Changing the Elim. Format...

[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