[FF]: 2017 Fantasy FIRST Proposed Rule Changes

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by EricH

The other discussion item I'd like to note: there aren't a lot of player-to-player trades in FF. They're legal to make (team or draft slot or some combination), just wondering if there was any way to incentivize those. I don't think I've seen one in 3-4 years.

Not sure if it needs incentivising, just doesn't seem overly practical. In general people aren't going to trade within an event because they should have gone by their list, and if they got randomed out they probably have bad teams that nobody wants. I guess technically inter-event trading could be possible but complicated.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Not sure if it needs incentivising, just doesn't seem overly practical. In general people aren't going to trade within an event because they should have gone by their list, and if they got randomed out they probably have bad teams that nobody wants. I guess technically inter-event trading could be possible but complicated.

True that. I was thinking something along those lines.

What I'll probably do is to make it clear--again--that trades (draft slots, teams, or a combination) are fair game, provided that picked teams don't change tiers of tiered drafts.


One other item to discuss...

#2Champs. Any ideas on handling that little drafting nightmare (picking order, same time/different times, what happens in one affecting the other, etc.)? We've got time on this one, and an absence of usable information, so this one will probably remain open for a while.

[TDav540]

[QUOTEboth cH;1597805]True that. I was thinking something along those lines.

What I'll probably do is to make it clear--again--that trades (draft slots, teams, or a combination) are fair game, provided that picked teams don't change tiers of tiered drafts.


One other item to discuss...

#2Champs. Any ideas on handling that little drafting nightmare (picking order, same time/different times, what happens in one affecting the other, etc.)? We've got time on this one, and an absence of usable information, so this one will probably remain open for a while.[/quote]

Draft both after week 7. It's just two drafts where before we had one. One on Monday, one on Tuesday. Or something like that.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by TDav540

Draft both after week 7. It's just two drafts where before we had one. One on Monday, one on Tuesday. Or something like that.

Um... Not sure you've seen our Champs draft. All 8 of 'em. (Yep, that'd be one draft per division, run over 4 nights.)

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by EricH

Um... Not sure you've seen our Champs draft. All 8 of 'em. (Yep, that'd be one draft per division, run over 4 nights.)

I have seen the champs draft, but I am expecting 4 divisions per. I could be wrong (which would, admittedly, throw a wrench in the system). So then we can do it as we normally would, except now 8 drafts over two and three days instead of 4 (staggered start times). Or we could split it across the two weeks and do one draft before HOU and one before STL.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by TDav540

I have seen the champs draft, but I am expecting 4 divisions per. I could be wrong (which would, admittedly, throw a wrench in the system). So then we can do it as we normally would, except now 8 drafts over two and three days instead of 4 (staggered start times). Or we could split it across the two weeks and do one draft before HOU and one before STL.

I'm assuming that there will be more than 4 divisions. 100-team divisions can be done, while still giving everybody 10 matches, but that puts a tremendous stress on everybody (and Frank has said something about that). But I'm not assuming that there will necessarily be 8. There are ways to handle intermediate sizes.

I would also not plan on more than 2 drafts per day. There have been exceptions, but they've been makeups when there were no other options available. It's just too hectic, particularly if tiers are involved for some reason. Basically, >2 drafts in one day is the absolute last resort in order to finish on schedule. (Going into a CMP travel day is preferable, and we avoid those.)

The one other "wildcard" element in this discussion--and it affects overall timing--is whether the South winners play at North. If not, then we can do them at the same time. If so, then we cannot.

This is why I've opened the discussion, to be able to discuss it as information comes in and start forming plans as far as what happens if X or Y is shown to be the method.

[tindleroot]

One little problem (in my mind, at least) with the "rotation" cycle for drafts: team order stays consistent. Not all FF teams are created equal; take this situation into consideration.

FF teams A - G, team A is the "best" team, meaning they make the best picks, and B is the next best, then C, and so on.

The team order for the first cycle might end up like this:

F
G
E
A
B
D
C

In this situation, team D and E (who are roughly equal in picking ability) will have drastically skewed outcomes. Team D will be getting worse picks on average since D comes directly after B (who makes the best pick much of the time) 6 out of 7 drafts, and after A in 5 out of 7 drafts, while E always comes after F and G, who may leave better picks more often.

The only difference in a real situation is that we don't usually know who the best FF teams are (or can only guess at best), but that doesn't change the irregularity that goes on here. Especially in districts, where we'll only have one cycle, this irregularity needs to be addressed. Luckily, it is as simple as changing the rotation cycle. Rather than moving 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 and so on, it can be more like 1 to 5 and 5 to 9 and 9 to 3 and 3 to 2, or some "random" cycle like this, which not only puts FF teams in the same draft spot on average, but also immediately behind and ahead of different teams throughout the cycle.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but maybe this would be an easy change that makes drafting even more fair than adding a simple cycle.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

One little problem (in my mind, at least) with the "rotation" cycle for drafts: team order stays consistent. Not all FF teams are created equal; take this situation into consideration.

