Value & Credibility of 4th robots on an Alliance

[Jeremy Germita]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

What do people think about a rule stating that 4th robots have to touch the carpet in eliminations?

FTC has had this requirement since at least 2009-2010. Here's the relevant language from the 2016-2017 game manual:

Originally Posted by FTC Game Manual 2016-2017 Part 1, Page 18

During the Elimination Matches, two Teams from an Alliance compete on the Playing Field. If the Alliance has
three Teams, the Team that sits out the first Match must play in the second Match, with no exceptions. If the
Alliances play more than two Matches in any bracket, any combination of two Alliance Robots may be used.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

What do people think about a rule stating that 4th robots have to touch the carpet in eliminations?

If the rule was written like that, it would mean that every team that loses their first quarterfinal will have to play the 4th bot in the second quarterfinal. Not great for trying to make a comeback. If that alliance wins match 2, then the other alliance has to play their fourth bot. Not great for a tiebreaker either. This pattern would then continue up the levels of elims for teams that haven't lost a match yet or decided to play the 4th bot on their own. Ultimately, it is a system that handicaps the loser.

I really like the concept of 4th bots and I want them to succeed and be valued, but I just don't think there is any easy answer right now. I am sure if a rule like you suggested was implemented, it would not be as literal as I took it, but by at some point forcing teams to play a certain robot, you are taking away the whole strategic element of having a 4th bot.

I think the only way for the 4th bot to become more used is a mixture of culture change and better game design. If more teams start picking their 4th bot as an alternative strategy instead of a backup, they will use it more. The GDC also needs to create games with a lot more strategic variety, which I know is not necessarily easy to do.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by ASD20

If the rule was written like that, it would mean that every team that loses their first quarterfinal will have to play the 4th bot in the second quarterfinal. Not great for trying to make a comeback. If that alliance wins match 2, then the other alliance has to play their fourth bot. Not great for a tiebreaker either. This pattern would then continue up the levels of elims for teams that haven't lost a match yet or decided to play the 4th bot on their own. Ultimately, it is a system that handicaps the loser.

I really like the concept of 4th bots and I want them to succeed and be valued, but I just don't think there is any easy answer right now. I am sure if a rule like you suggested was implemented, it would not be as literal as I took it, but by at some point forcing teams to play a certain robot, you are taking away the whole strategic element of having a 4th bot.

I think the only way for the 4th bot to become more used is a mixture of culture change and better game design. If more teams start picking their 4th bot as an alternative strategy instead of a backup, they will use it more. The GDC also needs to create games with a lot more strategic variety, which I know is not necessarily easy to do.

Seemed to be fine in 04 (replace 4th with 3rd...)

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Seemed to be fine in 04 (replace 4th with 3rd...)

Well, what it comes down to is exactly when the 4th bot needs to be played. If the rule is something like the 3rd and 4th bots must alternate playing or the 4th bot of both alliances must play the second match, it removes the disadvantage that the losing alliance would have if the rule was literally every bot must play at least once. I still am not a fan because it would remove a large amount of the benefits of picking a strategic 4th bot which is what I think is the best part (or at least, holds the most promise) of the whole 4-bot alliance system right now.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Well, what it comes down to is exactly when the 4th bot needs to be played. If the rule is something like the 3rd and 4th bots must alternate playing or the 4th bot of both alliances must play the second match, it removes the disadvantage that the losing alliance would have if the rule was literally every bot must play at least once. I still am not a fan because it would remove a large amount of the benefits of picking a strategic 4th bot which is what I think is the best part (or at least, holds the most promise) of the whole 4-bot alliance system right now.

Sorry, I think you're mistaking me for someone who gives a crap about whether 4th bots are played. I was merely remarking that the "all bots must play at least one match" rule worked fine in 2004.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by FiMFanatic

Not saying they can't provide a contribution - because they certainly can and some surely do. That being said, it is somewhat "luck" that they win as a 4th pick, as there were likely 25-28 other more deserving teams that could have stood on the podium.

Not realizing this fact is part of the society we live in today, where there are participation awards for everyone, kid's leagues that don't have outs, etc., etc.

