Week 1: Thoughts, comments

[Joe Johnson]

While is only Friday night, there are a lot of folks who are sharing their thoughts and comments on the regionals they've seen.

While there is some value to keeping things in the discussions about the various regionals, there are some messages that are better captured under one thread.

So... ...here it is.

Joe J.

P.S. You can hate this year's game, that is okay, but try to keep name calling out of the messages and make an attempt to be as contructive in your criticsim as you can.

P.P.S. You are allowed to love this year's game too. Just so you know ;-)

[Joe Johnson]

This is what Greg Perkins said in another thread.

Re: BAE Granite State Regional
OK.....here's my gripes about BAE and the game after seeing it played for about 8 matches:
This game is NOT a spectator game
I could not keep track of who was on defense, who was on offense, penalties (although after each match were clearly stated by Benji), and just the overall gameplay was so fast that you blinked twice and the table had turned.
I was sitting in front of some parents and relatives of my 2 former teams, and and between the 20 of us talking amongst ourselves, we eventually kind of knew what was going on.

All in all, very confusing game to watch, but since I'm not driving, I'm going out on a limb and saying it's an easier game to drive.

As for what to expect....Chaos. I think at BAE I only witnessed 9 or 10 bots actually use thier shooter to their potential, meanwhile...all the other teams were focusing on the 1pt balls and DEFENSE. Some teams look fantastic; Kaizen Blitz has one of the most accurate shooters I saw all day, along with 296 from Canada...WOW is all I can say.

Accuracy, is just not there; I know its only friday, and tommorow could and should be a whole nother story, but robots who got out of trajectory were rapid firing balls INTO the stands probably 10-15 rows back. Defense is key in this game (as it usually is in every FIRST game), but I think the amount of defense being employed is really putting the good shooters out of the game. It's sad really, a team who focuses thier robot to shoot balls accuratly, can be beaten by a wooden box that has great traction. Again, it's not an appealing game to us, the spectators.

******THIS IS MY OWN OPIONION, I AM NOT ASSOSICATED WITH ANY TEAM, SO THAT GIVES ME THE RIGHT TO CONSTRUCTIVLEY CRITICIZES THIS.

Let me know what you all think too.
__________________
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[James1902]

From what I've seen so far I think that this game will play pretty well. Given the right conditions I think that this will be a very fast paced and exiting game once the drivers and the teams get used to the period switch's. I did like last years game allot though.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

This is what Greg Perkins said in another thread.

iCurtis replied with this:

Re: BAE Granite State Regional
After coaching all day, I have a couple things to say. First off congratulations to Andy Grady for winning WFA. Secondly, the ramp is a nearly insurmountable bonus in the qualifiers. If a team manages to get all 3 robots on the ramp, you've got problems. Another sad thing is autonomous shooting is so rare, and for most teams that do it just going straight from your box is enough to throw them off. And not surpisingly, defense is very important. It becomes darn near impossible to do anything when you've got two robots on you as you try to go up the ramp, and one robot with a good driver does the same thing. Also, there are many balls on the field. On a side not, does anyone have the rankings, as the regional didn't show them for the last half a day?

PS. The ramp at the regional was steeper than ours, and I heard the same comment from various other teams.

[Andrew Blair]

What I feel, watching the videos, is that as was said before, defence is king, more so than I have seen since Stack Attack. Secondly, though most teams are shooting, the corner goals seem unguarded most of the time. A robot with either good speed or power stands a good chance of getting to a corner goal at least once during a match, and if they have a good load of balls, could swing the match. Once someone is in the corner, you cannot get them out. Finally, though the ramp seems like a golden match winner, most alliances seem to only have 1 or 2 ramp climbers, and often they still have difficulties. A teams that can fly up the ramp whenever it's needed would seem to be a valuable team-mate.

Regardless, I see this as a game that could change dramatically as the year goes on. Not just in efficiency, but how the entire game balances.

[Francis-134]

I've found that autonomous is extremely important. All that an alliance has to do is to score some balls in the center or the side during autonomous, get the bonus and turn the rest of the match into a brawl. With that said, I think that this will change as time goes on. Later in the year, more teams will have working auto modes and the margin of victory will be much smaller leading to some competitive matches during operator control.

Along with that, it seems that any good shooting robot will not get its chance to prove what its got. I have seen a number of excellent shooters fire off three or four balls into the goal, then get pounded to pieces.

Finally, I have to say that FIRST really did good with the autonomous. Instead of it simply being a bonus that didn't have much impact on the game, they have made it something very meaningful. Teams are creating some awesome autonomous modes, and some are even modifying their programs depending on who they are facing. When auto mode started in 2003, I never would have thought that there would be_defensive_programs designed to only mess up other teams. This will certainly be an interesting game to watch as it develops over the season and the off season.

[Conor Ryan]

• This year's game is undoubtedly much more complex than we ever thought
• Everyone's first day at your first regional will be crazy, if you go to a second regional you will dominate in the early rounds
• Robots that shoot in autonomous and can score are rare, and if they have it, they are great.
• Scoring in the corner goals is much tougher than anyone expected because of the small ramp there, ideally you need 6 wheels, good ground clearance, and a powerful and fast way to propel the balls out of your robot, the dumping style will not and does not work well.
• Human players score a great deal of points, and the best way to score with them is th throw the balls 2/3 of the way diagonally across the field, then hope that it rolls in. (this scoring method determines the low point values)
• The average match is between 25 and 40 points
• Defence is positional! You don't push other robots out of their way this year, you just get in front of their shooter, and give them a hard time. Ploughing robots away though it maybe effective is slow and gives the other team a little bit of time to get a shot off.
• The best alliance at this point is 2 shooters and a Corner/Defensive robot to stick on the best shooter of the other team.
• Speed is often more helpful than torque, too get in position and collect balls, which take up a lot of the match.

