2008 Game Format Preference

[d.courtney]

Kevin,

Yes I agree that defense is at times the best thing you can do, however the point of the games FIRST releases is never the bonus points (and never will be). It is fine that your team (and many others) have opted for a defense robot with ramping abilities during the end game, you obviously weighed out the pros and cons of either system, and decided that the best way you could play the game in its entirety was to go with this method. It was a strategy and for many it turned out to be a good one. Yes defense will always be in the game, and without trying to undermine the thought that gets put behind the robots built for defense I feel one of these days we will see 90% of teams opting for defense and end game instead of tackling the meat of the challenge.

The system I proposed didn't eliminate defense (and I doubt much like yourself there is any system that can), as half the battle is still the win/loss so defending can(and would) still play out, however being rewarded for your personal achievement is something that I believe needs to be done, as most have all had bad days with alliances causing a lower then deserved rank (or vice versa). Also defending in a system like that lowers the defended individual achievement, and given bonus points at the end (or the odd point scored by the defense robot) that given defense robot could very well see high ranking. Basically what the proposed system would do is tend away from bashfests like we saw this year, see more robots capable of the major objective of the game (this year hanging tubes), and when defense is played it would likely be smart strategic defense (I haven't seen your teams style of defense, but the "smart strategic defense" would be akin to what we saw from 48). It'd add more of a risk playing defense (as opposed to offense), mainly for qualifiers, but still doable, and in many cases worth it, if you are good at it you would see high ranks, much like if you were good at scoring. The system would help see the higher caliber teams in top and working down. In the end it comes down to the fact I am sick of seeing teams get carried to a top 8 position, when a more deserving team could be there... so maybe my grip should be with the random selector (which I have a major grip with).

[Billfred]

I prefer alliances. I like being able to interact with other robots in a manner other than defense, and I especially enjoy trying to hash out a strategy in the few minutes before a match. (Bonus points when it's a game that didn't even exist a day before...but that's another story.)

Note, however, that I make no statement about the number or size (absolute or relative) of those alliances. I enjoy a twist as much as the next person.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'm at a loss. I'm, frankly, slightly upset that you seem to think that these "bonus" points are somehow second class points that aren't really important to the game. The fact that they are winning many games seems to blatantly contradict this. You also seem to be of the opinion that ramps and lifters are somehow an easier engineering challenge than making an arms to move around tubes. I assure you that scoring bonus points well takes just as much thought and engineering as designing an effective arm. Witness the ratio of good ramps and lifters to poor ramps and lifters. I have seen far far more static ramps that are near unscalable and lifters that don't, or worse, flip robots over. I can tell you that getting our lifters to work as well as they do took a lot of designing, calculating, and redesigning.

As to the point of your opinion that the "bonus" points are never the main "point" of the game.... I must respectfully disagree. I will assume, to remove pure semantics from the argument, that "bonus" points are those scored based on the position of robots or scoring objects at the end of of a match. That said, in 2002 robots and goals were scored based on where they were at the end of the match, and controlling goals was the most dominate strategy possible. In 2004, robots scored 50 points for lifting themselves off the floor by grabbing a bar 10' off the ground, clearly one one of the largest challenges in that game. In 2005, teams could score massive "bonus" points for owning rows of goals with tetras. This was one of the most important scoring mechanisms, and swung many games. Honestly, "bonus" is just a word the GDC is using to separate ringer points from ramping points. They could just have easily called them "non-ringer points" or "ramp points" or maybe "Atlas points". The modifier would have just as little meaning, and the points would be just as important.

Again, my primary point here, and the one I'll leave this thread on before I own more than 50% of the posts is this:

The point of FIRST is, obviously, to inspire students in engineering, etc. The "point" of the game, in so much as it has one, is to present a problem to be solved using engineering skills. In my engineering training one of the most important things I learned was to simplify your goal to the most basic level. Your client may come to you about designing a robot for this game speaking of a robot to pick up tubes, etc. However for this game and all others your actual goal is simple. The point of the game is to win the match. If the point of the game was to score ringers, we'd have ringer races to see which robot can score ringers faster undefended.

[JackN]

I would vote for alliances as well but with some kind of twist. I love how these games work, but I think a 6 vs 0 or 2v2v2 game would be alot more fun and really change up the system. GDC I am giving you permission to do whatever you want with alliances, Dave please don't torture me that much.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by lynca

What about having 3 teams of 2 robots each ?

