Most Important Aspect of Game?

[Jones571]

Originally Posted by Jake177

Small Balls Dominate

Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck

Small balls will be the key to winning the championship event. You cant deny that......I say 1 hanger with a bot that collects and caps is the ideal team on the field.

This is the way to win small balls do dominate. It is a proven fact. And one good ball bot with one good hanger will rock it already has: UTC with 571 handeling balls and caping with 230 and 716 hanging Next at the midwest regional were 45 did balls and caped really well and there parteners hanging and last that i have see would be NJ were 237 hung and had 303 and one other team do thre balls and cap

I dont belive there has been an aliance who could just hang that went far in this years game. balls are KEY!!!!!

[Lil' Lavery]

ummm, in your example, the blue alliance(with the hanging robots), won. Note that in your example both alliances were performing flawlessly...

[rees2001]

What I like most about this years game is that there are still many ways to play the game no one strategy is right or wrong. Any team can still develop something that works for them but the most important aspect to the game itself is winning.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Pit Bull 1126

The Multipliers
The Mobile Goal
Human Player Accuracy
Hanging
Handling Small Balls

auto is only for strategy this year.... not as important as last years auto....

Yup. Auto is nowhere near as important as when the bins got knocked into your side of the field and you had to spend the rest of the match either cleaning them out or moving them over. If you don't really bother with the 5 point balls it doesn't matter if they fall in the first 15 seconds of 45 seconds in.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

well if you are going to ask this, you might as well answer all of them are the most important. I've seen hangers beat small ball gatherers, cappers beat hangers, gatherers beat hangers, pretty much anything. It all depends on how the individual robot is, and how succesful it is in playing its strategy.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

In order to win this year, your alliance will have to have the best of the best of all aspects of the game. You can't win by doing one thing, unless you're against stealth bots. Its been pretty much proven that you can counter most strategys......some robots can keep others of the bar, but if you get enough balls in and double it, you can beat them (i never said it was easy)
This year's game is a good one, encorporating most/all of the aspects of the game if you really want to win, thus robots that do all (well) or alliances that can do it all (well) are the winners. There is no most important aspect of this game, everything matters, one thing can change a whole match. Whether it be a robot caping a goal or a robot hanging, there are many last second swing aspects of this game. FIRST wanted a spectator friendly game, they got a one (assuming the spectators know how to score)

[Eric Bareiss]

Sorry to say that there is no most important part of this years game. The most important part of this game is knowing what it takes to beat the team you playing.

If team A can beat team B and team B can beat team C, does that mean that team A can beat team C? Not this year!

Small balls will not be the key because it is easy enough to stop teams from getting them. Hanging won't be key because it's too easy to overcome with small balls. Capping won't be most important because you need little balls to cap.

It's all going to come down to the what was said by John in the defense thread: Picking a strategy to beat the team you are playing. There is no "one" strategy that can win this year, they can all be beat. Be smart!

[Pin Man]

If you can't hang you can't win... That's my theory but still... Thats 50 points... Our team can hang so good now... Just wait and see... In one regional we couldnt hang... We didn't get picked.... In the next regional we could, we got picked and made it to the semi finals but our alliance tipped in both matches and we lost... Not by much but enough... Hanging is key...

[KingsvilleKukes]

Actually seeing this years competition really made me relize what "the most important" part of this years game was. and i think the answer to this would have to be, that there truly isn't one, though i feel hanging is arguably VERY inmportant. At the reginal, there was only one instance where a robot hung and thier aliance didn't win, but that only because the opposing aliance had bot thier robots hanging.
When we got to quarter finals it was almost imposable for us to predict how the match would go. In one instance we had an aliance partner that could open a net and catch almost all the 5point balls during auto. mode while our robot could go and knock off the 10pt ball during auto. We shot almost every ball in the goals and then our robot hung. Surprisingly, both times we did this stratigy, we didn't win . But it sure mad for an amazing round to watch. We still ended up in 4th place and had a great year.

[Jake177]

Originally posted by Lil' Lavery
ummm, in your example, the blue alliance(with the hanging robots), won. Note that in your example both alliances were performing flawlessly...

I was being generous with the blue alliance's points. I have seen a mobile goal under the ball dump catch anywhere from 1 to 6 balls. I have seen human players miss shots on a mobile goal when it was right next to the players' station. I tried to make the blue alliance's performance a best case scenario, while I based the red alliance's performance on what I have seen our bot do, and the fact that there are teams that can cap reliably.
I guess my point was that small ball bots get high scores more reliably than hangers.

[UnStumpable237]

I definitely think that the most important aspects of the game are:

Scouting
Hanging

If you don't scout right, how will your team do well? By knowing exactly what every other robot can do, its strategy, driving techniques, human player accuracy, things like that, you will do well. Also scouting is key to knowing exactly what strategy to use in a match. Scouting definitely has a positive effect on the results of the matches.

Hanging is also an incredibly important part of the game. I do agree that sometimes the small balls can determine a match, but if your robot can hang really well, then your robot will do great. Unless, you are against a fantastic ball collector. That's where scouting comes back into play.

Scouting is key!

[RoteAugen]

Originally Posted by UnStumpable237

I definitely think that the most important aspects of the game are:

Scouting
Hanging

as a scout I can tell you that our role isn't as pivotal as one may think. the teams we pick are generally the teams we were paired with at one point or another. after watching many matches, I have come to the conclusion that too few people respect the power of the balls. Though they are only 5 points each, cap them, and they are 10 each. thats only 5 capped balls to tie a hang, and that is not as hard as one would imagine given the abilities of the robots this year.

keep in mind that a well-rounded alliance is the best alliance to keep. Defense is important to have for the win, but it is useless without an offensively strong robot... the basic premise of my scouting white paper that I have provided.

good luck all!

[David Bridge]

[quote=Pin Man]If you can't hang you can't win... That's my theory but still... Thats 50 points... QUOTE]

I would edit that quote to say "If your strategy is to hang, and you can't, then you won't win" You are right in saying that the 50 hanging points are important, however keeping an opponent from hanging and not hanging yourself has the same effect as going to hang yourself, but also letting your opponent hang... just ask all of the people who saw the finals in Philly. I agree with the people who say that scouting is one of the keys, because if you know that you are going up against 2 robots that can hang, and only one of your robots can hang, you can let a hanging robot from the other alliance be cancelled out by the hanging bot on your alliance, then after you have done whatever else you planned on doing in the match (small balls for us) you can just prevent the second team from hanging, because instead of hanging at the beginning of the match they were forced to defend against you.

There is a thread about teams with the most alliance points (points that their alliance actually scored, not opponents) averages, at least 5 of the top ten were from philly... we were not one of them, yet we still won... so how important can hanging really be?

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by Eric Bareiss

Small balls will not be the key because it is easy enough to stop teams from getting them.

Not if you catch them

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by Tyler Olds

Not if you catch them

Well it is legal to keep some from catching or to keep their nets closed.