[codeoftherobot]

I would also agree with Greg Perkins that following the game proved to be very difficult for people outside of FIRST, especially if they were seeing it for the first time. Sometimes, the announcer would say how the decision was made for offense/defense positions at the start, but other times, there would be no mention. To an onlooker, it would seem almost at random. My only recommendation is at the front desk for regionals (visitor entrance), have a small flyer visitors can take with them that explains the game as simply as possible. I've kept track of the rules but during some of those webcast matches, I would lose track of who was on offense/defense.

The corner goals didn't seem to be as emphasized as I thought they might be, especially for those robots that couldn't shoot. Many of them seemed to have been playing defense and then running to the ramp at the end but I think the key teams are going to be those with robots that can shoot well under pressure and make it to the ramp at the end. Ball collecting takes a lot of time and, from the scores, those that had the shooters definitely caused the scores to jump higher.

My favorite parts of the VCU regional were those autonomous shooters. Those robots really tip the balance in favor of their respective teams. Once they have sunk their balls in the goal, the match, quite a few times, was already set. Congratulations to all those teams though during the first week. Some of those designs were absolutely mindboggling (shooting from the ramp at an angle of 80 degrees). It is a complex game though and it was amazing to see how teams worked around various problems which allowed them to participate.

[Alex Cormier]

From my few hours of watching matches at VCU, i have seen this.

I feel like that there will be a different type of play will come about in the elimination rounds as the Alliances that have the best chance will be made of this: 1 robot that can shoot, 1 robot that can use the side goals amazingly and 1 robot that can get up that ramp easily and not be so tipsy on impact.

i see 222 as a top pick with their access point of how they shoot. They get up on the ramp easily and shoot the balls then. It does two things, get them protection from other bots that can't handle the ramp and they don't have to worry about anything getting in their way of shooting.

The autonomous is and still will be important in the elimination rounds. I have only seen a few robots with effective shooting capabilities in auto. As stated above in this thread, i also see that changing as the regional goes on and as the weeks go by. By the time we get to Championships, i will guess that 4/6 will have an affective auto mode to score points for their alliance.

With a few remarks on the periods, i saw that some teams didn't even try to get on the proper side for the specified 'back bot' and get penalized. that should not be happening, and needs to get told by the coach's of the alliance.

The shooting that takes place during their Offense mode is different then what i had expected coming into this year's game. I have noticed a few robots that get away from others to shoot like team 343 did, they waited until the last few seconds were the alliance they were made of had gone for the ramp and then got behind the opposing robots made a few balls in the last second, great decision.

As the Defense goes, i love it! It too does remind me of Stack Attack of how important the ramp was at the end of the match. It has a big part of this years game and if your getting hit by 2 robots while your trying to shoot or just get to the side goals is hard to deal with. I have noticed a lot of robot with casters and other things that will have your robot spin if hit form that side. I was really against that call from the start to think, if we have to get somewhere and we can easily be moved, that will waste that precious time we have and will make the drivers readjust every time a hit form the side.

other then that, i love the game and can't wait till FLR!

p.s. my longest post ever. yay.

[Rickertsen2]

How easily do robots without bumpers get damaged?

Why is the ramp so difficult.

Anybody know where i can find replays

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

How easily do robots without bumpers get damaged?

Why is the ramp so difficult.

Anybody know where i can find replays

Videos of VCU

[Daniel Morse]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

• Scoring in the corner goals is much tougher than anyone expected because of the small ramp there, ideally you need 6 wheels, good ground clearance, and a powerful and fast way to propel the balls out of your robot, the dumping style will not and does not work well.

Actually, I do not agree with this. Team 213 has used the dumping method for side unloading in Manchester. On average we can get 28-29 balls into the corner goal if we have 30 in the machine. Take a look at our machine. We do about 9-10 balls in autonomous on either corner goal (left or right).

[Billfred]

Alright, I'm going to nit-pick here.

Is it possible to have a more viewer-friendly ranking screen? I remember the rankings in 2004 were great, with numbers and team names in large friendly letters. You had your rank, the short name, the W/L/T, and average RP. This year, the look is cluttered, and it doesn't really fit well visually with the other graphics shown on the big screen (save, perhaps, the sponsors loop showing at VCU). I can't even make out the headings--I can only guess some things based on context (for example, nothing besides the W/L/T record has a format of 3-4-1).

That said, I can decently track what's on the field, and the announcements of the next periods came in clearly for me. It might be a VCU thing, but it works well. Tracking who's ahead is decent, but they really need to leave the RTS up.

Flags seem to be doing a well enough job for me.

Excuse the nit-picking,

Billfred

[Barry Bonzack]

I'm wanting to know more about the ramp. I read here that usually 1 or 2 robots per alliance make it up, but with trouble. Are the 5 extra points really worth that 10 seconds? Do most teams at least try for it, or are they scoring to the bitter end and ignoring it like the behind the line bonus from last year? Are there many robots that fall over whiling trying to get up the ramp like expected?

Couple other questions...

• Do defense robots nest next to the corner goals like everyone has been speculating?
• What is the normal strategy for free for all period? Is there more scoring or defense?
• Are comebacks often from alliances that don't win autonomous mode?
• how hard really is it to tell if your on offense or defense if you are the drivers/coach/hp?

I am going to try to catch more matches tomorrow, I have to go to a friend's house with the NASA channel. Good luck to all teams, thanks to everyone in advance.

[ZZII 527]

It is definitely a fun game! I think it is well-balanced in that it gives veterans a good chance to show off by shooting and rookies a fair shot with the corner goals and defense.

Previous posts have said most of what I observed. But, I am in the process of re-rendering some BAE footage for the web and will post in about an hour so you can see for yourself.