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#1
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How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
Does anyone remember several years ago when it seemed like FIRST was strongly focused on drawing spectators who knew nothing of the event into the action by making scoring and gameplay simple to understand? The idea was, as I remember it, that a spectator walking in off the street could sit in the stands and easily and quickly discern which alliance was winning.
I know the ins and outs of the rules for this game and, while watching this VCU Webcast, I'm having an awful time deciphering who actually wins a watch. Sure, I can quickly glance and see that there are more blue tetras than red on the goals, but that doesn't make a lick of difference because of the surprise appearance of a million points worth of penalties at the end of each match. The announcer is doing a good job of explaining, now and again, why the penalties are assessed and their value, but it's still really frustrating to have no idea who wins until the penalties are tallied up. It's not exciting; it doesn't create anticipation; it's simply irritating. I know that there have been discussions about how to best implement a penalty system on these forums, but it seems to me that the end result is not really useful for making the game easy to understand. Additionally, given the six weeks we've just endured, I think it's valuable to ensure that these kids feel good about their robot and the work they put in. I can imagine how frustrating it must be for them to have spent long days and nights building a functioning robot that scores no points because of penalties. Is anyone else as irritated as I am by both the overabundance of penalties and the obscenely skewed point-values assessed for such penalties? It doesn't seem fair for teams have deducted three times as many points in penalties as they score in a match. Last edited by Madison : 04-03-2005 at 16:41. |
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#2
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
I'll second the penalties remark. When one penalty costs more points that the majority of alliances are scoring, the game is a bit unbalanced. I understand the need for some penalties and such, but the 30-pointers seem excessive. I can understand the non-interference rule, but -30 if you accidentally bump another robot while it's getting a tetra seems extreme. Ditto -30 for an antsy teenager jumping out of his human player station during autonomous mode. Warnings seem like they would be appropriate here.
To this end, as a rookie coach with a trial by fire at GLR I will be brainwashing my drivers with light jazz in an attempt to keep them mellow. |
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#3
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
Yeah. In the match that was just held (VCU #50), the Blue alliance scored thirty points but lost forty points due to penalties. The Red alliance scored 27 points, incidentally.
Last year, ten-point penalties were okay because the scoring objects scored five points each (and were fairly easy to score), so each penalty essentially took two scores away. This year, each individual scoring object scores only three points if stacked, and the minimum penalties are still ten points, taking away 3 1/3 scores for each penalty. It's also a lower-scoring game than last year. Personally, I wish that the penalties could be cut by two-thirds, so each 10-point penalty would become a 3-point penalty and the 30-point penalty would become a 10-point penalty. That's not really feasible at this point, but the penalties are rather frustrating. |
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#4
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
I totally agree! I saw so many matches decided by penalties and so many 0 scores that I can't imagine how the teams must feel. The first thing I said to my captains was memorize every penalty and figure out how to avoid them. The values are completely out of whack with the scoring. It seems a penalty in this game should result in your bot being disabled for some amount of time, not reducing your alliance score to zero. With 3 bots in an alliance it must be very frustrating to have one alliance member who doesn't understand the rules destroy a round.
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#5
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
A lot of the penalties probably come even when people do understand the rules just because they are so easy to get.
It must be really depressing to have so many zero scores. With three robots, I was expecting better scores but I guess more robots means more penalties, not more points. Last edited by sanddrag : 04-03-2005 at 17:26. |
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#6
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
The penalty points might be high, but I've also seen (on the SSTV Webcast...) that a lot of 'bot drivers think this is Battlebots. Lots of smashing and slamming. Generally, the teams which have smashers don't win, either.
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#7
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
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The rules for our drive team are to give the opposition's loading zones a wide berth. We'll do whatever we please near the goals, but *NOT* at near the loading zones. I wouldn't want the opposition harming my students (or my wife as she works for the field crew), so I'm not going to endanger their students either. I, for one, firmly believe the 30 point penalty is sufficient and has a *very* good reason for being so stiff. Anything less would be ignorable by high scoring alliances and would lower the overall safety of the game. Just my $0.02 (2 cents). Lynn (D) - Team Voltage 386 Drive Team Coach |
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#8
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
I would rather see face shields and hard hats than penalties.