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

If one were to choose no alliances, one way or another, alliances would be made. I'd prefer they be part of the game at the outset.

Having three (or more) alliances would not work for the reason Jane posted. Back in the days of pre-alliances, if you had two average robots going up against a third powerhouse robot, the two other robots would form a secret alliance before the match to take down the other team. I'd rather have known alliances than secret ones conspiring against ours.

[TetraBot]

Wow!!! I like all the ideas presented here. They're really cool. I especially like the 2v2v2 idea. But there is one suggestion I would like to throw out to you guys.

I think that the game next year should be divided into 2 parts.
1) Individual Based
2) Alliance Based

The first part of the game should include a section where teams play by themselves and try to score depending on the means of the game so that people don't limit themselves to building a robot based purely on defense.

The way I see it, there should also be qualification points based on the robot's abilities, ie. scoring through the normal method and gaining bonus points (so blocking doesn't gain any qualification points). This should be determined while the robots are playing during the test matches and qualifying rounds. And robots that don't have enough qualification points aren't allowed to continue into the final round, even if they do well during the qualification rounds.

Then the second part of the competition should include alliance matches were teams work together to achieve the goal, something like this year's competition. Then during the alliance selection, teams form an alliance of 2 or 3 (based on whether you like 2v2v2 or 3v3 matches) and teams w/o enough qualification points should be removed from the list of teams that can compete.

To give an example of this (based on this year's game), lets say Team BLUE has a bot which can score on the middle and low rack easily and has a ramp. That team would get 3 pts for low scoring, 5 pts for mid scoring and the ramp boosts there score another 5pts, totaling up to 13 pts. Then lets say Team RED builds a robot which can reach all three heights for the tubes and score well. Then this team would get 3 pts for low scoring, 5 pts for mid scoring and 8 pts for high scoring, bringing their total to 16 pts. Now since both teams have more than 8 pts, which would be the cut-off for qualification points, both teams could possible make it into the final rounds. And robots which can't achieve this minimal requirement are automatically disqualified. (Qualification points don't affect your actual score in the game)

Don't ya think this is much cooler!? At least we'd see MUCH MORE robots achieving the tasks given during the competition and less robots designed based purely on defense.

Don't get me wrong. I think defense is still a vital component of the game. And it is what makes FIRST competitions fun. But teams should really be focusing more on the task at hand.

Plus (and this has little to do with the competition format), I think that there should be an award for teams who manage to gain the highest number of qualification points. That way, more people would try harder to build a cool robot and just some defender.

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by TetraBot

Don't ya think this is much cooler!? At least we'd see MUCH MORE robots achieving the tasks given during the competition and less robots designed based purely on defense.

Don't get me wrong. I think defense is still a vital component of the game. And it is what makes FIRST competitions fun. But teams should really be focusing more on the task at hand.

Plus (and this has little to do with the competition format), I think that there should be an award for teams who manage to gain the highest number of qualification points. That way, more people would try harder to build a cool robot and just some defender.

I think you're underestimating some of the effort teams put into their defenders. We were on the recieving end of plenty of defense at regionals this year, and let me tell you...some of those drive trains are pretty intense. Just because someone doesn't have a massive, shiny, high-scoring arm doesn't mean they're any less inspiring to the students or any less capable of competing.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by TetraBot

To give an example of this (based on this year's game), lets say Team BLUE has a bot which can score on the middle and low rack easily and has a ramp. That team would get 3 pts for low scoring, 5 pts for mid scoring and the ramp boosts there score another 5pts, totaling up to 13 pts. Then lets say Team RED builds a robot which can reach all three heights for the tubes and score well. Then this team would get 3 pts for low scoring, 5 pts for mid scoring and 8 pts for high scoring, bringing their total to 16 pts. Now since both teams have more than 8 pts, which would be the cut-off for qualification points, both teams could possible make it into the final rounds. And robots which can't achieve this minimal requirement are automatically disqualified. (Qualification points don't affect your actual score in the game)

That's.... distressing. You have basically designed a game wherein you tell teams, "You MUST build a robot that can successfully do two of these four things, or we just won't like your robot and refuse to let it play." You could just as well put into the game rules that every team must have an arm on their robot. Forcing teams to build arms, etc. under the threat that their robot automatically loses everything if some of thir systems don't work.... The just rubs me the wrong way. I think putting things in the rules to artificially force teams into design decisions will do the opposite of inspire students. Notice how much grumbling there is around here when teams are forced to use a giant heavy power distribution block, or design their robots to start with the longest dimension vertical. Teams really don't like contrived restrictions on what they can and can't do.

