Look Back: Week 5

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

I would consider those all shady moves that have been played out by teams this year.

You are not making any friends on the field (or off) when you try any of these.
Maybe to some teams this isn't what it's all about, and that trophy means more than the spirit of the game.

Accidental tipping, or something like that is differentr, especially when drivers come over and apologize for actions like that even after a match no matter who won or lost.

Finding loopholes in rules on the field won't make you popular in the long run.

That's all I'm trying to say.

I would in no way support any behavior that results in damage to the field or robots or anything that goes against the rules, but anything else goes(ok, not explicitly anything else, but I think people know what I mean). Pinning the ball, herding it around, or pushing your opponents are all perfectly valid defensive strategies, and in many cases are not only a good way to win, but the only way to win.

Imagine this, you are on a team that has two lap bots and one launcher. You just happen to be on the field against 1114, 217, and 27. The only chance you have of winning, guaranteed, is to pin both of their balls, and to never let them hurdle, ever. It is a tenacious form of play in the face of an overwhelmingly superior offensive team, and I doubt a single one of those teams would fault you for such a strategy, and would instead congratulate you on a game well played.

Moreover it is absolutely inspiring to me to see a team do this because it shows a tenacity and willingness to compete that is essential to gracious professionalism. Being gracious means following the rules, but being a professional means attempting to win while following those rules. We in FIRST often seem to forget the professionalism part of GP. Losing a match you could have won because some people decided they didn't like your entirely legal and nondestructive strategy is downright unprofessional.

[ParkerF]

Originally Posted by Looking Forward

The Robowranglers perfect record could not escape Bayou either, where they suffered their first four losses of the season (three in the eliminations). 118 couldn't carry the load the same way 217 did in St. Louis, so the serpentine struck 148 hard as the #2 seed as they couldn't find enough scoring support from the 23rd pick to create a dominant offensive alliance.

With autonomous playing a dirty game of roulette, chains magically throwing, and wheels coming out of alignment, I have finally decided why we didn't perform so hot on Saturday...

Chester is AWOL!

[Ashley Weed]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

I honestly don't know how they didn't acquire more penalties for their "canny" actions. If only I was into conspiracy theory.

... ouch

[Zflash]

Originally Posted by hipsterjr

LookingForward, once again you disappoint me. Ask anyone who attended Palmetto and they will tell you that it was the most intense final in the events history. Pit Admin. said you were there, but I guess not since you completely over looked Palmetto. Don't take this the wrong way; I know you can't watch every single regional and report every detail. Just thought it was worth mention.

Often a person can overlook great things when they are next to other great things. Week 5 had many regioinals with many exciting events. After qualifications 1319 thought they too may have been overlooked after dropping out of the top eight on Friday. Luckily there was one great team in the form of 1249 who realized our teams potential and chose to go with us. We played a total of eight elim matches without any robot on the alliance failing or breaking with some better luck we may have all gone a little further.

[mark johnson]

[
66 found their way to the #1 spot after qualifications, but were declined by 33, 27, and 67 before selecting 217 (who was outside of the top eight). This caused the break-up of the major superpowers, which made the eliminations very interesting and unpredictable. 217 carried the scoring weight of the #1 alliance, although they often used 910 to supply them with balls or protect them from defense, and managed to get their alliance to the finals.
]

When 910 was feeding 217 balls was in the quarter finals because we were having problems with our launcher. Before the semi finals we fixed our launcher in code and did four hurdles while 217 was being defended by 201. This is a bit more than just handing off balls and running interference.Meanwhile 66 was playing great defense on 33 so it took a team to make it to the finals .

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Herodotus

I would in no way support any behavior that results in damage to the field or robots or anything that goes against the rules, but anything else goes(ok, not explicitly anything else, but I think people know what I mean). Pinning the ball, herding it around, or pushing your opponents are all perfectly valid defensive strategies, and in many cases are not only a good way to win, but the only way to win.

Imagine this, you are on a team that has two lap bots and one launcher. You just happen to be on the field against 1114, 217, and 27. The only chance you have of winning, guaranteed, is to pin both of their balls, and to never let them hurdle, ever. It is a tenacious form of play in the face of an overwhelmingly superior offensive team, and I doubt a single one of those teams would fault you for such a strategy, and would instead congratulate you on a game well played.

Moreover it is absolutely inspiring to me to see a team do this because it shows a tenacity and willingness to compete that is essential to gracious professionalism. Being gracious means following the rules, but being a professional means attempting to win while following those rules. We in FIRST often seem to forget the professionalism part of GP. Losing a match you could have won because some people decided they didn't like your entirely legal and nondestructive strategy is downright unprofessional.

I agree with this to a certain extent. Following the rules in playing defense is playing the game. If another alliance is outright a better offensive team, your only strategy is to play legal defense. With the right defense put on by good teams, ANY alliance can be beaten. Its been proven in matches both seeding and elim at various regionals in various weeks.
The agreed upon "best" robot(s) dont always win. Its always the best alliance that plays as a team with great strategy, with either outstanding or good robots.

[FoleyEngineer]

In an effort to make this game more "crowd friendly", I think the game designers wanted to reduce or nearly eliminate defense as a strategy and make it look more like NASCAR where there are bots just zooming around the field racing across the finish lines. I believe this concept is flawed for several reasons...

