What is missing from this years game?

[Don Wright]

OK...I'm SURE there's a thread somewhere about this already, but I searched and couldn't find it.

So, I attended the Great Lakes Regional this past weekend and had many family members there along with a lot of co-workers.

And while those of us who are deeply involved with FIRST might have a totally different opinion due to the fact that we all have our favorite teams to root for or against, here is their common opinion of the game.

It's boring.

And most everyone left after an hour or two.

And, from the people who have seen the game the last two years I have been involved, it's missing the big, exciting ending the king of the hill or the 10 ft bar or the double ball provided the last two years. It was easy for them to figure out what needed to happen for each side to win the match. It was something to cheer for.

This year the big ending is the adding up the penalties. And several time watching the matches, the group of us each added up the points and we all had different answers.

I guess the point of this thread is for whoever is reading this and might have some input for the future games, if you want to keep the interest of the people off the street who might get excited about FIRST and want to get involved in the future, please think about this.

And, please, I know some people are going to post about how they are wrong and how exciting this game really is. I think it's exciting. But, I am just relaying what I was told by at least 20 people this weekend...

[Brandon Holley]

For anybody in FIRST this game is going to be exciting, cmon it has robots in it....but like you said for the off the street comer, it does look kinda boring.

True, the past 2 years there has been a "big finish" type of thing for the last couple of seconds. That "big finish" still exists, its just that it looks like the rest of the game...for example:

Red has there home row all capped, and the side 2 of the middle row......Blue also has there home row all capped, but the center goal......Blue makes a move down to the red home zone with a 10 seconds left and caps their middle goal, giving a 23 point swing to the blue alliance....a VERY big difference, but it still just looks like they capped a regular goal

I think this game is great, but I can see how some people may think that its not.

[Simon Strauss]

yeah, definitely a big ending would help. I cant really speak from first hand experience yet because my Regional hasn't happened yet, but from watching the videos teams put up i think that passing the line at the end of the match isn't big enough and it might be more interesting if there was more human player involvement(not just having people load tetras).

The Game still kicks $@#$@#$@# though

[Adam Richards]

You must have had a really boring regional. The Orlando Regional at the UCF Arena was incredible to watch. I was exhausted watching the final matches (warning: NEVER PLAY HALO2 UNTIL 2:00am BEFORE THE FINAL DAY), but I still was finding it to be so fun to watch. Even though my team placed 24th(/47), it was great to just watch the matches and see all of the incredible scoring that some teams like 233 (The Pink Team) or 1402 (Freedom Force) were pulling off.

I also noticed that our regional had less penalties than VCU had. While VCU refs were dishing out penalties, the only ones that we saw were for the occasional bumping while in the loading zone or the accidental tap of a tetra while not in the loading zone.

If you have another regional/nats, just ignore what happened at your last regional, and hope it turns out to be a better competition.

[Koko Ed]

What is missing from this years game?
Updated information from the regionals.

[Kris Verdeyen]

I finally got a chance to watch some of the regional footage this weekend - a friend gave me a tape of the peachtree regional. I have to agree. I started out loving the game, and all of the last minute tetra placements, and collisions, and capping, and blocking, and re-capping. But after it was all over, none of the great on-field action seemed to matter much. Perhaps it'd be easier to watch if the penalties were kept up real time on the scoreboard with the rest of the points, instead of being a nasty surprise at the end. That would have a great effect on the game's watchability.

All that said, I do like the game - it is neat to watch, and I'm sure that teams will get better at avoiding penalites as the competitions go on.

[Don Wright]

I agree that this game is exciting. I think it's cool and a great challenge to score, and to see teams do it effortlessly, really impresses me. And, there was excitement at our regional...

But, I still think it has a lot to do with the fact that we (as FIRSTers) know the game well. And we know how amazingly hard it is to build and program a robot to find a vision tetra, let alone cap one in autonomous.

But, to the casual observer off the street and to younger kids we want to inspire, it seems repetitive and lacking of an exciting ending. One person even mentioned, "They just kept doing the same thing over and over again...just putting the triangle things on top".

Again, I am just relaying the comments I got.