[Steve W]

I am for alliances! If we drop back to a 4 team match then there will be a lot less matches played.

Offense is nothing without defense.

How can you tell if you have made a good robot if you have no competition to test with. Auto manufacturers test and retest so that when products are put into extreme conditions they should not fail. What would a car race be if the best designed and best looking car got on the track and went 10 MPH around the track and then drove to the winners podium. It would mean nothing. If you were to sit down and play a game by yourself then you would have no competition and really would never know how good you were or what was needed to improve.

[TetraBot]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

That's.... distressing. You have basically designed a game wherein you tell teams, "You MUST build a robot that can successfully do two of these four things, or we just won't like your robot and refuse to let it play." You could just as well put into the game rules that every team must have an arm on their robot. Forcing teams to build arms, etc. under the threat that their robot automatically loses everything if some of thir systems don't work.... The just rubs me the wrong way. I think putting things in the rules to artificially force teams into design decisions will do the opposite of inspire students. Notice how much grumbling there is around here when teams are forced to use a giant heavy power distribution block, or design their robots to start with the longest dimension vertical. Teams really don't like contrived restrictions on what they can and can't do.

Well, if you don't like this idea, that's fine.

What I'm trying to say is that the game should be divided into 2 parts, with individual and team control. That way more teams would focus on building a robot that can actually score and not just push other bots around.

Defense can be a very good strategy, but if that's all your robot can do, then your at the mercy of you alliance and opponents. Having matches were the teams must play by themselves should at least motivate next year's teams to build robots that can score and defend (if necessary)

[efoote868]

There will never be a perfect game, and I would like to applaud the game designers (maybe if I suck up to them, dave will give out easier hints )
But seriously, I doubt that there will ever be a game that appeals to everyone, and in fact, it will never happen. Many of my team mates disliked '05 compared to '06, but I found that I was the other way around. Its just their opinion and my opinion... and GP demands that we respect it.

I would recommend that we post carefully here, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings.

Pertaining to bonus points, I enjoy them. I especially like when they don't have anything to do with the "meat" of the challenge, so a wider variety of robots can be found. The strategy that my team has taken to heart has been, pick one thing, one game element, and do it better than anyone else. When the bonus is entirely separate from the main game, it makes it even funner, especially the discussions held with teammates. What can we do better than everyone else?

To Game Format Preference, I would like to see the "meat" of the game easier? than the bonus, so that more teams can participate effectively. However, the bonus should be lucrative enough to attract teams.

[WEHickok]

Thanks to all that have posted your comments. Having good constructive feedback is always great.

I do want to make a few comments about why we started this thread. FIRST is not about winning and losing and we did not post because we are upset about not winning this year or in an attemp to slant the game so that we would have a better chance. As a Hall of Fame team we feel that we should be helping all teams to have a great FIRST experience and helping to improve the game whenever possible.

With that said, we have been in the competition under both circumstances. The only difference is that when teams competed by themselves the level of engineering for all teams seemed to be higher. Teams tried to complete all parts of the game. Now we are seeing specialized robots that can only run around the field and climb on others. I would like to know, what type of engineering inspiration was given to those students? I talked to teams this year that had an arm, but it put them overweight, so instead of trying to remove the weight and use the arm, they just took it off and became a defensive robot. In real life, do engineers do that? Edison tried hundreds of materials before he was successful with the light. (I know he had more than six weeks.)

It is the belief of the Heroes Of Tomorrow that the most important part of the FIRST experience is the build season, not the competition season. Yes, we come to win, but our high (from the mentor's point of view) comes from seeing students work with some of the best mentors and them move on to careers in science and technology. We are asking the question, is the curent game format providing the excellence that we expect from FIRST? Or are we becomming Battlebots (win at all costs at the expense of inspiring students)?

I was an ambassador at the GLR and it is hard to show sponsors the positivies of continuing their sponsorship when all six robots on the field don't interact with the tubes at all and only push one another around. While this is leagal and a part of the game, we want to ask the question of teams, Are we doing the right thing? I ask that you look beyond the game to the real object of FIRST, changing the culture of the students.

Disclaimer: My comments in this post are not ment to be condemming of any team. Teams seem to be playing to the rules of the game and are right in doing whatever they want within the rules.

Thanks for listening and helping make the total FIRST experience great.