3 Teams Per Side Too Many?

[xzvrw2]

Originally Posted by Allison K

The issue I see with four team alliances, it that it could really water down the elimination rounds. Eighth seed pickings are slim enough at small regionals with only three team alliances.

At the championship, there are so many good teams to pick from that often times the eighth seed looks just as intimidating as the first, but at many of the smaller regionals the eighth seed doesn't have much of a chance.

Back to the topic. I liked having more teams on the field. I think a 2 vs. 2 vs. 2 game would be interesting, although 3 vs. 3 would be good too.

~Allison

Yeah you are right. I never thought about that. See we go to Great Lakes and Midwest so there is a lot of teams and a lot of good teams. I forgot all about the little guys. Sorry

[petek]

Originally Posted by MOEmaniac

I think it worked really good and that since the field size was increased it worked even better. And with more teams per side it made it so that not just one team could be the deciding factor in a match.

[Warning: one person arguing with himself here]

From a philosophical perspective, I agree on both points, and I thought the game was especially entertaining and exciting this year.

I think this question might be rephrased to "which is more important: striving toward field dominating performance, or gracious professionalism?"

(Making a rash generalization) I expect that many teams which had otherwise dominating performance negated by weaker partners would argue that this 3 vs 3 performance-averaging approach makes luck too important a factor in seeding.

My own team might fall into this category, but I am not ready to blame the system. Even though we don't believe our seeding in Atlanta represented what we actually did on the field, we had a great year and Atlanta pointed out those areas where we had weaknesses. Maybe the GP way to look at this is that 3 vs 3 raises the bar for strong teams.

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by DarkJedi613

...And I think it'll be kept to allow larger regionals/championship and to allow more matches.

I like having more robots on the field - Tripleplay was fantastic. But having three robots allows either a larger regional/championship or more matches, not both. How many matches did you have in your division last year? We might have got one more match, not 1.5 times as many, as you might have expected.

----An aside----
Having more matches makes luck less of a factor. If each team played 100 matches, you can bet that the most robust, best performing robots would be at the top, and luck would have evened itself out. Of course, this isn't feasible or even necessarily desirable, but there has to be some number of matches that's between 7 and 100 that would give us an acceptable balance between luck and skill.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

I like having more robots on the field - Tripleplay was fantastic. But having three robots allows either a larger regional/championship [b]or[\b] more matches, not both. How many matches did you have in your division last year? We might have got one more match, not 1.5 times as many, as you might have expected.

It can allow both, you increase both the amount of teams and the amount of matches slightly, instead of one by a lot. Personally I think too many matches is a bad thing, if you robot breaks you may have to miss two, perhaps three matches before its fixed instead of one.

[AIBob]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

3 teams always win regionals just in the past when it was 2 vs 2 not everyone played all the matches but the number of winners stayed the same.

Not quite the same, on average per regional there were more, because in some cases there were four teams that won.

I personally like the 3v3 matches more because they go faster, and you can fit more teams in the championship, but i did not like the fact that it was too much luck in the qualifying matches.
I like having more teams to challenge, it makes the game more difficult/fun!

[Max Lobovsky]

3v3 is fun, allows more interesting strategies, and helps FIRST handle more teams. My only complaint is that it makes watching the game worse. It is hard enough to follow 4 robots playing, with 3v3, it is entirely impossible to keep track of whats going on.

[Starke]

I agree 3v3 was successful this year. However, if FIRST went back to last years and put in this years longer field, it would not work. Robots would be hit each other.

I think it would be cool if FIRST kept the teams guessing each year. Change it from year to year, and then have a year when it would be the same as the last. This would increase the strategy difference from year to year along with the game.

[Joe Johnson]

I think 3 on 3 is probably too complex for its own good. I think the thinking was that we will get more folks playing more rounds. Partly that worked but partly it didn't. It worked in the regionals in that more matches were given, but it did not seem to work for the Championships in that only 7 matches were played per team.

