How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?

[Madison]

Originally Posted by dlavery

I love it when there is someone that obviously "gets it". People, please read Andy's words again. He has homed in on the right interpretation of the penalties. There are there for a reason. They are behavior modifiers that are intended to have an effect. If a team is modifying their style of play based on a concern about accumulating too many penalties, then the simple existence of the penalties is fulfilling the intended purpose.

Undoubtedly, teams everywhere will learn from the first day's events and make adjustments so that tomorrow and in future events, they are less likely to incur penalties.

I understand that things get better with time, but not all teams have the benefit of attending several events so they may have the opportunity to learn and improve. Furthermore, it seems to me that a spectator off the street isn't going to stick around watching things evolve for the next five weeks. They're not going to see teams learn to be better at avoiding penalties because, for the most part, they don't understand why the penalties were assessed in the first place and did not see anything obviously out of the ordinary during the match.

Again, I see how the penalties can be successfully used to influence behavior on the field -- but I wonder if there are better methods of play balancing that are more spectator friendly.

[Wayne Doenges]

I too have to agree with Andy (you can pay me later )
When I was in the Air Force Reserves we would what they call ORI's (Operational Readiness Inspections). People would complain about the rules and the inspectors. My philosophy was that it was just a game with rules and if you played by the rules you could get through it.
If the penalty is 30 points for hitting a robot in the loading zone than STAY AWAY from the bot in the loading zone. Period!!!
Just my $.02. Take it with a grain of salt. Don't you just hate cliches

Wayne Doenges
Lemmings non sumus

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by ldeffenb

Okay, consider this: This is the first year that real live human people are coming up next to the playfield *without* the Plexiglas wall. The 30 point penalty, when you think about it, is to *absolutely discourage* *ANY* pushing/shoving/ramming near where these people will be. When a 'bot is in or entering the loading zone, there's a person there or about to be there. If anyone hits that 'bot, even accidentally, that person is endangered.

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

I have seen so far a tetra accidentally flung a few feet and almost hit the anouncer. A tetra was accidentally droped onto the player's station over the plexiglass. Robots have accidentally moved the automatic loading stations. The game is dangerous enough.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I really don't want this to become "the pretty pink robot ballerina game"

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.

Do you think after the first week is over some one might look at the results and make changes.

[ShadowKnight]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

I have seen so far a tetra accidentally flung a few feet and almost hit the anouncer. A tetra was accidentally droped onto the player's station over the plexiglass. Robots have accidentally moved the automatic loading stations. The game is dangerous enough.

Actually...more than that has happened...On thursday, a bot got hassled in the end zonewhile someone was trying to cap the center tetra. The bot's arm got twisted torward the plexiglass, disengaging with the tetra, after it cleared the plexiglas barrier. I got hit square on my safety glasses with it, leaving a nice dent on my forehead. It's really not all that big though.

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

No, that is incorrect. The 1999 game, Double Trouble, also required for human players to interact with the robot by placing the scoring object -- floppies -- into or onto the machines. There was no barrier aside from the field border between the human player and robot.

There were no penalties for interference as such in 1999, to my recollection.

Yes, there was exactly one penalty for interference in 1999: disabling of the robot. While it wasn't called frequently, it was on the books. There also was a three foot interaction zone between the human player and the actual playing field. The robot could stick into that area but not into the rest of the human player area.

Matt

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by ShadowKnight

Actually...more than that has happened...On thursday, a bot got hassled in the end zonewhile someone was trying to cap the center tetra. The bot's arm got twisted torward the plexiglass, disengaging with the tetra, after it cleared the plexiglas barrier. I got hit square on my safety glasses with it, leaving a nice dent on my forehead. It's really not all that big though.

An injury that would likely have been prevented had you been wearing a hard hat, or even a bicycle helmet.

I'm sorry, am I sounding like a broken record here? By the way, I did email FIRST about this issue several days ago. No response...

[Adam Y.]

Undoubtedly, teams everywhere will learn from the first day's events and make adjustments so that tomorrow and in future events, they are less likely to incur penalties.

