Seeding System

[Jonathan M.]

I LOVE the new seeding system! When people ask what the game is about, they still regret it because of my long detailed explanation, but it's cut down the time of explaining by 72.99887 %! Lol, besides that I just like the idea that to get ahead you have to win.. Gee who ever came up with a crazy idea like that.. Lol.

[KevinB]

Agreed. The new system is *much* better.

Using losing team's score as the "tiebreaker" within tiers actually rewards teams that have close, exciting matches. I don't mind this at all, I just wish we could've had to face some *harder* bots during the prelims. Improve the "random" pairings?

[10intheCrunch]

Why not just have a tie breaker based on stength of schedule: total opponent record and record vs. common opponents. I think that the NFL tie breaking system is pretty consistent and fair...

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Teams are rewarded for both defense and offense in the rankings as well as scouting reports. And that is important for some teams, as many teams only talk to the top 15-20 or so teams when choosing allies, especially if they dont have very good scouting systems in place.

I know we were invited to our alliance as a defensive robot, and filled our role well even though we seeded poorly....1002 had a very organized scouting system and found 2 solid partners @ peachtree....

[meaubry]

Originally Posted by 10intheCrunch

Why not just have a tie breaker based on stength of schedule: total opponent record and record vs. common opponents. I think that the NFL tie breaking system is pretty consistent and fair...

I agree that strength of schedule should play into the formula somewhere. It seems like it is implying that the average opponents score is something that the winning team conscientiously somehow contributed to. I just don't see that occuring. If the teams were truely randomly selected as opponents - the capabilities of those robots and human players have more to do with how they performed than what the opposing alliance did for them. When winning is the more important factor than score differential AND the game dynamics don't really allow the field participants to know the score accurately (penalty points and hanging or not hanging cannot be comprehended until the match is over) very few if any teams are gonna try to barely win or allow their opponent to score very many points. This is very true when a robot hanging might just beat 2 robots that can't double or hang. Seeding methodology MUST match the game dynamics or the tie breaker rule that attempts to dissuade blowouts is meaningless.

[Lil' Lavery]

1002 had a very organized scouting system

I know, they set up a "cyber cafe", just a bunch of computers in the lobby, in Richmond, and gave people access to their scouting database. Also 291(CIA) gave teams a floppy w/ scouitng info on it in Annapolis. The circuit runners(1002) database was useful in finding out info on 975 during the elimination who i didnt get very good notes on. All I was saying is that some teams have great scouting systems in place, such as 1002, others dont and use standings as the major way to choose alliance partners. My team wasnt ranked that high in Richmond(31st) but we were chosen for the #7 alliance and we beat the #2 seed to make the semi-finals where we would lose to the eventual champions in Teams 33(Killer Bees), 977(Star-bot), and 388(Maximum OZ). Team 33 must have a good system in place also, cus not only did they turn down the invite from the #2 seeded alliance, they chose 388, who was ranked worse than us.
Sure, the SoS aspects of the scoring system need a little work, but this system works and it is better than the previous year's systems.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by meaubry

I agree that strength of schedule should play into the formula somewhere. It seems like it is implying that the average opponents score is something that the winning team conscientiously somehow contributed to. I just don't see that occuring.

SOS does fit into the formula this year. There are almost always multitple teams with the same record. Thus, how much the opponents score ranks those teams. If you got your own points, you could complain about SOS not being taken into account, because you could run up the scores against bad opponents and seed well. This year, if you opponents average 100 points, you are rewarded.

Of course, this doesn't take into account opponents record, which may or may not be a better indicator of thier strength, but the current system does take SOS into account.

[cheri0627]

Originally Posted by 10intheCrunch

While GP is certainly important to the whole FIRST idea, I think basing the seedings off of the opponents' scores strays a bit from professionalism. Professionals play fair and respect their opponents, but they still play to win. Scoring points for your opponent to increase your own score seems selfish and patronizing--you are telling the other team their best efforts aren't good enough.

You want to win, but you also want the alliance you beat to do very well point wise. I don't think it was to get people to score points for the other alliance. I think part of this may have been to keep teams from designing strategies which prevent the other alliance from scoring. If you want to rank high, is it a good strategy to block your opponent's ball corals with the mobile goals or your robot? There have not been many undefeated teams at the end of the qualification matches, so most teams are relying on ranking points to help position.

Last year, I saw a lot of matches where one alliance would completely clear the other side of the field. I think this point system was to help eliminate that, and I think it works pretty well.

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by cheri0627

You want to win, but you also want the alliance you beat to do very well point wise. I don't think it was to get people to score points for the other alliance. I think part of this may have been to keep teams from designing strategies which prevent the other alliance from scoring. If you want to rank high, is it a good strategy to block your opponent's ball corals with the mobile goals or your robot? There have not been many undefeated teams at the end of the qualification matches, so most teams are relying on ranking points to help position.

Last year, I saw a lot of matches where one alliance would completely clear the other side of the field. I think this point system was to help eliminate that, and I think it works pretty well.

Last year if they were clearing the opponents field during qualifying rounds that alliance had horrible strategy. The only times this played effect were in elimination rounds where the winning team from the first round could nearly gurantee victory by limiting the score (aka clearing both zone and leaving as few as possible robots on top).

There are several reasons for the new scoring system and why I like it:

1. It make the competition one game. Qualifying and elimination matches generally play out the same. No more all for QPs at the sake of win-losses and switch to all win-loss at elims.

2. It adds a certain tradeoff between winning with low QPs and taking the risk of losing once and being done or having high QP matches and taking more risk in losing high scoring close matches, more than a couple and your done. The scoring system in FIRST is about complexities that make strategy fun while being easy as possible for an audience to understand. The QPs being the opponents score offers this dimension to the game and as a strategist I love it.

3. It make co-opertition happen. You want your opponent in good shape so you'll do well.

4. Win-loss makes the game exciting. Being able to score only on five-point intervals makes every score closer and ties more likely and the game more exciting to watch. What I'm trying to say is that this game is so exciting in part because the scoring creates these close and exciting finishes.

These are just a few among many reasons why this scoring system is great this year. At least in my opinion.