Quote:
Originally Posted by abigailthefox
Just an observation: a clear majority of the posters on this thread were mentors/college students/alumni/not current student team members. I saw a few students posting, but they were overwhelmingly a minority.
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Part of this could well be that we've seen how these sorts of "agreements" have gone in past years, such as 2015's noodle agreement, as Nathan just mentioned. I, at least, am a little tired of having to think about them each time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by abigailthefox
As far as agreements go, I think that this one is pretty benign and beneficial, more in the spirit of coopertition that in trying to undercut the rules to get ahead. 1. Any team can participate in this, regardless of ability, and the benefits are likely to be proportional to both alliances. If one alliance is much stronger, they will likely benefit more in raw score, but in terms of a percentage increase from an average, non agreement score, both alliances will probably see a roughly equal benefit.
2. Both teams benefit. This one is pretty clear, there's no match-throwing, or rankings conniving, or a more capable alliance trying to dupe a less capable alliance into doing something not beneficial to them.
3. It does depend on both sides, but that's no different from coopertition in past years. If one side pulls out of this agreement without warning, the other side will likely be hurt if they were counting on participation from both sides during the match. However, I don't see this as much different than two alliances agreeing to focus on getting the coopertition points, and then one side realizing they can't/won't, and the other side then having wasted time they could have spent scoring points for themselves on trying to complete their end of the (now-failed) coopertition.
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There's a clear difference between demarcated co-opertition that uniformly impacts both alliances and a deal you cut that has uncertain and variable benefits for each side. What I don't want to lose sight of is the fact that FRC matches and events are competitions, and we do ultimately reward the winners of those competitions. Of course, there are other things in FIRST worth celebrating, and we do that too, but between the lines, in the part of the event where you play against the other teams, it's a competition. Co-opertition and gracious professionalism dictate that we do that with the highest regard for one another, and we assist one another off the field so that we can all perform better on it, but on the field, we don't play to inflate everyone's scores or to achieve some objective with our opponents. We play to win.
I think this is "a more capable alliance trying to dupe a less capable alliance into doing something not beneficial to them." If you were going to beat me by 50, and we accept this agreement, which affects us roughly proportionally, so now I score 25 more but you beat me by 100, that's not helpful to me. Yes, I scored more, which helps my tiebreaker sorts, but so did you, and you're ranked better relative to me than you would have been otherwise. This is why it pays to break the agreement, and once you do, you can reap immediate benefits (i.e. it's easier to win the match), unlike with co-opertition. I know that one's reputation travels at the speed of sound, but it's still unsavory to me to be doing anything that relies on that good faith. Additionally, for the teams that got burned in that match, there is no reprieve.
NBA teams—even the worst ones—wouldn't agree to inbound the ball to each other at every possession and hope that they can win that way rather than playing normally, even if the players are friendly and help each other up after the whistle blows. It's no different here. Be friendly, share your tools and your know-how in the pits, but just go win your matches on the field.