FF teams A - G, team A is the "best" team, meaning they make the best picks, and B is the next best, then C, and so on.

The team order for the first cycle might end up like this:

F
G
E
A
B
D
C

In this situation, team D and E (who are roughly equal in picking ability) will have drastically skewed outcomes. Team D will be getting worse picks on average since D comes directly after A (who makes the best pick nearly every time) 6 out of 7 drafts, while E always comes after F and G, who may leave better picks more often.

The only difference in a real situation is that we don't usually know who the best FF teams are (or can only guess at best), but that doesn't change the irregularity that goes on here. Especially in districts, where we'll only have one cycle, this irregularity needs to be addressed. Luckily, it is as simple as changing the rotation cycle. Rather than moving 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 and so on, it can be more like 1 to 5 and 5 to 9 and 9 to 3 and 3 to 2, or some "random" cycle like this, which not only puts FF teams in the same draft spot on average, but also immediately behind and ahead of different teams throughout the cycle.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but maybe this would be an easy change that makes drafting even more fair than adding a simple cycle.

Originally Posted by EricH

1) There will be a rotation, which will re-randomize every round. (Basically, run through with one random order, rotating every draft, and then run a different random order and rotate that when the first one is done.) One note--and we'll take a look at this later--is the "remnant" drafts where there aren't enough for a full rotation. Those will either be full random or another rotation. District drafts will have their own rotation if I can foot that.

With any regulated switch you could come up with an algorithm that could be pretty good, but I think this is fine the way it is now.

[MARS_James]

So I would like to propose a change to how districts are scored to make their scoring more in line with how the individual regional drafts work. I feel the cultural change awards (the ones you can only win once) should not count towards the points for an event but as a flat bonus point added to the teams average. Basically I feel when looking at how the original scoring system was developed, back when every event was drafted, that the Chairmans Awards high point value was done not only because it is the highest honor in FIRST but also to make the "chairmans teams" for lack of a better term competitive drafting prospects and with the districts averaging points they no longer are.

Basically what I am saying is lets say I know there is a solid team from Florida about to make the leap to being a Chairmans contender so I draft them as my last pick in both Orlando (Week 2) and South Florida (Week 5). My bet paid off and they win the award at Orlando, so I swap them out of South Florida and I have gained a Solid 42 points from that bet with no repercussions. Now if the same was applied to a district you only gain 21 points from the investment, or in the case of some teams 14, and in 2014 I know a team who would have only got 10.5.

I feel that it is sad from both a game play and a FIRST cultural level that our highest honors can result in the such low point production and having them be flat bonuses not counting for an individual event score would solve this.

[EricH]

That's not a bad idea. As I recall, the affected awards are DCA (42), EI (36), WFFA (8), and Dean's List (4).

We may also be changing the district scoring system entirely--normalizing points rather than averaging has been suggested--but that is something to keep in mind.

[BrennanB]

Sounds fair.

Also can we have district teams only count for points in their respective district?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Sounds fair.

Also can we have district teams only count for points in their respective district?

Worth discussion, I think. District teams competing in regionals should get points the same as any other regional team, but inter-district play is an interesting discussion.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Not sure if it needs incentivising, just doesn't seem overly practical. In general people aren't going to trade within an event because they should have gone by their list, and if they got randomed out they probably have bad teams that nobody wants. I guess technically inter-event trading could be possible but complicated.

Is there any spreadsheet that has all the drafted teams for each FF team at each event. Just being able to easily track which FRC teams that FF teams have will significantly help trading.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by TDav540

Is there any spreadsheet that has all the drafted teams for each FF team at each event. Just being able to easily track which FRC teams that FF teams have will significantly help trading.

There was one maintained by RFA last year.

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I feel the cultural change awards (the ones you can only win once) should not count towards the points for an event but as a flat bonus point added to the teams average.

I like this idea a lot. It makes more sense for the way we have set district fantasy up, and makes these awards much more important. After all, teams try to win Chairman's in a season rather than an event. Robot-wise, though, a team tries to win an event. I think this also solves the inter-district play debate. Count robot performance and non-culture awards on an event basis, average across all district events a team plays at (including other districts), then add the bonus points for the culture awards: DCA, EI, and RAS. This gives an identical point pool to all teams regardless of the district they're playing in.

Only one issue with this needs to be resolved before we can make it an official rule: in some rare instances, teams win the same award twice.
NEVER does this happen with Chairman's, but Rookie All Star and possibly Engineering Inspiration can be handed out to the same team at multiple district events. 6012 won a Rookie All Star at both district events the competed at last season.

Perhaps count the culture award flat bonus only once. If a team wins two RAS, give them the points for one. You could perhaps only count points for the highest culture award achieved (i.e. points for Chairman's only, not both Chairman's and EI) but I would disagree with that because a team that wins both of those awards, in my opinion, deserves more points.

Let's get the discussion rolling, folks, so we can figure out this rule (and others) before drafting season begins.