Why this game is better then last year's

[Davey H]

I personally like this game better then last year's because this year teams actually play the game. Last year, from wat I saw, it really looked more like a bunch of robots smashin the crap out of each other

[Tiki]

This game has no real edge of your seat excitement, other than the adding of the penalties. I liked last years game better, but I didnt like the basketball aspect of it.
FIRST games are always great, but I personally liked last years game better.

[JohnnyB]

I agree, they made this game much much better than last years. They designed it to completely remove defense from the strategy. We used to think having 2 scoreres and a defensive bot was the way to win, but 3 scorers is way better.

Playing defense just wastes time and takes away from the number of people your alliance has scoring, while not necessarily taking away from their scoring abilities.

Some of our better strategies in the elims at Detroit were to force the other teams to score so they would not try and defend us. Since we could outscore them, there was no stopping us in any way. (We didn't lose a single elim match because of this... only tied once )

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I agree, they made this game much much better than last years. They designed it to completely remove defense from the strategy. We used to think having 2 scoreres and a defensive bot was the way to win, but 3 scorers is way better.

Playing defense just wastes time and takes away from the number of people your alliance has scoring, while not necessarily taking away from their scoring abilities.

Some of our better strategies in the elims at Detroit were to force the other teams to score so they would not try and defend us. Since we could outscore them, there was no stopping us in any way. (We didn't lose a single elim match because of this... only tied once )

All it really takes is somebody who can play defense well.

My only gripe is that there is really no difference in what robots look like. Of course there are the few that are just awesome, but most do the exact same thing as any others. No really neat ideas on how to play the game a la 93 last year.

It seems like for a few years you could do a lot of things:

2002: Pick up balls, grab goals, both, tether :-)
2003: Push things around, stack (though it wasn't used a lot), KOTH
2004: Hang, just get balls, cap, any combination
2005: Cap and ... cap?

[HellStorm303]

the game seems better to play however watching it is a different story. Someone told me during the regional that even reading the rules and gameplay 2 times they still didnt know completly what was going on with penalties and the like. The game to play is extremly fun though. Having to keep your eyes moving around your bot and the like of where to put the tetra, quite fun. Hopefully next year will have the constant strategy and choosing of where to score and up the excitement of watching the game. All in all, this years game was pretty good, cant wait till next years.

[Ali Ahmed]

I personally like last year's game better. It was much more exciting. Such as hanging at the very last second for the win. Also there was just much more you could do in a match. But this year's game is still fun. IMO.

[JoeXIII'007]

This game is not just better than last year's, its just unusually fun to watch. No need to cheer, or scream, or do anything else. You can just sit there, and watch, and enjoy. Grab the popcorn, Dew, and go to upper bowl seating for an impressive view.

Why? OK. It's the playoffs, and you have the best robots out there. Your eye watches one robot as it picks up and stacks a tetra. Meanwhile, a whole bunch more stuff goes on. A tetra could have been stacked at like 3 other goals, a huge tower of them could've been toppled, or something else. Sensory Overload.

[tiffany34990]

this game is good for an offensive stragdey point..you don't have to really worry about your bot too much being pushed around and being smashed

a lot of teams always are really great at the offensive part..and this year it seems to work really well

[sanddrag]

Lets keep this thread focused on what is better. So, I think having 6 robots is better because it adds more challenge, more action, and more scouting and strategy. I think the "one manipulative option" was a good change for this year beacause it forces everyone to do that one thing well. This year everyonne does everything, because there is only one thing to do. And everyone does it pretty well. When teams had 130 lbs to herd balls, cap doubler balls, and hang, we were often left with a bunch of flimsy little poorly thought out mechanisms that didn't work too well. This year, all there is to do is stack tetras (besides contain, any boxbot can do that and most don't bother). So, you still get roughly the same 130lbs but you have less you have to do with it, so you can be better at what you do.

[HellStorm303]

i guess the reason people didnt like this year too well was that since the one task was picking up tetras could be done and most of the robots have the same looking gripper. I think what they really tried to do to get people really into it was in that first 15 seconds of autonomous. Seeing 237 cap that goal using vision was a thing of beauty. People over look the vision aspect because not many teams used it. I hope some sort of vision device is used next year.

[Paul H]

heh...my brother's first thread! I guess I should respond to it...

This year's game is obviously much more offense oriented. Sending one team on defense usually doesn't make sense because there are so many goals that it's pretty easy to go around to another goal if there's something between them and a goal.

I liked last year because there was SO MUCH to do! There was some defense played, but for the most part, it wasn't bad. I think the offense still outweighed the defense bu far.

Then there's the 2003 game...there really was no offense. If you want to talk about robots smashing the crap out of each other robots, look back to that game.

[Captain Rich]

The one aspect this game misses compared to the last few years is sieging a scoring zone. It is not worth it to go home at the end of a match, and that is where all of high tension battles occured in the games, either getting onto the bar or playing king of the hill. Even watching toungs go accross was quite entertaining. Not to say everything else is exciting, it is just missing the race to the finish.

This games lacks one thing: a final ending. Other games have had a climactic ending, while this one is only penalties.

[SURVIVORfan44]

I liked last year's game better. I think that this year, you can only work with tetra's and arms and all that. But last year, you had a choice, you could go for the bar, you could push the balls in the holes and fill up the little things that caught them, and you could play defense. I know that some teams this year did not have their arms to be fully functional, therefore, they didn't have a chance. Last year, if one of your arms to do something wasn't fully functional, you still had the option to work with the balls, I mean come on, if the robot moves, it can push the balls and play defense and you could still have a chance at winning the match. But this year, if you didn't have something to pick up/drop tetra's you're screwed. This year, all the robots basically look the same. You see some that have the elevator thing, the arms, the flippers, and last but CERTAINLY not least...the scissors lift! Last year, there were so many different robots in all shapes, forms, and sizes. This year, it looks like they're all the same.

[Ian Curtis]

I like this years game more but I wholeheartedly disagree on the defensive strategies. In the quarterfinals a robot from the opposing alliance was assigned to keep us from scoring. They avoided penalties by just sitting there when we where loading but once we moved from our spot on the human loading zone the just kept on us. It kept us from scoring and it worked once and failed once. In the finals we went on an all out defense. We assigned one robot to cap the home row and the other two robots just took off. The only tetras they got where the two they knocked down in autonomous mode. The final score was 2-0 (we got a 30 point penalty.) However if you play defense like the other alliance did (just stop moving when someone loads a tetra) defense is unstoppable. Just my 2 cents. Defense also makes the matches much more exciting to watch.