[henryBsick]

Robot diversification.
Last year... ball gatherers ball catchers, hanger, cappers, bar defenders, goal grabbers...
This year... goal capper, tetra gatherer (for alliance to cap or to place under goal), or defender...

There are 4 ways to gain points this year... and I think about 30 ways to lose points, it is a different game, relying almost solely upon strategy.

I am pretty sure I will like it...but I won't know until thursday .
See ya' at Chessy!!

[Will Hanashiro]

Originally Posted by nartak

You must have had a really boring regional. The Orlando Regional at the UCF Arena was incredible to watch. I was exhausted watching the final matches (warning: NEVER PLAY HALO2 UNTIL 2:00am BEFORE THE FINAL DAY), but I still was finding it to be so fun to watch. Even though my team placed 24th(/47), it was great to just watch the matches and see all of the incredible scoring that some teams like 233 (The Pink Team) or 1402 (Freedom Force) were pulling off.

I also noticed that our regional had less penalties than VCU had. While VCU refs were dishing out penalties, the only ones that we saw were for the occasional bumping while in the loading zone or the accidental tap of a tetra while not in the loading zone.

If you have another regional/nats, just ignore what happened at your last regional, and hope it turns out to be a better competition.

compared to previous years games... this game doesnt have the big finish. i'm sure you find this game interesting, and i'm sure that all of us involved in FIRST feel the same way. but i see the point that is being brought up here... for the average person knowing nothing about FIRST, this is as boring as playing tic tac toe. the previous games had the "big finish" in fighting for the bar and king of the hill, which made it fun for the average non-firster to watch.

[Tamster548]

IMHO (I was at GLR too), I understand what you're saying about it being boring after awhile and everything, but I think it's the game itself that you are talking about. For our parents, friends, and sponsors, it was the atmosphere that interested them (loud music, funny mascots, the pits, the cheers...) because a lot of them don't picture robotics to be like a sports event. That's my take.

[Paul H]

I agree. Although I haven't seen a whole regional yet, I have seen a few matches. My initial opinion from kickoff still stands....there's really only one thing to do. In previous years, even 2002, there were a few things for the robots to be good at. I liked last year the best, where there could be the best capper, hanger, and ball gatherer, and each one would have the chance to win. What is it this year? The best capper, the best capper, and the best capper. There isn't really any varioaton.

My brother is a Freshman on the killer bees now, and he saw last year's game from a general public standpoint and this year's game from the standpoint of a team member, and he said that it's too hard to keep score this year. He noted that last year you could look at the field and pretty much know who won, whereas this year it's harder than that. I also heard that he heard from a bunch of people that the game is just boring to watch.

With that said, I'm hoping that as teams get more used to the game, I think it will get more interesting to watch and we should see some interesting battles for rows.

[Mike]

I think this year you have a big start, not a finish. (Although I might be biased because i'm a programmer) I think the best part of the match is seeing what robots will do in autonomous.

[RyanMcE]

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

<snip>...
It's boring.
And most everyone left after an hour or two.

At the PNW regional, this didn't seem to be the case. I had heard that the game was going to be boring, but it seemed to remain fairly exciting, with lots of back-and forth action throughout the day, even during the elimination matches.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

And, from the people who have seen the game the last two years I have been involved, it's missing the big, exciting ending the king of the hill or the 10 ft bar or the double ball provided the last two years. It was easy for them to figure out what needed to happen for each side to win the match. It was something to cheer for.

Well, it seems that its clear enough that with 10 seconds left and a tetra being raised to cap the center goal that will decide the outcomeof the match... that's something to cheer for. Maybe what you really mean is that the dynamic of the game didn't suddenly change with about 30 seconds to go, because the end zone bonus was so small?

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

This year the big ending is the adding up the penalties. And several time watching the matches, the group of us each added up the points and we all had different answers.

Once again, not so much the case at the PNW regional. We had our share of penalties, but in general, they didn't decide the matches like I have heard they did in so many other regionals. Almost all of the games that I saw were very clean. Many had no penalties at all. The winning alliance, for example, went penalty free throughout finals.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

And, please, I know some people are going to post about how they are wrong and how exciting this game really is. I think it's exciting. But, I am just relaying what I was told by at least 20 people this weekend...