This seems to be an argument that the third team on a small regional or district alliance shouldn't be included in the list of the championship alliance. Often those teams come from below the 50th percentile in the event performance list.

As for Champs, you're too focused solely on what happens on the field. In fact there's a lot more going on in the competition metastrategy. As an example, I'll walk though what we did the last 3 years:

2014: 5136 - the other goal blocker in our division, with a highly competent defensive performance. This gave us a back up goalie to 1114 for auto if it was damaged and the option to bring in a faster defensive robot if needed. 5136 did not play
2015: 5012: we actually thought they would be playing the
Einstein rounds to maximize can grabbing and that 1671 would be playing only in the division playoffs. We switched up with 1671's amazing success. But 5012 was still part of our credible threat in the semifinals that kept 1114 from deploying 900's harpoon grabbers.
2016: 2990: ended up playing on Einstein, substituting for 364 who played in the division playoffs. They earned equal credit on the field.

[EricH]

Andrew, as I recall the pre-'05 rules, not only did every team have to play at least once, but every team had to play at least once in each round of elims. That is:

QFs, if you played A-B in your first match, either A or B had to sit out your second match so C could play.
SFs, if you played A-B in your first match, either A or B had to sit out your second match so C could play.
Finals, if you played A-B in your first match, either A or B had to sit out your second match so C could play.

Third matches were up for grabs.

If there was such a rule about "4th robots have to play", I would expect to see something like this rule, as it disadvantages both alliances relatively evenly.

[dirtbikerxz]

I'm sure someone already said this, but I'm just going to say it, because you know when has repetition not been annoying.

I'm the driver for my team. If we perform good in a match, I'm generally the first person to be commended, followed by the rest of the drive team (of course if I mess up, I'm always reprimanded Jokingly of course). But I always, always point out, nothing I did would have mattered, if the other 20 people on the team hadn't worked their asses of either working on the bot, or the code, or the outreach etc. A 4th alliance member is just as crucial. Just because they might not have been on the field, you have no idea what hard work they might have done in the pits to get the alliance through that match.

And doesn't necessarily have to be physical support. More often than not, mental support is just as crucial. Trust me, I know from experience .

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Ernst

Wasn't the decision to switch Champs to 4-bot alliances mostly a logistical one? During elims it's a lot easier to call up a backup bot that already has a mobile pit and to let other teams pack up immediately to make load-out easier. Not every alliance used a backup bot before the change, and I'm sure not all do now.

I thought the choice was partially a response to the situation faced by the 2013 1986/1528/217 Championship Alliance.

For those that don't know, 217 was doing well at champs that year until they peter panned from the pyramid (like what happened to 2481 at Crossroads Regional) on the practice field not long before alliance selections, resulting in significant robot damage (again, like what happened 2481). Fearing an inability to contribute to an alliance, they told their field not to pick them, but the #1 alliance of 1986 and 1538 picked them as their second pick, banking on the highest seeded unpicked team (who would be the first backup to be called) being a competent replacement if things went south.

Great strategy on paper, but it proved to be their downfall. While they were able to get 217 running again, the stresses of Division level play caused 217 to break down. However, since backups cannot be switched back, they (based on what I've seen in retrospect) never found 217 to be broken enough to give up on as once they called the backup, they'd never see 217 on the field again during their run. Ultimately, they lost in the finals, which was a shame as 1538 was in a great position to pull a sweep, as they also won Chairmans that year. I mean great, as I'd argue 1986 was the best bot of 2013 and 1538 was also in the upper tier that year.

Had the current 4 team alliance rules been in place, the outcome would have likely been different, as the alliance in question would have had a backup that they could switch in and out as needed, allowing them to have the best of both worlds. Also, this could have permitted 217 to have been an earlier pick, as they would have been less of a gamble, due to the aforementioned reasons.

I'm sure logistics were also a reason, but to me, the change was to prevent this tricky scenario from happening again.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I'm sure logistics were also a reason, but to me, the change was to prevent this tricky scenario from happening again.

I do think logistics and getting more teams invovled were the main factors, but it also prevents a 3rd robot from 'breaking down' on Einstein and getting replaced with a superior robot from the finalist alliance.

