Cookie cutter game design

[rtfgnow]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

The strategy you intend to play determines what YOU need the robot to do. The game design includes point values, and those are certainly part of the weighting of the strategy selection, but after you select your strategy, you design to that.

For example, this year we realized that if we could cross both instances of four categories of defense, we could ensure (or nearly so) that we would get a qualification point each match, win or lose, and that if we got eight boulders in the tower AND everybody was mobile enough to get on the batter, there was another likely one. Scaling gave game points.

Based on these considerations, our strategy was to go after those QP first, working on additional game points as a secondary item. This put importance on being able to cross four classes of defense (all but the drawbridge and sally port), and also to be able to pickup, carry, and score boulders. Based on our strategy, the drive train, low ceiling, and CDF/portcullis manipulators were top priority, the boulder pickup, carry, and score was a close second, and scaling was a distant third.

Other robots seemed to focus on scoring boulders and scaling, and were able to only cross a few defenses (at least one I saw could only do the low bar going in, though of course it could do the drawbridge or sally port on the way out). This design was apparently based on a different game strategy, but the same game rules.

Edit: To further clarify, my "Analyzing the game" includes determining the payoff, difficulty, and risk of each game activity.

Okay, it sounds like what I interpreted as being your step 3 was actually your step 1. That makes sense.

Can you further clarify what your step 3 is? Would I be correct in say that your step 3 is more deciding the relative importance of robot capabilities than of tasks in the game?

[Edxu]

I think that having a cookie cutter game design, at least in the context of some simple and easy goals, is a good thing for FRC games.

For newer/weaker teams, it gives them an opportunity to put points onto the board that they can be proud of contributing to the alliance, as well as giving them a build goal early into the season that they can follow.

For stronger teams, having an 'easy' objective like crossing or reaching a defense becomes a new challenge; How do we achieve this objective most efficiently, without sacrificing operations that would give us more points overall?

Having objectives that can be easily predicted before kickoff also lets teams do some amount of preparation and prototyping based on past challenges, which improves the overall level of competition, making matches more exciting to watch and participate in.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Can you further clarify what your step 3 is? Would I be correct in say that your step 3 is more deciding the relative importance of robot capabilities than of tasks in the game?

Yes, step 3 is deciding on the relative importance (and required speed) of different activities as applies to your robot. It is important to remember that these activities are linked back to game tasks; for example, the ability to score a goal in stronhold (whether high or low) would require: boulder pickup, crossing defense carrying boulder (in most cases), aligning the shot, and delivering the ball. If you don't get all of these, the value of the others goes way down.