Pre-Match Strategy Sessions

[Chris Fultz]

This issue seemed especially true at the Championships this year, so I would like to offer a short learning lesson for some teams.

When you are talking in your alliance, you do no one in the group any good to overstate your capabilities. You could actually cause the alliance to set a bad strategy into play if you are not able to perform as you say.

A specific example from one match this year:
(I won't use team names because a: it wouldn't be nice and b: I don't remember).

We were debating what autonomous modes to run. Our partner said they could score on the middle row, we scored on the bottom. If it worked, it could be cool to both score. If not, we could have a collision and both miss.

When I asked how accurate they were, I was told "we hit allmost every one". This was their 7th match, and the scouting data I had in my book did not support that claim. There was time before the match, so I signaled up to our scouting team to get an update. I found the team had scored 1 keeper total in 6 matches, not quite "hitting almost every one".

I nicely just suggested that we run our autonomous as the lowest risk plan and did not mention the scouting data that I had.

So what is my point? By overstating their capability, we were close to putting together a plan that could have caused us to miss the keeper completely, and maybe damaged our robots in a crash. Not a good plan.

So, you are way better off to state your actual, demonstrated capability, so your alliance can put together a realistic strategy to play. If you overstate what you can do, it can backfire on you when you cannot perform - and teams remember that.

[Bharat Nain]

I have to agree with you Chris. If you are honest about your robots abilities, you can pull those "impossible" wins. How? Because you honestly know what each of you can do and has done every match. Therefore, you know if you keep doing that you will at least perform as you have in every other match. This way your alliance is performing to the max. On the other hand, if you try to do something you are not so capable of, you are most likely to under-perform and lose. This also applies in-general - if you robot is not capable of doing something(even though it was designed and built for it), stop trying to make it work. For example, if your arm is not capable of capping on the top row easily, do the middle and bottom. While this is common sense, I have seen so many teams continuously try to do what they are not so capable of. It wastes time and makes you look bad. It is easier to pick a team who is honest about their abilities and performs it consistently.

[AndyB]

This not only holds true for Pre-Match Strategy Sessions, but for any pit-scouting at all. Overstating capabilities just to get into the final rounds will do nothing but wreck an alliance and get two other teams mad at you. Be truthful.

[Josh Murphy]

Boy, I could not agree with you more Chris. This happend to us way to much this year. If you really want to win the match then tell what you can really do. The bad thing is actually having to tell teammates that they just go do whatever, because they are unwilling to negotiate. I understand that everyone has confidence in their bot because that was their heart and soul for 6 weeks, but you have to be realistic when it comes to playing in matches. When someone comes and asks me what does your robot do I tell them the truth, especially if they are an alliance partner.

[Gboehm]

Well the stats dont lie. We would tell our partners we are going after the Number 1 offensive threat and try to shut them down, if you need help call us, and tell us when your ramp is deployed. In all reality, you got to make the best with what ya got, exploit weaknesses, and help your alliance. Everytime someone came to us trying to sell themselves to us for the finals, we told them "we will keep it in mind", and we would check our stats. I think the trick might be is finding a team player, we would never choose an alliance partner who would deviate from a strategy time and again. We asked teams about how well they worked with other teams to get a feel for how well they would work.

[Lil' Lavery]

We had a partner tell us they were scoring "at least 6 tubes a match". They later refined the statement during the same discussion, but we still knew that the both the original and refined statements were false. Luckily we didn't really weigh it into our match strategy, but unfortunately we lost a very close match after penalty points were assessed. They scored 3 tubes.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Totally agree, but sometimes the data does not show EVERYTHING. This year it seemed to be that the lower number teams were HEAVILY defended which left the other teams on the alliance to score freely. This was our strategy during the championship, and it worked. We were the bait and took the defense while our alliance scored. We told them we could score 7-8, but also told them that we wouldnt because we would get hounded. If you know exactly what your role is then that is what will make you a good alliance partner.

[115inventorsam]

Originally Posted by AndyB

This not only holds true for Pre-Match Strategy Sessions, but for any pit-scouting at all. Overstating capabilities just to get into the final rounds will do nothing but wreck an alliance and get two other teams mad at you. Be truthful.

That is very true, and unfortunately we sort of fell victim to that at one regional in the final rounds(I guess my signature can tell you which one), and our award winning scouting team couldn't do anything about it.(we were picked in the second round)

But we weren't mad, I was disappointed, but no hard feelings, it was still really fun just to make it into eliminations, and those eliminations matches weren't bad at all, we just got out-ringed by a better alliance.

[Tim Arnold]

Totally agreed. If you aren't quite truthful to pit-scouters... not such a big deal. And stand scouters can learn pretty quick when you are lying. But in the hectic time between matches, its just hurting yourself to overstate your capabilities.

For example, our autonomous never got lucky while we were there (it was brand new code not run at regionals), and we would straight up say that its pretty much blind (just a single ultrasound - our camera smoked out) and we were 0:5 or whatever the current stat was. But we would still try to work out, if possible, a way to run it since dumb luck might be with us.

You can still try to do the things you feel your bot is good at, but just be truthful. Most alliances are willing to work things out to keep all parties happy, but they can only do such if you are honest.

[Ben Martin]

As a stand scouter and sheet runner, I'm often the one to inform our drive team about the teams in the next match. I usually give them my impression of how the match will go before they even talk to the other teams. Good strategy is essential to winning a match, and if that requires that one team sacrifice its tube scoring/lifting option for defense, then that may be what that team should do. All teams want to have a high rank in the standings, and each team may have to make some sacrifices to obtain a higher rank. Please state honestly what your team can do/has done and cooperate with other teams in strategy. The best-case scenario is not usually what typically happens.

[team 1094]

i say that to have a Successful scout data you need to plan ahead(from personal experence) have pleny of scout sheets, make sure your team of scouts is just focus on scouting,don't go by what other teams say they can do go buy what your data tells you. if you know who your allance partners are head of time talk to them and tell them your planed tackics.

[Donut]

This is a problem every year, and it always bugs me. Probably the best data I heard from a team this year was at the Championships where they told us that they had just had to install new transmissions for every part of their robot, and weren't even sure if they were going to move that match. We planned our match accordingly, and almost pulled out a win. Had they claimed they could use their arm well and "thought" (I hate that word) they could get 3 tubes up, we might have gone to play defense as we weren't scoring well at that point, and would have gotten annihilated in the match.

The bigger problem I encountered was not teams outright claiming they could score 5 tubes when they couldn't, but saying "we've been scoring 1, but without defense we could get 4-5". This is alot harder to disprove with scouting data as you don't know if they actually were defended or not in the matches they scored 1 (or maybe you do, depends what scouting data you take).

Going to the pre-match scouting sessions, please make sure that the roles you play are ones you can do too. For example, it may be that your robot scores alot less under defense, but it doesn't make any sense to try to have one of your partners block for you if all 3 robots are omni-drive geared for 15fps (this is an exaggeration, but you get the idea).