Worst Scoring System in Years

[P.J. Baker]

I'm not sure I get the arguments that this years system is more complicated because won-loss record and QP's must both be calculated. The avereage Joe in the stands is not keeping a runnning calculation of the rankings going, so they don't have to worry about it.

If a team is trying to keep track of the rankings, its's not too hard to do with a spreadsheet and the match scores. This is no different than it has been in the past. It would be nice though, if F.I.R.S.T. could consistently push the scores out to their website or at least to an open wireless access point at the event. For Philly, the scores on the website were up to date, but I don't think this has been the case everywhere.

If you can get the ranking data from F.I.R.S.T., I think that this years ranking system actually provides much more useful information for teams preparing for the draft. You always know what your highest and lowest possible rankings are, which has almost never been the case before. For example, after Friday's rounds at Philly, I knew that 177 could not finish the competition ranked lower than 15th. It seemed a god bet that the team would end up having to draft, so they worked on their list. After the first match on Saturday, we knew that the team could not finish lower than 6th, so the focus shifted to trying to set up an alliance with one of the teams ranked ahead of us (which didn't happen) and finalizing the draft list.

Some have complained that a team could fall out of a drafting position at the last minute and then be over looked for the draft. This has always been a possibility. This year though, it is easy to see that it might happen to you and head it off by making sure that you are talking to the teams ahead of you and the teams that might be ahead of you so they know that you might be available in the draft.

This has gotten way to long (the baby is taking a nap, so I have a few minutes to type away), so I'll cut it off here. I really do like this year's system a lot and hope it sticks around for a while.

[Jim Meyer]

I think this is the BEST scoring system I've seen in the last 5 years. It's the first year where the game hasn't changed between the qualification rounds and finals. To better understand what I like about this year's game I think it's important to discuss things I didn't like about previous year's games. Let's just forget about 2001 for the purposes of this discussion.

Last year (2003) was a step in the right direction, where the goal in winning in the eliminations was the same as qualifications. The only down side was the "win the first match and then score zero in the second" strategy. While very effective, it was pretty confusing for most spectators. It also pretty much sealed your fate in the first match.

In 2002 the game changed dramatically between the qualification rounds and elimination round. The machines that seemed to seed well had a one goal, lots of balls strategy. The machines that seemed to win tournaments were either two goal or three goal machines. Most of the finals matches came down to who could control all three goals. This three-goal strategy was never implemented in the qualification rounds by teams trying to seed well. I felt that 2000 had a similar issue, but wasn't as pronounced as in 2002.

I like playing for two wins in the finals. When designing a robot I don't want to have to choose between trying to seed well or win tournaments. This year's scoring system achieves these two goals effectively. A machine that wins all of their matches will certainly seed well and will likely do quite well in the finals.

Now to discuss why I like the system FIRST is using to differentiate between teams with equal win/loss/tie records. I also like an offensively focused game. By then sorting teams based on who's opponents had the highest score you discourage defensive strategies. It also has the effect of rating the quality of opponent you faced.

As mentioned before, the penalties can hurt your opponent more than yourself (if they had a clear victory anyway) but if the penalties change who wins I can't see giving a team more "points" than they scored.

For the reasons mentioned above I think this is the best seeding/elimination system yet. The game's a pretty good one too.

[Andrew]

I like this year's qualifying system. It is much more direct and to the point. Win and you're in. Lose and you need some help. Unlike previous years, you can actually control your own destiny.

Even though you need to rely on your alliance partner to win the game, the scoring system doesn't make you rely on your alliance partner to attain your rank.

In previous years, you could design a robot and devise a strategy that would allow you to win (invariant of alliance partner), but you could end up out of the top rankings because your opponents did not score enough points. In other words, you had to rely on both your alliance partner and your opponents!

On another topic, I am appalled at statements that equate defense with badness. It seems to me that a large portion of the FIRST community has a deliberate blind spot when it comes to defense.

Defense is a relevant objective of the game. Had the game designers wanted the game to be purely offensive, they would have separated the alliances with an impermeable barrier. We are expected to compete over the game artifacts (goals, balls, space on the bar).

Especially in this game, where there is so much territory to cover and so many teams have an effective offensive strategy, designing a competitive, consistent defensive strategy is a very difficult engineering challenge.

[Gabriel]

I wonder if maybe the tournament style of FIRST isn't the best way of going about it. Each match is only about 2 minutes so its difficult for a spectator to get involved and its very very difficult to accurately figure out which robot is best. The problem isn't necessarily the scoring system so much as the fact that teams have to compete AGAINST each other so we don't get to judge each robot on its own merits all the time. Maybe FIRST should switch to the kind of system we see in many olympic sports, there would be one common challenge and groups of teams would compete in heats. Say, the challenge was to autonomously pick up multicolored balls and deposit them in different spots according to their color just to pick a dumb idea. The overall top 8 teams would go on. It wouldn't be as interesting strategically (or maybe it would be depending on how the game was set up), but it would certainly avoid all the problems with scoring systems, coercion etc. as well as making it easier for a team to practice and the overall result would reflect the performance of the robot, not the performance of the alliance.