That didn't even come close to happening at the BAE regional towards the end. Teams were getting penalized for doing things that didn't even happen towards the begining of the regional. Im starting to think that the penalty system isn't going to prevent anything because it seems that the more excited/tired people got the more chance there was for injury.

An injury that would likely have been prevented had you been wearing a hard hat, or even a bicycle helmet.

A hard hat would have done nothing if he got hit straight on the safety gogles. A full face mask would have helped but that is going overboard.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I understand that things get better with time, but not all teams have the benefit of attending several events so they may have the opportunity to learn and improve. Furthermore, it seems to me that a spectator off the street isn't going to stick around watching things evolve for the next five weeks. They're not going to see teams learn to be better at avoiding penalties because, for the most part, they don't understand why the penalties were assessed in the first place and did not see anything obviously out of the ordinary during the match.

Again, I see how the penalties can be successfully used to influence behavior on the field -- but I wonder if there are better methods of play balancing that are more spectator friendly.

I think that FIRST has taken a step back wards on having a spectator/TV friendly game this year, I had a very hard time figuring out who won each match because of the possibility of penalties and such.
I do think that 30 points is a bit much in some cases but they are there to keep people safe, With out the rules this would be battle bots, not FIRST.
I hope everyone has a safe and fun events in the up coming events.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll toss another 2 cents into the jar here..

I think it's obvious that the penalties are for behavior modification. I think it's also obvious that they're working because they're so high and damaging that getting a single penalty means your round is pretty much over. No one can risk getting one or even being anywhere near where your could get one. Forget capping the opposing team's goals because you're on their side of the field and an errant twitch of the joystick might make you graze their robot and lose the match.

But I digress. I think the real question at this point is if this kind of behavior modification is what we want and what's in the best interest of FIRST.

The obvious slant is towards an all-offensive game with little or no defense. I submit that we've already seen the results of an all offensive game with Diabolical Dynamics in 2001. Yes, it was slightly different, but a purely offensive game is essentially DD being run on two fields that happen to occupy the same area of the arena. I personally don't think this is as exciting for the reasons stated by many others above. Defense is interesting and exciting. Seeing robots perform choreographed acts of scoring isn't so exciting. I think the general public understands this as well. We will almost always have the problem of spectators no being able to quickly determine how scoring works and who wins a match. By letting defense back into the game you give them something to watch and cheer about while they're figuring out what's going on. If John Q. doesn't understand the significance of the tetra Wildstang is about to cap, winning them 2 rows at the last second, he can atleast understand that they're trying to put it on and Swampthing is trying valiantly to keep them from doing so.

Defense gives poeple a fundamental way of understanding a game. We're competitive creatures by nature, and we understand two robots striving against each other on a rather basic level. I'm not sure why strong, fair defense is a thing to be avoided.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

The obvious slant is towards an all-offensive game with little or no defense.

I disagree. If that is what FIRST wanted they could make a 30 point penalty for making any contact at all with an opposing robot. They haven't done anything like that. Dave Lavery already pointed out the purpose of this rule - FIRST wants tetras on the field and being scored. Your scenario of Swampthing trying to stop Wildstang from scoring doesn't work if Swampthing and partners are permitted to prevent Wildstang and partners from ever getting ahold of a tetra in the first place. I'd be surprised if anyone argued that a game in which defensive robots could completely prevent scoring of any kind would be fun to watch.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll agree that that's a flaw with allowing more defense this year. I think it's an obvious flaw in the game design this year, since there's just 4 small places on the field you can possibly get items to score with. I'm not sure assigning whopping penalties in these areas is an appropriate fix. It seems akin to fixing mechanical problems in software.

[Petey]

Originally Posted by dlavery

I love it when there is someone that obviously "gets it". People, please read Andy's words again. He has homed in on the right interpretation of the penalties. There are there for a reason. They are behavior modifiers that are intended to have an effect. If a team is modifying their style of play based on a concern about accumulating too many penalties, then the simple existence of the penalties is fulfilling the intended purpose.

The message is simple: STAY AWAY FROM THE LOADING ZONES WHEN AN OPPONENT IS RETRIEVING A TETRA! Lots of tetras should be coming out onto the field. The way to beat an opponent that is scoring tetras is to retrieve and score more than they do, not by wrestling over access to their loading zone.

