[Official 2007 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas

[dlavery]

This thread is a spin-off of this discussion, and has been started to focus on radical tournament structure changes. This thread is intended to collect innovative ways to structure tournament play. Using previous years as an example, this might include ideas to add human players to a robot-only format, or to change the three robots playing at once to a three-team alliance format. Sizes of alliances, lengths of matches, number of matches at a tournament, etc are all open for discussion. Like the above thread, this thread is meant to collect creative ideas that can be applied to any game concept.

-dave

[Freddy Schurr]

Well, I have an idea for the Championship Competition. I was thinking a field only for the Regional Winners/Finalists, that way the best of the best compete on one field and move to compete against the other divisions.

Also for the finals for regionals and championship, add an additional robot to a three team alliance. This would help bring more robots into play and create interesting matches.

Example

Quarterfinal Match 1

Red Alliance : 25, 195, 1114 ( Robot on the side: 204)
vs
Blue Alliance: 486, 365, 341 ( Robot on the side: 395)

Quarterfinal Match 2

Red Alliance: 25,204,195 (Robot on the side: 1114)
vs
Blue Alliance: 365, 341, 395 (Robot on the side: 486)

[Tomasz Bania]

Originally Posted by Freddy Schurr

Well, I have an idea for the Championship Competition. I was thinking a field only for the Regional Winners/Finalists, that way the best of the best compete on one field and move to compete against the other divisions.

Also for the finals for regionals and championship, add an additional robot to a three team alliance. This would help bring more robots into play and create interesting matches.

Example

Quarterfinal Match 1

Red Alliance : 25, 195, 1114 ( Robot on the side: 204)
vs
Blue Alliance: 486, 365, 341 ( Robot on the side: 395)

Quarterfinal Match 2

Red Alliance: 25,204,195 (Robot on the side: 1114)
vs
Blue Alliance: 365, 341, 395 (Robot on the side: 486)

That sounds like a great way to do that 4 team alliance without making the field bigger, but could introduce some unfairness.

I Believe there should be three alliances of either two or three teams.
It would be an interesting twist as determining who's the winner could be harder depending on the game.

Tomasz Bania

[Cory]

Get rid of the serpentine draft.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Freddy Schurr

Well, I have an idea for the Championship Competition. I was thinking a field only for the Regional Winners/Finalists, that way the best of the best compete on one field and move to compete against the other divisions.

Also for the finals for regionals and championship, add an additional robot to a three team alliance. This would help bring more robots into play and create interesting matches.

Example

Quarterfinal Match 1

Red Alliance : 25, 195, 1114 ( Robot on the side: 204)
vs
Blue Alliance: 486, 365, 341 ( Robot on the side: 395)

Quarterfinal Match 2

Red Alliance: 25,204,195 (Robot on the side: 1114)
vs
Blue Alliance: 365, 341, 395 (Robot on the side: 486)

I would also encourage the selection of the "spare" bot by having an additional playoff partner, rather than the current method. Going back to the older method of having one bot sit out each playoff match allows 8 more teams to compete in the playoffs. More teams are rewarded, and the bot on the bubble doesn't sit there and wait -- not wishing bad luck on anyone, but hoping to get an opportunity to play.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

I would also encourage the selection of the "spare" bot by having an additional playoff partner, rather than the current method. Going back to the older method of having one bot sit out each playoff match allows 8 more teams to compete in the playoffs. More teams are rewarded, and the bot on the bubble doesn't sit there and wait -- not wishing bad luck on anyone, but hoping to get an opportunity to play.

It also means that with a 3 team alliance, the minimum number of teams at a regional has to be 32, and not 24.

I can't see that happening, because there are numerous regionals that can barely get 24 teams, letalone 32.

[Rick TYler]

I would like to suggest a rule for this thread: no criticizing or critically evaluating ideas. Let the weird concepts flow!

[Rick TYler]

You want some out of the box ideas?

1. Robot size restrictions changed to a sum. Rather than 28x42 (or whatever) make it limited to a footprint of a certain number of square inches. FIRST inspectors are clever people -- they'll figure out how to measure them.

2. Create a total weight limit for the robot or robots fielded by a team. Only one robot can be radio controlled, the others have to be autonomous. For example, you might build an 80-pound "main" robot with two 20-pound autonomous slaves as helpers.

3. Have a "house" robot on the field, running under autonomous control that:

• Plays defense
• Plays offense
• Just drives around aimlessly
• Is attracted to other robots and gently nudges them
• Something else?

4. Place random obstacles on the field, which move from match to match. These range in size from Bots dots to shoe box in size. Some of these light up and can be used as scoring objects during autonomous.

5. Have powered, mobile scoring objects. You don't just pick them up -- you have to hunt them down first.

6. Have a variable number of teams on each alliance. The tournament has three rounds instead of two, with four robots per alliance in round 1, three in round 2 and only two in the finals.

7. Replace the finals best-two-of-three single-elimination format with a double-elimination tournament. All alliances which lose in the first round finals games are put back in a pool, and new alliances are picked from the first-round losers. These newly-formed alliances are then reinserted into the "loser's bracket" of the double-elimination tournament. The winning alliances in the first round are left intact.