I don't know if I like the idea, but its certainly interesting.

[Chris Fultz]

I like the game and love the scoring and ranking system. It forces teams to keep connected with what is going on and change strategy to get a win.

Examples - we usually hang in the last 45 seconds. One match we were ready to go hang, but an opponent was getting ready to cap a goal with 7 balls in it. We gave up 50 hanging points to prevent 70 ball points. It kept the match exciting.

Another example was in Phoenix. 4 robots on the bar with time left on the clock. One alliance realizes they are losing - because of balls in goals, so they drop off the bar, try to corral balls and then get back and hang. They did not make it - but it was exciting to watch the strategy come in.

Both matches would have been played differently if everyone was focused on points.

And yes, sometimes good robots don't make it to the top 8. But teams with good scouting and tracking know which machines and teams can perform in a match and the better teams will almost always get selected for finals.

[Yan Wang]

When I read this thread at first, I thought, "Pfftt... what's this guy thinking? This scoring system rocks!" But hey, at least it was an opinion stated well and asked without intent to harm, IMO. And after reading the sarcastic and rude comments after it, I gave him some positive rep points only to see it drop to gray when I clicked refresh a minute later.

I think this is a good example of people disagreeing and using the reputation system to voice that disagreement. That's not what it's for.

Anyway, to stay on topic... I like the scoring system even though I have yet to go to a regional (Canada in 2 days!). It seems, as Andy Baker pointed out, a system that has been proven in the real world and one which rewards winning over just points. It seems to be a very good move on FIRST's behalf in addition to changing the eliminations to best outta 3, instead of a cumulative points system which promoted descoring over adding to your own score. I guess I'll truly see for myself exactly how good this system is in 2 days.

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

And yes, sometimes good robots don't make it to the top 8. But teams with good scouting and tracking know which machines and teams can perform in a match and the better teams will almost always get selected for finals.

In LA, 980 was circulating a spread sheet that sorted teams by average points scored in a match. I think it was a very good indicator of the quality of the robots listed. There were also quite a few "bargins". That is teams that had very high scoring but low seeding. Several of the top 10 scorers had seedings in the teens and twenties (including us). The "bargains" didn't last too long when it came to picking though.

[Denman]

because i was feeling bored, i decided to do some statistical work on that data.
Spearmans rank correlation : 0.96368335
This is incredably high
Therefore you kinda can't justify your argument. I think that this hsows that the ranks are very similar, and that what looks like big differences aren't
so there

ok i just double checked my calculations
0.7821
that is the actual answer
its still high, but i can se your point

[white_ChocOlat8]

To me I am appalled to see this as an issue, I started first with my team (1083) this year as a rookie and was told repeatedly that it didn’t matter weather we won or lost, and I was told that the people in this organization understood that. They also told me that FIRST is a way for me to get excited about engineering, and winning dose matter, but it shouldn’t consume the experience for me and I think this leads to what I’m trying to say is, you all are getting caught up in what is fair and what is not fair, instead I think you all need to drop and concentrate some of that energy into improving your team for the community, because guess what, from what I’ve heard, that’s what this is all about.

[Bill Enslen]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

The problem isn't necessarily the scoring system so much as the fact that teams have to compete AGAINST each other so we don't get to judge each robot on its own merits all the time. Maybe FIRST should switch to the kind of system we see in many olympic sports, there would be one common challenge and groups of teams would compete in heats. Say, the challenge was to autonomously pick up multicolored balls and deposit them in different spots according to their color just to pick a dumb idea. The overall top 8 teams would go on. It wouldn't be as interesting strategically (or maybe it would be depending on how the game was set up), but it would certainly avoid all the problems with scoring systems, coercion etc. as well as making it easier for a team to practice and the overall result would reflect the performance of the robot, not the performance of the alliance.

What you describe is pretty much the way the 2001 game was, although eliminations were handled the same way they are today, with the top teams picking alliance partners. In a nutshell, four teams played as a single alliance against the clock to perform a task. The faster they performed the task, the higher their score could be. I personally loved the game, and even if my team wasn't on the national champion alliance I would have still loved the game. It was as exciting as watching the last minute of the final four B-ball games! Trouble was, it was oh-so-difficult to explain the complicated multiplier-based scoring system to anyone other than a FIRST-a-holic.

[Jeremy L]

This scoring system is great for several reasons.
1) It is easy to see which teams have the best defense: they are at the bottom of their tiers.
2) It quickly allows you to see, as PJ pointed out, the ranking range that you will end up in early on.
3) The point reward for a hanging robot is much more in perspective than last year's game; a ball-handling robot is an equally viable option that can win you more games. (totally unbiased statement...)
5) FIRST is on the ball with all aspects of the game this year: the human player involvement, importance of autonomous, gameplay strategies, and scoring system. Way to go, FIRST!

That's right, i skipped number 4.
deal with it.