-dave

(I also hate it when I keep seeing this message: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Andy Baker again.")

The problem I saw, Dave, is that there were too many penalties being given for seemingly nonsensical reasons.

For instance, in one match our team was involved in, (this isn't as much of a penalty as it is a strange rule) Team 88 was retreating back to their end zone as time ran out. As the buzzer rang, their robot finished rolling with its arm barely touching the lowest tetra on the central back row. This discounted not only that tetra and all above it, but (if I remember correctly), two tic-tac-toes. They were in no way supporting it--just touching it!

I understand the loading zone penalties--the safety behind it--but some of them are a bit strong to. In another match, our robot was disabled for the entirety of the match because the referee on that side believed that our human player had touched the robot. Video evidence showed that it was not the case. In any case, the suspicion of the judge on a seemingly minor infraction was enough to disable a robot for an entire match.

Quite a few matches ended with robots scoring 0 points on the weight of penalties alone. When it takes a fairly spectacular alliance to score 40+, and each penalty has a weight of 20 or more, the scores go down quickly.

I've no bones to pick--I'm happy, because our robot finished 15th overall and we made it into the finals. There were some truly spectacular robots, and I will admit that some teams were more productive than I thought possible. But for future reference, I would suggest that, when a game is played with such low scoring objects, that the penalties awarded should neither be so great in relative magnitude nor so seemingly superfluous.

The fact is, it is difficult for teams to modify their style of play when the most basic requirements of successful play often result in such serious penalties.

--Petey

[Petey]

In response to several people who have commented on the apparent loss of defense in this game--

Hardly. It just requires a more ingenious approach to defensive strategizing. To be successful, robots must aggressively defend not the stacking of tetras, but the completion of tic-tac-toes. Sure, robots occasionally had success blocking tetras, but the greater success comes with the tic tac toes.

Example:

Team A has their "home row" full, as does Team B. The center goal belongs to Team A.

Assuming one tetra on the top of each, the score is now
A: 22 (4 tetras at 3 points apiece, one 10 point row)
B: 19 (3 tetras at 3 points apiece, one 10 point row)

Far to close for comfort. However, if A can simply stack on one of the corner goals of B, it is a 23 point swing, because you have scored 10 points for yourself with a new tic tac toe, denied B 10 points because you have destroyed their tic tac toe, and scored three points with your placed tetra.

The big points in this game cannot be scored by robots that blindly stack a ton of tetras. To enjoy consistent success, robots must choose where to stack carefully, and stack only where it will be most advantageous to them.

--Petey

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Bingo!

People... this is the point. FIRST is trying to create a game where offensive, task-oriented robots should be able to be somewhat free to what they are designed to do.

If people are complaining that they are getting too many penalties for playing a little defense, one the other side of the field, with a partner as they pin their opponent, then I don't see good reason for that compaint.

A certain level of robot interaction is fun to see... but think about this from a scientific perspective. How is a 10 foot tall robot supposed to have a chance if a 2 foot tall robot is ramming them? These penalties are present to allow the taller, extended teams to control their robot to score points by stacking tetras without getting mauled by a brick on wheels.

Here is the situation: for the first time ever in FIRST, a VERY high percentage of teams have rock solid drive bases. At the same time, we all know that it is difficult to design a good arm to score these silly tetras. So, teams who see their opposition with more scoring ability want to use their drive base to help them win the match.

I bet that 3 separate things are happening tonight:

1. Many drive teams are getting lectured, being told to stop getting penalties

2. Refs at different competitions are comparing notes and trying to get consistent.

3. The Game Design Committee are discussing these issues.

People... chill. It is week 1. Recall week 1 last year when many teams said "no one is capping with the 2x ball"... "only a few teams are hanging". It is early. We will see more clarity from the refs and I hope we see more restraint from the defensive drivers.

Just some thoughts,
Andy B.

That's the irony at VCU Andy, I saw many un-gracious teams do very bad things to robots, and not get penalized, yet other teams who just tap a robot get 30 points taken off. I understand that a team who threatens the safety of another team member should get a huge penalty, but this has not happened as many times as huge penalties have been given out.