EDIT: As a side note to how to figure scoring, I had a hard time determining alliance pairings. In the webcast, you would not even know that there were any LED lights, even when they did robot close ups. |
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#9
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
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There were no penalties for interference as such in 1999, to my recollection. Last edited by Madison : 04-03-2005 at 18:10. |
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#10
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
I agree with everything everyone else has said so far. I have been trying to watch the VCU webcast today and was very frustrated trying to keep score. The big problem I see with the penalty points is that they effect BOTH the red and blue alliance since you get the loser's score. I just watched the rankings scroll by for VCU and the highest QP I saw was 15! Most QPs were in the single digits! That is a direct result of both teams getting the losers score which includes the penalties points. I know FIRST is not meant to be "fair" but shouldn't penalties only effect the alliance that committed the foul? Instead of subtracting points from the alliance that commits the foul wouldn't it make more sense to add points to the opposite alliance thus when both teams get the losers score there might be less 0 scores averaged in. As far as the comments about Battlebots, the only thing a robot can do this year is score tetras or play defense. It seems like the tetra scoring is not going as well as some teams had planned so I guess in the frustration (maybe due to all the penalties) teams are resorting to defensive strategies.
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#11
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
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And then in 97 they got rid of the seatbelts and let the HP stand, but they were still right at the edge of the field interacting with the robots (while the robots were still enabled). {edit} Good picture of the 1996 setup here: http://www.wildstang.org/ws_pic_albu...on29.sized.jpg {/edit} |
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#12
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
Yeah. Next year, to ensure that the winning alliance isn't penalized as well, the QP should be based on the score without penalties. It isn't really their fault if they get rammed is it?
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#13
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
Another thing is that I would watch a match, then I'd leave and then 5-10mins later I would see some of the same robots back on the field. This is gonna be tough cause if something breaks I fear that we won't have enough time to fix it in between matches. As for penalties, I think they are too high for the game. The penalties take a lot of points away from matches that don't have high scores to begin with. I feel discouraged as a driver because I don't want to work hard to get those tetras up there and see my partner get a penalty and take away the points 3-fold. Their are some tricky rules this year that I see a lot of teams breaking. I see the same penalties over and over again. This year is all about strategies and making sure your partners don't do anything illegal. It is going to be a very interesting season and I can't wait to see all the teams at nationals. Good luck everyone!
GO 1403!!! |
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#14
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
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The penalties in FIRST are mostly to shape the way the game is played. They discourage certain kinds of actions and similarly, scoring encourages other kinds of action. The trick is that this should work somewhat like a standardized test like the SAT. If you guess on the SAT, everything averages out to nothing. In FIRST, if you follow a penalty heavy strategy, it should result in you seeing no positive benefit, and possibly a slight negative consequence. With the way penalties are weighted this year, you instead are faced with huge negative consequences for an action. I think -6 for all the penalties would be sufficient. I don't see how interfering with a robot picking up a tetra is any more disruptive to their score than descoring a tetra or interfering with them scoring the tetra. Look at what you yourself have said. You're telling your drivers to avoid two sides of the field for fear that you'll bump someone and recieve a crippling penalty. I think any penalty that scares people this much should be looked at. |
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#15
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Re: How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?
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Smash 'em and bash 'em is what I say! If you don't like contact, your robot is not built well enough. Penalties should not be given to those who compete against fragile robots. EDIT: I don't mean to say I prefer battlebot style competition over FIRST competition (I like the manipulation of game pieces), but I do believe a good amount of contact makes for a more exciting game. We need more legal contact. Contact not just for the sake of contacting, but contact while trying to accomplish game tasks/strategies both defensive and offensive. Last edited by sanddrag : 04-03-2005 at 21:11. |
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