week 1: Three Things I've Learned

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Defense will be a bigger part of this game than most people realize. We saw hints of this at St. Louis. The eliminatio matches where we scored in the 70s was a combination of Hybrid defense and teleoperated ball defense.

I agree. While I wasn't at any events this weekend, I was glued to the Midwest regional webcast trying to get a feel for the game and possibly pick up some solid strategies. Defence was huge! Sometimes it took a few seconds for me to realize I was watching defence, but it was definitely there and it was definitely useful. Defencive play with the balls seems to be particularly effective (which is probably why it there seems to be little defence to the casual observer). In several matches, extraordinary shooters had their effectiveness drastically reduced by defence. I imagine that, as the weeks go on, defence will become even bigger as more teams get a feel for how to do it properly.

[Richard Wallace]

1) 148 is fun to watch. Pretty robot, and very quick.

2) 217's scoring style could be called a Thunderhurdle. I kept expecting their arm to snap off, or their whole 'bot to topple, each time they slammed one across. Despite the violent appearance, their action was very fluid and they repeated it often.

3) Repeated endwall slamming will stretch the field. Ours stretched a little more than four inches by the time we took it down Saturday.

[edit] 3.1) Endwall slamming can cause team controls to jump off of the shelf! Read this, and put some velcro under yours.[/edit]

[LH Machinist]

Lots and lots of traffic jams caused by the bottle neck points, out of contol bots, tipped over bots or just sly defensive actions. The bots with power, traction & moderate speed came out winners. The little speed bots had little impact during most matches.

[David Brinza]

#1. Well, millions of people seem to be attracted to NASCAR. With the exception of the occasional crash, it seems as though it's just hours of driving in circles. Boring? Overdrive is light-years ahead of NASCAR in terms of complex strategy and teamwork. The excitement in this game is how alliances execute their strategy and how the opponent's counter.

#2. The rules are there for a reason. GDC spends a lot of time deciding what should and shouldn't constitute a penalty. Maybe the risk of collision damage to an oncoming robot is why reversing over a line you've already crossed is not allowed. If you don't like penalties, don't break the rules.

#3. Alliance selection: Serpentine selection makes it tough for the top few alliances to pick a third team. You cannot select solely based on a team's standing. At the MWR, Team 16 was in 18th place at the end of the qualifying round, but they were the top pick for 1625 and (so I was told) also 1114. Team 16 has been around for a long time, they have good scouts, they understand what kind of team/robot fits their strategy to win the regional. If you're perplexed at their selection, maybe you didn't understand the strategy they felt would work best.

I thought the MWR was an intense, well-played competition - in spite of being a Week 1 regional. The games, teams and robots will get better and this may be one of the more entertaining games FIRST has developed. I really like Overdrive!!

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

A team can get selected because of their reputation to build amazing robots in the past.

Or another team can use excellent scouting to determine the real capabilities of the robot.

ANY team that uses won/lost record (i.e., ranking) exclusively to pick alliance partners is an amateur. Team 1676 was ranked 44th or 63 at NJ regional, but was picked for an alliance. Why? Because we were 9th in scoring, and our scouting system had the proof. We brought that to the attention of the top 8 teams - some were surprised, but most were sophisticated enough to understand what it meant: We were a good robot, but alliances dont always acocunt for that.

Originally Posted by Cory

1) Teams need to get exponentially better at avoiding penalties. Many a match was won, and then lost when penalties were counted.

What would be nice is to have it mandatory for the actual penalty reason, and the team getting it, to be announced after the match. We'd often see 10 or 20 points worth of penalty and have absolutely no idea why... how can we improve without that feedback?

Don

[George A.]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

What would be nice is to have it mandatory for the actual penalty reason, and the team getting it, to be announced after the match. We'd often see 10 or 20 points worth of penalty and have absolutely no idea why... how can we improve without that feedback?

