New Off-season Defenses

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Any newly created defense is not fair to teams that designed around the very specific defense arrangements on the field. Sure, it's "not fair" that other defenses will be removed too, but removing a game element is a lot less of a penalty than adding one that not everyone can cross.

Honestly, they should just make off season defenses static. CDF, Rock Wall, Ramparts, Moat. CDF in 2 to block the human player, yet Moat in 5 and Rock Wall in 3 to allow skilled HPs something to try. Terrain defenses in 3 and 4 for auton. Skipping Sally port and Drawbridge for visibility reasons, and skipping Rough Terrain because it's easy and we're out of room. This will save tons of time and congestion for field reset, reduce load on volunteers, increase defense robustness (you can bolt down defenses instead of pinning them) and generally make things smoother. I will miss the strategic depth of defense selection (and trust me, there was some) but I think ultimately it's worth it for a better event without disadvantaging certain teams.

You can make something that is easy, fun, and/or weird. For instance, I don't think putting a short stack of gray totes or an Aerial Assist ball sitting on a ring on the portcullis base for teams to bulldoze through is particularly difficult to execute in construction or requires any significant change to an existing Stronghold robot, but could make play more interesting/wacky for an offseason.