On Game Design

[Matt Leese]

I think I haven't come across clearly enough about my philosophy of how the game should be designed. I honestly thought the points for this year's game were well balanced. However, I do believe that there were still too many ways to score and that the difficulty in the various tasks was too great. I don't like the idea of extremely hard tasks (hanging this year after climbing steps) nor do I like the idea of easy tasks (ball herding). I don't think hanging is bad in and off itself (I have no problems with scoring a lot of points via one method as long as it's not out of balance with other scoring methods).

While I originally (meaning last year when I first started thinking about this) thought that one method to score was optimal, when talking to Aidan Browne at the Championship this year I realized that it wasn't a good idea. I think that there should be two main methods of scoring that have balanced difficulty and balanced points (think the balls and hanging from 2000 or the balls and goals from 2002). Two methods of scoring gives plenty of opportunity for strategy while not making the game too complicated.

As for the idea that most teams don't spend a significant amount of their budget on their robot, I highly beg to differ. Most young teams do not have large financial support. I've been on several of them. Many teams have a budget under $10,000 a year. These are the teams that I think are under a significant disadvantage under the current system that could be rectified. The best way I can think of to make it more fair for these teams is to lower the cost limit.

Matt