Don

Don,

I know that when I announced the score I would announce what the penalties were, although I wouldn't always say the score. If it was line violations I would say that, and then the Head Ref would gladly say which team accrued the penalties.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

The defense in this game is boring. Sure you've got the end game where you can knock off the balls resting on the structure, but what can you do about the shooters and hurdlers that don't place the balls and just keep racking up points? Teams like 1114 were practically indefensible because they could hurdle and, if my interpretations are correct, defending teams can't block them from doing so. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

You're not wrong, but you are ignoring what seems to be the obvious defensive strategy against effective hurdlers. You can't legally prevent them from scoring a ball they have, but you can try to stop them from getting that ball in their possession in the first place.

[dtengineering]

This game is good, and I strongly disagree with the original poster's opinions, but just imagine how much better it would be with a slightly larger field.

As it is right now, killer autonomous/hybrid bots can be very effectively neutralized by having one robot move forward about four or five feet, blocking passage across the second line. With a longer field, there would be space for them to find their way around the blocking robot.

Likewise good offensive bots can be slowed down by very simple machines just getting in their way. With a larger field, the high flying drive trains would have more room to maneuver and would force everyone to build better robots in order to succeed.

I am not saying that defense is wrong, or bad... or not part of the game... we played some very effective autonomous defense in Portland. It's just that offense is much more fun to watch. Thankfully this game gets rid of a lot of the boring pushing matches that have slowed down previous games, but maybe an off-season event could try playing on a field ten feet wider and fifteen feet longer just to see how much more exciting it could be.

Jason

P.S. Yes, penalties play a role. Sometimes that happens in sports. It isn't a bad thing that teams that "play clean" get an advantage.

P.P.S. If you think 1114 is practically indefensible because of this year's game, obviously you didn't watch them much last year... or the year before that... or... wait a minute, maybe it is 1114 that is the factor here... not the game.

[galewind]

I covered as assistant game announcer to George at NJ, but since it was my first time doing so, please take my comments with a grain of salt:

1. It's hard to do exciting game announcing job when 4 robots sit in hybrid mode, and those same 4 robots have a difficult time lumbering around the track in tele-operated mode. Inversely, it makes it that much more exciting when a robot attempts to hurdle. Now, unless you're on team 102, how many times do you want to hear "...and team 102 completes yet another lap for red" before it gets old?

2. This year especially, it's sometimes difficult to actually get all of the penalties (who/what for) from the head ref without a notebook. Between line violations, impeding, entanglement, and "other", it's hard to remember it all right when the score announcing is about to occur. I did try to do it when I could, but I felt like a deer caught in headlights when there were 4 penalties, the head ref took his notebook back, and there was very little time for delay between the score entering and the displaying on the screen. I chalk it up to inexperience, though.

The irony of me actually volunteering for the job was that right when FIRST Overdrive was announced, I thought "man, what the heck can the play by play guy do? I mean, how many times can you say 'hey look, red completed another lap'?" But then somehow I ended up volunteering to do it .

[jayjaywalker3]

Originally Posted by petek

IMHO the matches that had racebots (102's Orion proved that just doing laps can be very exciting), arm hurdlers and catapults mixing it up were a blast to watch. The only ones I found tedious were those with just lapping going on. I was surprised that so few made a consistent effort to herd balls while lapping. Many threw away easy scoring opportunities by dodging around their own ball on their home stretch instead of giving it a punt across the line.

I also was surprised to see how little herding occurred. I do not remember any robots at the NJ regional herding to the extent that i completely left that statistic off the scouting sheets i made. So many robots just did laps.

102 was exciting for being so fast but that wore off after the practice matches. Then it was exciting for the spectacular ways in which it went down.

1676 sort of killed the excitement, but also had everyones attention with its slow moving elevator creating a lot of suspense and quick glances at the clock.

The most exciting robots (not including crashing) there in my opinion were 103, 25, 1647, 1228, 2016, 449 and 1547's whipping action.

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Or another team can use excellent scouting to determine the real capabilities of the robot.