In my opinion, 7 is to few to sort things out. I am not sure what the right number is but 7 with 84 teams was too low.

One think I DID like is that the entire alliance played every match not just at least once per round.

Read here for proposal for tournament structure that keeps some of the things I like and gets rid of some of the things I don't.

Joe J.

[Lil' Lavery]

I enjoyed 3v3 more than 2v2 for several reasons.
a) more matches
b)even if 1 robot breaks or doesnt show, 2 robots vs. 3 isnt always a loss, like it often was in a 1v2.
c)more strategic options
d)more action on the field
e)more room to create a "team" in the eliminations
What I mean by the last one is, in a 2v2 scenario, you have only 1 other robot to fill out your alliance during any one match, so you choose the robot that best helps you, and you alone. But with 2 others, you can create an alliance with more specific roles for each robot. Instead of 1 offensive bot and 1 defensive, or 1 capper and 1 hanger, ect., you have 1 "physical" defensive bot, 1 speed capper, and 1 height capper, or something like that.

[Meyerman]

Originally Posted by omutton

I think 3 on 3 is fine, more Regional Champions . Also, it is more exciting to watch with 3 on 3.

its been 3 champions to every event since 2002 tho just this year you dont have at 3 on the feild at once.

[henryBsick]

Logistically 3 vs. 3 was great...
-# of matches
-# of teams

Competition wise was horrible (IMHO)
-1 good robot that should rank high could be in a match with two weaker robots against 3 good robots. A loss almost every time
-A fairly poor team can coast through matches on the shoulders of their good alliance partners and seed very high.


I personally have seen both scenarios happen So both sides of the story (2v2 or 3v3) have their ups and downs personally I would like to see 2 vs. 2 again. I drove a 2 vs. 2 match this year because of missing alliance partners and it was sooo much better in my opinion.

$.02
-Henry

[George A.]

I definately like the 3v3 idea. It has more intense matches. All of the eliminations I have seen this year (especially the ones in NJ and Einstein) were some of the best matches I've seen in my day.

Although I do like the 2v2v2 idea.

[ben281]

hey guys,
i would have to agree with petek. and i also like his refraising of the question. i do see a problem in a bad team riding there way to the top on pure luck. but it is more of a challenge for a team to be the absolute best. 3v3 does seem to be more action intensive and better for a spectator sport. though it did get a little confusing, i do no thing field size is what we are talking about here. was it worth the risk of letting a bad team get to the top by luck alone, or does this even happen?
responding to an earlier statement. In statistics, there is something called the Law of Large Numbers, which shows (in a nut shell) how when your sample size is large enough, the mean will approach the median. 7 games over say 5 or 6 is not enough for (statistically) to make that much of a difference, but of course it will change who is in the top 8. But to truly get the top 8 teams, at least 100 games would have to be played per team.
what does every one think?
Ben
TEAM 281

[Joshua May]

I think 3 on 3 has worked out great this year. I tprovides so much more that a 2 on 2. I've gotten to the point where I can't even remember what it was like with 2 on 2, because the 3 on 3 has become very natural.

[George1902]

Originally Posted by M.O.R.T.

Although I do like the 2v2v2 idea.

This is the direction in which I'd like to see FIRST go.

Situations in where two weak alliances gang up on a third, strong alliance can be addressed with creative game design:

Originally Posted by George1083

Imagine:

Three two-team alliances: purple, green, and orange. Three goals to score in: red, blue, and yellow.

The purple alliance's score is the total of the red and blue goals. The green alliance's score is the total of the blue and yellow goals. The orange alliance's score is the total of the red and yellow goals.

Yes, two alliances could team up on the third, but they would need to score all of their points into just one goal to do so. Also, they would have to defend two goals. The third alliance would be able to score in two goals and only have to defend one. They would be at a two to one disadvantage in terms of robots, but would be at a two to one advantage in terms of offensive and defensive objectives.