I don't think you're wrong, per se. Lots of other people have been saying the same thing - and there's no denying that people actually told you that it was boring. I am just under the impression taht the PNW regional actaully was exciting. I would like to hear otherwise from a spectator if that was not the case, however. But I think the lower incidence of penalties, and the vast swings in points for caping a single goal, and the back-and-forth nature of many of the elimination matches (several ties, several comeback wins) made the PNW more exciting. Of course, I am one of the invovled people, so maybe this isn't the ase, and as I said, I would like to know what spectators thought.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

I guess the point of this thread is for whoever is reading this and might have some input for the future games, if you want to keep the interest of the people off the street who might get excited about FIRST and want to get involved in the future, please think about this.

Well, I think everyone and their dog will have input on how to make the games better, but here are the ones I can think of (my head still hurtsfrom yesterday, so maybe I won't remember everything):

The biggest thing is, STOP the glitches! At the PNW regional, the first thing all our schoolmates saw when arriving Saturday morning on the TRC Booster Bus was - an hour of dancing. The field equipment was malfunctioning, so alternate forms of entertainment had to be employed. The equipment malfunctioned AGAIN at the startof finals, this time for an hour and a half. Thats a lot of wasted time for the spectators.

But onto the real list: games should borrow more heavily from popular sports:

• In the three big ones in this country (Football, Baseball, Basketball), play stops on a regular basis, which allows spectators to catch up on what just happened.
• Games are longer. This allows more strategic play and more comeback opportunities. Also endurance becomes an issue.
• Fouls are called immediately (so the result of a particular play is never in question for long)
• The scoring system is simple enough that it is never unclear who is winning, and what the opposing alliance needs to do to come back

These are the things that make sports so compelling to watch. These are why when your favorite football team is down by 21 points in the fourth quarter, you don't give up all hope. This is why these sports have attracted millions of fans. I believe that if FIRST were to borrow more heavily from what makes popular sports compelling, the FIRST games would become more compelling.

I know it must be an extremely difficult task to create a unique game each year that is exciting for the teams and spectators alike, but here are some ideas that perhaps the game design committe could take into consideration:

• More visually interesting, achieveable autonomous modes (TRC-492 mentor Larry Barello has some good ideas that I don't entirely recall - I'll try to have him follow up on this thread)
• Longer matches - say, five minutes. Maybe bigger batteries if thats what it takes. This is to let the games develop more.
• Stop play for penalties. This will scoring easier to follow.
• Implement an on-the-field timeout. Say, one one-minute timeout per alliance per game to allow alliances to reconstruct their strategies if they are falling behind. I don't know if this is a good idea, actually. Let me know.
• Automatic scoring system. It's very hard for a human to keep track of the scoring of these games real-time, so let a computer do it! This is once again to keep the audience informed of the score accurately at all times.
• Consider games where the score only goes up, not back down again, just like all the major sports. Sure, in this game you could not "descore" a tetra, but you could drop an opposing alliance's score by 40 points in one move. I personally liked that, but I'm not ure how intuitive it would be to follow.

Well, I've gone on long enough I think... I'd like to hear other people's ideas.

[RyanMcE]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

What is missing from this years game?
Updated information from the regionals.

How about accurate information for the regionals?

According to the PNW regional results, TRC-492 lost two games (nope), was seeded third (nope), played itself twice in the finals (nope), and there was only one qualification match (nope), which occured after the playoffs (nope)...

[Shu Song]

Agreed, variation in robots has always been FIRST's trademark. But somehow, that variation in robot construction turned into variation in strategy. With all the robots able to do the same thing, strategy becomes essential. During build season, when teams were showcasing their robots on CD, I saw that each robot looked just like the one before it, with the only variation being the lift mechanism, be it an arm or forklift.

I highly doubt that FIRST overlooked this aspect of the game, and the more likely scenario is that FIRST wants us to focus more on strategy, rather than design. In past years, pre-match alliance meetings were over in minutes, but now, each of our meetings were up to 5 minutes, even 10 sometimes. And our pre-elimination meeting took from the end of alliance pairings to the beginning of elims.

I'm not so sure how I feel about this shift in tactics by FIRST. I would have prefered variations robot design AND emphasis on strategy.