ANY team that uses won/lost record (i.e., ranking) exclusively to pick alliance partners is an amateur. Team 1676 was ranked 44th or 63 at NJ regional, but was picked for an alliance. Why? Because we were 9th in scoring, and our scouting system had the proof. We brought that to the attention of the top 8 teams - some were surprised, but most were sophisticated enough to understand what it meant: We were a good robot, but alliances dont always acocunt for that.
What would be nice is to have it mandatory for the actual penalty reason, and the team getting it, to be announced after the match. We'd often see 10 or 20 points worth of penalty and have absolutely no idea why... how can we improve without that feedback?

Don

I agree about picking the teams. The teams i picked for our alliance (1279 and 2016) were 25th and 27th place respectively and we made it to semifinals and went out with a bang putting up a great fight with our robot not running for the entire match.

I also agree that it would be really awesome if they reported penalties more clearly then I would have a better idea on what other teams are having trouble with.

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

if my interpretations are correct, defending teams can't block them from doing so. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

I think i definitely seriously underestimated how long six seconds were. Six seconds were enough to seriously impede the scoring ability of a hurdling robot. Sadly this definitely would have affected the outcome of my teams semifinal matches.

EDIT

Oh yeah I also want to say that i was surprised by how much like an actual racing game this got to be. It was cool watching the teams make laps and weave and leave bananas on the track for other teams in the form of broken robots.

[synth3tk]

Due to 964's lack of early insight of it's design flaw, we will be herding instead of lifting/hurdling. But I never stopped to realize this weekend that there were virtually no herders. Maybe as more regionals come by we'll see more.

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

1. The game is VERY boring and anti-climatic.
   

Boring? Watch this

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by 340x4xLife

Boring? Watch this

170 points total, 6 point margin of victory...and this is only week 1! I think we've got a hot game this year!

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

1. The game is VERY boring and anti-climatic.
2. The matches are determined by penalties more often than not.
3. A team can get selected because of their reputation to build amazing robots in the past. (Someone from 16 or 1625, please explain to me why you selected us [648]? I'm grateful that you did, but it's perplexing.)

Any comments, concerns? Agree or disagree so far?

Well, regardless of what I think, #1 here is 100% matter of opinion. Some people will find this very fun and exciting, some may find it the most boring game ever...it happens every year.

#2..penalties are penalties. Unfortunately they have to exist, teams MUST get better at avoiding them. It is sad to see matches lost because of a stupid line violation that didn't give a team any advantage in a match, however the penalty must be applied so if teams can have a better idea of field presence, and when you are approaching one of those corners, make sure you don't need to go back even 1 inch before proceeding through. taking the extra 2 seconds to analyze the situation will be well worth not losing 10 points.

#3..This is the perk to being a team that can win, and has proven they can win time and time again. The elite teams are teams that have won the big matches, the clutch matches, and are elite for a reason. Honestly if you are picking, and you have the choice of 2 teams, both of whom appear to be equal in skill level, and one is 71 and one is XXXX, i'd be more likely to pick 71. They have put themselves in a place where winning is status quo for them, and I sure as heck would liek to be a part of that.

[sporno]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

I attended the Midwest Regional this year and I can say that I was not surprised by the results. I am, however, surprised by three things:

1. The game is VERY boring and anti-climatic.
2. The matches are determined by penalties more often than not.
3. A team can get selected because of their reputation to build amazing robots in the past. (Someone from 16 or 1625, please explain to me why you selected us [648]? I'm grateful that you did, but it's perplexing.)

Any comments, concerns? Agree or disagree so far?

I hope that something is done to make this game more exciting, as right now I believe it's the worst yet. Can't wait for IRI and their rule changes.

Also, this was a very bad game to introduce new spectators into, too much going on in any given area.

BTW - Congrats to all of the participants of the Midwest Regional, it was stellar event yet again. And too all of those that dared enough to compete in first week regionals.

I see where your coming from and I agree and disagree on the first point. I agree because this game isnt AIM HIGH which was my favorite game ever. At the same time it is pretty intense in its own way. I watched as much as i could of midwest and NJ while in class , but i noticed the game to me only came alive at the finals , but when it came alive , it was very intense.

As for the second point , yeah its a bummer when you win or loos not based on points , but who got penalised the least. At championship last year we (540 ) beat a team that had one champs one year , then we lost because of a penalty from out alliance partner , not how we scored.