8. Instead of doing alliance selection as they now, allow the top seeded teams to bid on partners using virtual bucks. Give each team $100 virtual dollars and have a silent auction for alliance partners. Team numbers and a picture of their robot are posted on a wall (or other conveniently flat surface) and the top-seeded teams then enter their bids on a bidding computer. A top-seeded team (alliance captain) on which other teams have bid can choose to allow themselves to be "sold" or not. If they choose not to accept the high bidder, they are "off the market" and will be an alliance captain. The high bidder gets their bucks back and can rebid them. Maybe this is done in real-time from eight bidding computers and the current bid amounts are displayed on the big screen. I know this seems complicated, but I want to noodle on it a bit. I like the games theory aspect, and it would introduce teams to a lot of modern mathematical theory they don't normally see in FIRST -- but it needs work. I promise to post a more fully-developed version later.

9. Instead of just scoring won/lost records, allow the accumulation of "team points" similar to some auto racing series. This might work best if there were four alliances of two robots each on the field at the same time. The first place alliance would get 12 points, second 6 points, third 3 points, and fourth 0 points.

[Ryan Foley]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

You want some out of the box ideas?

1. Robot size restrictions changed to a sum. Rather than 28x42 (or whatever) make it limited to a footprint of a certain number of square inches. FIRST inspectors are clever people -- they'll figure out how to measure them.

or for even more fun, simply express the starting size as a volume, for example, a 28x38x60in robot has a volume of 63840 cubic inches. A little harder to measure, but could spawn some very creative ideas.

Some other twists:
1) Call me crazy, but why not have house rules? At every regional, or just each weekend of regionals, the game would be slightly different than the other regionals/ weekends. Why? It would be harder to figure out basic strategies just from watching another regional. Then, at championships, all 4 divisions have house rules, maybe the same ones as some of the regionals, with Einstein being some brand new house rule, to give the division champions something new and challenging. It could be length of rounds, how to win automonous, point values, anything (just not robot rules). Oh, and don't reveal the house rules for that weekend until the Monday or Tuesday of each week, to really keep teams on their toes. Then Dave Verbugge could change the target colors on Einstein.

2) Someone suggested this one of the prior years, but what about tag-team alliances. Then you could get 4 robots on an alliance at a time, but only with 3 active. Teams could switch which robots are active manually, or the field would if the 4th robot hasnt gone active within a certain time limit. For even more fun, let the field randomly choose a robot on each alliance to deactivate at the 1minute remaining mark and activate the 4th robot on each alliance.

3) Don't give each team a list of who is in every match and on which alliance. Simply give teams a list of which mathes they are in, without their partners or opponents listed. This way, teams will need to be able to strategize with alliance partners in the "on deck" stage, with only 2-5 minutes before they go on the field. It's more fun that way.

EDIT in response to post 12 from Andy,
Ok, yes #3 isnt a "new" idea, but it would certainly be a radical change to the complete match lists we have had since 2002. The lists FIRST gave out in 1999-2001 had a list of 12 teams on it, so you had a slight idea of who you might be with. #3 suggests giving teams absolutely no idea who they are with. It's another way for FIRST to raise the bar.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Ryan Foley

3) Don't give each team a list of who is in every match and on which alliance. Simply give teams a list of which mathes they are in, without their partners or opponents listed. This way, teams will need to be able to strategize with alliance partners in the "on deck" stage, with only 2-5 minutes before they go on the field. It's more fun that way.

(must... resist... critiquing... Ryan's idea... aaaah!)

While this may appear to be "fun", it is not new. FIRST did this to us already, from 1999-2001.


Andy B.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by JVN

Andy,
I don't think you quite finished your thought.
JV

True... but according to this advice:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

I would like to suggest a rule for this thread: no criticizing or critically evaluating ideas. Let the weird concepts flow!

I was trying to encourage the weird concepts. Dave wants weird. Rick wants to encourage weird. Viva la weird!

Andy B.

[santosh]

I wouldn't mind seeing an allliance captain in the 1st round to ask to join the alliance of a c ranking above theirs.
For instance:
1st ranked team: team A
2nd ranked team : team B
Random other team: team C

The 1st pick of the draft by team A is Team C. This means that team B is next up. I woudn't mind seeing it possible to allow team B to ask to join team A instead of having to form their own alliance.

That is kinda far fetched I guess, howver I, like Cory would like to see FIRST get rid of the "serpintine" alliance selection.

[Andy Baker]

OK... another idea on alliance selection, as opposed to the boring 1-8,1-8 and the serpentine draft:

1st round: 1-8, just like teams do now
2nd round: Teams draw draft order numbers out of a hat: it could be 5,8,2,3,7,1,4,6

This 2nd round order selection could take place immediately after the 8th alliance captain picked their first partner. No one would know who was picking next. The #1 alliance still has the advantage and benefit of being #1, but now their chances of having a more dominate alliance is less than it would be for a 1-8, 1-8 selection process. Hmmm... this could be interesting.

Andy B.

[Tetraman]

Evolution Field

1/3 of matches have a simple field
next 1/3 will add something to the field and another way to score
last 1/3 will include yet another something and another way to score
Elimination matches will also include something new an another way to score
The Finals matches will include one last thing.

And a game that is 4v2 or 5v1

The possibility to do this:

six robots on the field.
Robot 1 vs Robot 2
Robot 3 vs Robot 4
Robot 5 vs Robot 6
All on the same field, all at the same time.

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

The possibility to do this:

six robots on the field.
Robot 1 vs Robot 2
Robot 3 vs Robot 4
Robot 5 vs Robot 6
All on the same field, all at the same time.

It would be really cool to have more than two alliances one the field. Instead of simply having 1-on-1 play, my idea is:

Six robots on the field.
Robot 1 & Robot 2 = Alliance A
Robot 3 & Robot 4 = Alliance B
Robot 5 & Robot 6 = Alliance C

All three alliances would be on the same field at the same time.