2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions

[alicen]

Add 2 more "refs" to focus on the outerworks, and reverse the hinge side of the sally port. These two new refs would not need to call any fouls and would only need to know the wave off and what counts as a crossing.

As for actual adjustments to the game, I'll leave that up to everyone else

[Cash4587]

Leave all of the defenses in the same place for each round of matches so we can play more matches and make field reset easier. Don't change them until every team has played their first match, then until every team has played their second match, etc...

[SoccerTaco]

Originally Posted by An Outlier

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.

The protected zone around the outer works was not a loophole in the rules, but an obvious and almost certainly intentional aspect of the game. Yet, relatively few teams took advantage of it. I don't think teams should be penalized for having made good design choices to take advantage of the obvious protected zone.

[chandrew]

Add extra points for multi climbs/a triple climb bonus. Maybe make the rough terrain blocks a bit taller so that there's a reason to select it. Possibly add weight/take off the constant force springs on the portcullis?

[BrendanB]

Replace the 5th defense with another Low Bar to encourage more two ball autonomous routines.

Or allow teams to replace whatever defense gets put in position 5 with the Low Bar but don't only give it points for the first crossing as the "penalty" for putting it in.

[Matthew1998]

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

[Anthony Galea]

If the goal is to increase scores, have 3 balls start touching the castle wall, but not in the secret passage, on each side placed by the alliance in that tower.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Matthew1998

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

Does that include nailing a defending robot?

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Replace the drawbridge and sally port with clear polycarbonate.

I know this will cost money, but it's worth it. If a team I'm with ends up competing, I would honestly donate to a Fix The IRI Drawbridge Fund to help make this happen. The drawbridge is just such a crummy field object and it really ruins the flow of the game when it is out there. It would just make a subset of IRI matches worse to watch and play in.

I'd also donate to this fund. The drawbridge seems to be much harder than the sally port for many teams (since you can't just spin around/wiggle to break contact), but it's not getting much use because of how much of a hinderence it is to drivers. It's almost like there's only 8 defenses instead of 9 because of how little it's used. There's something to be said for tradeoffs, but I think it would still a challenging defense to cross even if the door was clear. The #damaged/#opportunities success rate in the quals at the DCMPs was low, which is partly due to the abysmally low denominator, but also because it's difficult.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Karibou

I'd also donate to this fund. The drawbridge seems to be much harder than the sally port for many teams (since you can't just spin around/wiggle to break contact), but it's not getting much use because of how much of a hinderence it is to drivers. It's almost like there's only 8 defenses instead of 9 because of how little it's used. There's something to be said for tradeoffs, but I think it would still a challenging defense to cross even if the door was clear. The #damaged/#opportunities success rate in the quals at the DCMPs was low, which is partly due to the abysmally low denominator, but also because it's difficult.

For those keeping score at home (because I love numbers) the Drawbridge was the least selected defense in Qualifications, being chosen 27.67% of the time. However the Portcullis (28.71%) and Rough Terrain (29.29%) weren't chosen with much more frequency.

In Playoffs, the Drawbridge was actually chosen with MORE frequency (28.30%) than either the Portcullis (28.17%) or Rough Terrain (20.87%)

Your mileage may vary based on region, week of competition, district vs regional vs DCMP, etc.

[Ben Martin]

At MAR CMP, according to TBA, the drawbridge went 0/34 in quals and 0/13 in playoffs. We are one of the teams guilty of putting the Drawbridge in 4, since in that spot it is worse for the opponent than for you in many cases.

Looking at NE, they had the drawbridge go 0/9 in quals and 0/17 in playoffs.

Unless you are one of the few with a very good dedicated drawbridge mechanism, at the highest levels, it's not worth your time versus scoring more boulders and just lowers everybody's scores.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by P.J.

For those keeping score at home (because I love numbers) the Drawbridge was the least selected defense in Qualifications, being chosen 27.67% of the time. However the Portcullis (28.71%) and Rough Terrain (29.29%) weren't chosen with much more frequency.

I did see that too. For category A at DCMPs (which I'm using because IMO they'd be more similar in competitiveness to IRI than a regional), the portcullis and cheval seem to have similar success rates, so it makes sense to choose the one that doesn't impede vision at all. Looking at some week 6 districts and regionals, if the success rate isn't the same, the portcullis tends to have a slightly higher success rate.

For category D, I'm guessing that's because the rough terrain is incredibly easy compared to the rock wall; it gives your opponents a fast way in and out of the courtyard. I'm surprised the rough terrain wasn't used less. I'd actually like to see the rough terrain modified somehow to increase its difficulty for IRI and put it more on the same level as the rock wall, but that might be changing the game too much.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Karibou

For category D, I'm guessing that's because the rough terrain is incredibly easy compared to the rock wall; it gives your opponents a fast way in and out of the courtyard. I'm surprised the rough terrain wasn't used less. I'd actually like to see the rough terrain modified somehow to increase its difficulty for IRI and put it more on the same level as the rock wall, but that might be changing the game too much.

I totally agree with your assessment. Additionally, Rough Terrain use dropped to only about 24% in both Weeks 6 and 7 (and even lower to 21 and 19% in Playoffs), and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops even lower at Champs.

The question becomes what could be done to increase the difficulty of the Rough Terrain without changing the game too much?

[BotDesigner]

Originally Posted by CJ_Elliott

Human players able to throw balls for a score in the last 20 seconds

+1

[Matthew1998]

Originally Posted by CalTran

Does that include nailing a defending robot?

The main breaker shouldn't be that hard of a target.