Defense, It's still here.

[IbleedPink233]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

Defense now becomes much more challenging after Update 2

I don't see how it is harder, unless you planned on aggressively attacking your opponents' Trackball while they were Hurdling.

Our team has discussed defense and I think that the rules have been laid out to encourage teamwork (sharing balls with your allies) and discourage heavy defense (an improvement over last year, where slamming a robot into the Rack, often entangling it, was just fine - I never saw it called).
Defnitely, the defense this year will be way more creative this year than last year, where the push-the-robot-halfway-across-the-field-and-never-stop strategy was the one that was the only truely effective one (at least, the only widely used effective one).
In my brief experience as a base driver during off-seasons, it is way more fun to play effective defense than it is to score because it is a mental challenge between you and your opponent.
We will have to see how the game turns out - as it could be in any number of ways, but I definitely foresee a copious amount of defense (you have to have at least one ally without a Trackball do something) even if it is not really intense. A lot also rests in the hands of the Referees, of course.