make much of a difference if any from what I saw when the tower drops way down I was hoping for like a 15 power then it brings back the strategy of going low and come Einstein getting the tower down would be the difference between winning and losing and the team that gets it down maybe low goal robot wins

Look at breakaway3739's post on the previous page. Currently 10 low goals = 45 pts (20 + 25), 9 high goals = 45 pts (9 * 5). Increasing the tower strength just increases this disparity. In your case, 15 low goals = 55 pts, 11 high goals = 55 pts. High goal robots just don't have to work as hard.

[Chak]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Read one rule further.

G12-1 ROBOTS may not deliberately use FIELD elements, e.g. BOULDERS, in an attempt to ease or amplify the challenge associated with other FIELD elements, e.g. DEFENSES. Violation: FOUL. For every five (5) seconds in which the situation is not corrected, FOUL

And its Blue Box:

Example actions that violate G12-1 include, but aren’t limited to the
following: adding BOULDERS to your Moat to make it harder for your
opponents to CROSS the Moat, using a BOULDER to prop up Cheval
de Frise elements, propping open a DEFENSE door with a BOULDER.

Oh. I didn't consider this other rule . This rule would invalidate almost all strategies blocking the defenses with boulders.
But in very few situations, it could be possible to place a boulder to "block" the defense without making it harder. For example, a ball behind the sally port in the outerworks imo does not "amplify" the challenge of driving across the flat part of the sally port.
I would like to Q&A this, but I cannot.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Chak

For example, a ball behind the sally port in the outerworks imo does not "amplify" the challenge of driving across the flat part of the sally port.
I would like to Q&A this, but I cannot.

That seems like it's just asking for a controversial Ref foul waiting to happen...

[JimWright949]

I'm hoping Einstein goes up to 11.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by JimWright949

I'm hoping Einstein goes up to 11.

If it was, the update would have said so.