[pandamonium]

so I have been putting more thought into this and a rule that would require 4th robots and I have came up with a unique solution. What if an alliance at championships gets a small bonus for using a 4th robot. This year I think that a 4 point bonus would be fair. This adds a strategic element to this choice and rewards teams for including a 4th robot. Thoughts?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

so I have been putting more thought into this and a rule that would require 4th robots and I have came up with a unique solution. What if an alliance at championships gets a small bonus for using a 4th robot. This year I think that a 4 point bonus would be fair. This adds a strategic element to this choice and rewards teams for including a 4th robot. Thoughts?

Third robots wouldn't see much of the field, as points is points. You'd have to phrase it such that both the third and the fourth robot played in the set of matches, which I rather suspect would end up very similar to the "every team plays at least once per round" setup. Possibly, use that as the first tiebreaker in eliminations (he who uses the most robots in the round wins)--see also "another can of worms".


I think the requirement that every team play in every round would be quite sufficient. Sets up some interesting strategy decisions and I'd be willing to bet that third matches have a matchup that didn't happen in either first or second matches.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

What if an alliance at championships gets a small bonus for using a 4th robot.
...snip...
Thoughts?

Originally Posted by EricH

You'd have to phrase it such that both the third and the fourth robot played in the set of matches, which I rather suspect would end up very similar to the "every team plays at least once per round" setup. Possibly, use that as the first tiebreaker in eliminations (he who uses the most robots in the round wins)--see also "another can of worms".


I think the requirement that every team play in every round would be quite sufficient. Sets up some interesting strategy decisions and I'd be willing to bet that third matches have a matchup that didn't happen in either first or second matches.

As EricH mentioned, I would word it as the alliance that plays all 4 teams would get the bonus, not just the team that plays the 4th team. Otherwise, you might see the second and third rounds of Alliance Selections turn into an absolute mess.
Either way, I'm not a huge fan of just an objective point bonus for playing all 4 robots, but depending on the game, it might work. I think an ideal solution would be for games to be strategically diverse enough and all teams capable enough that it becomes strategically worthwhile to play different teams. Or (I'm scaring myself as I type this) even a scoring system that changes from match to match. For example, there could be two *equally* difficult end games for teams to choose between at the end of the match. One end game would be worth, say, 5 points and the other worth 10. These point values would swap from match to match somehow, making it more advantageous for alliances to select 3rd and 4th robots that can perform different functions and swap between them.

But then again, this comes with the drawbacks of being hard to implement, hard to design for the GDC, lots of rules, lots of work. But hey, maybe things will move in that direction.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

This seems to be an argument that the third team on a small regional or district alliance shouldn't be included in the list of the championship alliance. Often those teams come from below the 50th percentile in the event performance list.

This may be going off on a bit of a tangent, but there are times when you really feel the difference between a 66 team regional and a district event. The first year the PNW was going to districts I knew elimination alliances would be different but it didn't really hit home for me until our third district event.

I was enjoying the fact that with only 30 teams it wasn't too hard to keep all the teams in my head as alliance selection happened. We were the 2nd alliance captain and as the 3rd robots were chosen a teammate asked me "are there only two robots left that can handle a ball?" The hairs stood up on my spine for a moment as I double checked the robots left. There were exactly three that would be useful to us. And that meant that with our pick we'd get the last one of them. And alliance #1 got hosed.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by saikiranra

At the Tesla division in 2015, the third pick on our alliance played more matches than our second pick. Both teams contributed a ton to the alliance and we were able to make it out of the division because of their work.

It worked out for you folks since you got to Einstein in 2015.
Same for us. In 2015, we got to Einstein where are 3rd alliance partner played only the 1st elimination match. The next 8 were played by our 4th alliance partner. No one was broken. We just decided to play the 3rd pick instead.

Here's the real challenge. How does an alliance politely and respectfully ask an alliance captain to sit out, when its obvious or best the other 3 robots play in a specific match? I would guess that there are many instances every season where this should happen, but alliances limit themselves because its not an option anyone would consider on the table.