FIRST Frenzy Opinion Thread

[ahecht]

So it's offical, the 2004 game is FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar.
Now that the game is out, what do people think? Personally, I've seen better, but the game may just take some time to get used to.

[Adam Y.]

I like the game. It appears very intersting.

[generalbrando]

Originally Posted by ahecht

Si it's offical, the 2004 game is FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar.
Now that the game is out, what do people think? Personally, I've seen better, but the game may just take some time to get used to.

I think that the initial reaction is that this isn't challenging and that it's mildly repetitive. However I'm enthusiastic about it - I think that once people start getting into it more and playing with the field and running scenarios - they'll start seeing how complex and fun this game seems to be. Of course, I just saw it a few minutes ago so don't take my word for it!

Good luck to all! Especially 1020! (This year, use the kit's drive train guys!)

[iamnafets]

I don't like the idea that you can balance six weeks of hard work on a robot with a person that is great at basketball, or had a field to practice on.

[Adam Y.]

I don't like the idea that you can balance six weeks of hard work on a robot with a person that is great at basketball, or had a field to practice on.

It really should be just as easy to take their balls out of their goals.

[Ashley Weed]

It's really nice to see that the human player will have more importance now, but I tink FIRST became a little carried away with the power to the human player. It's a little disturbing at first glance of how the scoring will be done, I need to think about it more before reacting. I guess in the long run it will be somewhat equivalent to past years multiplication of losers score. I don't think the field will be opened up as much as in the past... average scores will be much closer.

[Allison K]

It said in the rules no de-scoring, so no taking balls out of goals

[Francis-134]

Well with a little practice anyone could become good at throwing the balls into the stationary goal. And you really dont need an entier field to practice throwing, just something like a volleyball net and the static goal.

[hacksaw692]

I'm not too intrigued by the game, but I don't think it's a bad game. It's slightly disappointing to see that it cumulates elements of past games (at least there isn't a puck ) because I was really hoping for something completely different. I wanted a maze. lol.

"FIRST Frenzy" makes sense don't you think? Elements of past games that absolutly drove people mad!!

Edit: The clue was far too obvious and I really didn't want stairs. I was hoping for some obscure meaning to it like the parabolic equation last year. Ah wells... stairs it is!

[Lil' Lavery]

First did throw a lot of power at the human player, but the pull-ups and the 2x ball give the robot a big influence. My father, Dave Lavery, has done a lot of things about how robots and humans will both perform better when used together. A good basketball player may be able to get you 75 points but an opponent who drops balls into the mobile goal and tops it off could get 100 points. A good basketball player helps, but an okay one and good strategy will win.

[Poz]

yeah, it seemed like the human players were both scoring points pretty easily.. though I guess they've had a lot of practice...

anyone else felt it took too long to show the game? I think it was 1 hour and 30 minutes before they finally showed the animation.

[Pteryxx]

[quote=Poz}
anyone else felt it took too long to show the game? I think it was 1 hour and 30 minutes before they finally showed the animation.[/QUOTE]

Isn't that the norm here? ; )

No de-scoring... how about blocking?

[DanL]

I don't like how it basically IS previous years' games. Veteran teams that have done the hanging-from-a-bar game and teams that have played 2002 soccer-balls-in-goals game well (*looks at RAGE*) have an enormous advantage - all they need to do is take their previous mechanisms and put them on a new robot. Yeah, RAGE can't use their ultra-efficient ball-dumper again because of that only-human-player-puts-balls-in rule, but teams like them do know what's going to work in terms of goal manipulation and such.

FIRST said they were trying to make it attractive to rookies to some extent - I think they did exactly the opposite: the veteran teams that have played the games 2, 3, 4 years ago HAVE DONE all of the elements of this game before - unlike the veterans, rookies have no idea what works and what doesn't. I was expecting FIRST to be a bit more creative.

Thumbs down.

[Jim Giacchi]

Pteryxx wrote
No de-scoring... how about blocking?


Nop sorry, none of that either...

<G20> ROBOTS cannot GOALTEND either the Mobile or Stationary Goals. If a ROBOT GOALTENDs or de-SCORES any SMALL ball, the referee will throw a green penalty flag and the opponent’s final score will be increased by twice the value of that SMALL ball.

[Lil' Lavery]

This isnt previous games though, although you do raise a point of how it combines many aspects of them. Note the games zone zeal and the one from the year b4 it both had the balls in goals, but they were very different. And now there is the W-L effect, changing strategies during the qualification rounds. And no pre-manufactured part(parts you built b4 build season) may be included on your robot, so no they cant just grab an arm of the 3 years agos bot and put it on, plus part requirments have changed, making many old parts illegal.