1) Basically, if it's "the team with the most firepower/speed wins" - which is what a purely offensive game really is, then I can tell you who will win before the match starts. The score will just show the faster / more-hurdling team getting farther and farther ahead until the two minutes of "fun" is over and one team has 100+ points while the other has oh, maybe 20 or so. Yahoo. Not a lot of crowd appeal there! You would hardly need to watch any match with say 3 hurdlers against 1 or even two good ones against one good one. It's like a basketball game where two guys on one team get to shoot baskets with each having their own ball, and only one on guy on the other does - oh, and there's no defense allowed! Just grab the balls and keep pumping them in. No suspense, not much strategy, and not much fun to watch.

2) Because there are so many rookie teams who can't hurdle, they have to do something. Without doing defense what are they left with? Lapping. Okay, it takes 5 laps to equal 1 hurdle. Even a basic hurdler that does it twice forces his counterpart to make 10 laps to tie him. If he places at the end, you can forget it. Where does that leave all the rookies and teams that can't hurdle? What do you want them to do?

3) If they really wanted it to be only speed and offense, then they needed to make the hurdles worth 4 and laps worth 2. Then you'd see an entirely different game. I'm glad they didn't because it wouldnt' reward the effort of making a hurdler, but it would eliminate the need for ball pinning, or anything else - it would just be a race.

4) The crowd appreciates defense! Imagine ANY game or sport with multiple players without defense. Basketball, football, hockey, baseball, even NASCAR has defense (people don't always politely move aside and let the faster car just go by). That's what makes the offense worthwhile! Heck if there's no defense, then you just run down the field and score a touchdown every play, right? That's not football, that's track and field!

5) Defense = strategy. It's a real challenge figuring out how to "counter" an offensive superpower, or how to team up maybe 2 on 1 (like Basketball or Football) to try and win. It makes even a slow lapbot feel worthwhile. We played with a team last weekend that could not hurdle or knock, and could only do two or three laps per match! It was tough trying to make that work for us, but we had them pin a ball and they slowed down our opponents and made a real significant contribution to the alliance! Take away their ability to defend, and you might as well tell them to go home and come back next year.

Bottom line is that you need both: offense - to be appreciated for the beauty and speed of racing around the track, or grabbing the ball effortlessly and hurdling so fast they hardly have to slow down, and defense to counter the scorers and make them WORK for their points and have to dodge traffic and race or even fight for the balls. I think that's what makes the game really exciting.

[Mike Ross]

Originally Posted by mark johnson

When 910 was feeding 217 balls was in the quarter finals because we were having problems with our launcher. Before the semi finals we fixed our launcher in code and did four hurdles while 217 was being defended by 201. This is a bit more than just handing off balls and running interference.Meanwhile 66 was playing great defense on 33 so it took a team to make it to the finals .

The way you guys fed 217 in the quarters was awesome, considering the #8 alliance did such a good job of keeping balls away from them. When you started getting 3 or 4 hurdles a match, I was in shock. I kept asking people "How on earth were they available as the last pick of the draft?!?" I'm not sure whether this speaks more about the importance of good scouting, or the depth of the field at GLR. Either way, you guys were great.

[vadyr]

I completely agree with what has been said about some teams not being able to hurdle, or other teams being so good at hurdling that offensively there is no way to beat them. This means defense must come into play, but it needs to be clean defense. Pinning the ball against the wall may technically be legal, but why give such a low blow and be so unsportsmanlike. Instead, chase after that offensive bot and get in their way so they can't possess, hurdle, or maneuver as well. Even better: when that team tries to possess the ball, knock the ball out of the way so they can't possess it. These are completely practical defensive strategies which are not "cheap" or "low-blows". Taking away the scoring game piece in an offensive game is really quite blasphemous.

[fuzzy1718]

so what your saying is that a slow robot from a low budget team has to keep try and keep up with the souped up motors and gear boxes of a team with A LOT of money..... I say you are dead wrong and pinning a ball in the corner s no "low blow" it is a fair and legal way to sut down a alliance. Besides would you as a team rather risk drawing a penalty for impeding, while trying to chase/block an opponent or just pack a ball in the corner and park, what sounds more logcal?

[vadyr]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

so what your saying is that a slow robot from a low budget team has to keep try and keep up with the souped up motors and gear boxes of a team with A LOT of money.....

I never said that nor did I imply it. I simply suggested that there are much better defensive strategies than pinning the scoring piece against a wall and defeating the purpose of this game. I'm sure if you were to call up Dean or Woodie or anyone on the game planning committee and ask them if they designed the game to see teams pin the ball against the wall and cause the game to come to a crawl or a halt, they would say no. I can only hope to see a match where all four balls are pinned and the other two robots are just cruising around running laps -- then what would be said.

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by vadyr

I can only hope to see a match where all four balls are pinned and the other two robots are just cruising around running laps -- then what would be said.

You just took the words right out of my mouth. This is the scenario I kept playing in my mind. Boy, would that be fun (insert sarcasm here). I don't think the fans or the competitors would enjoy this much. And I do not think the game designers wanted this.

Unfortunately, the maneuver of pinning the ball is NOT illegal. Telling people that their actions are shady and it's blasphemy is foolish. If FIRST doesn't condone these types of actions, they would change the rules or come out with updates. If judges think that your actions are unsportsmanlike, they give you a yellow card or DQ you.

And this perspective comes from a team who built a purely offensive robot. My reaction to the defensive teams and their maneuvers, "bring it on". The alliance that wins should be the one that reacts best to the ever changing strategy of the game. I saw completely different strategy in Atlanta last year than what I saw in a regional, that was cool.

Since everyone else is giving professional sports analogies I will too :-) I hate watching basketball teams slow the game by going to four corners. This IMHO this is boring, but I totally understand why they do it. I would never tell these teams that they were shady and it's blasphemy nor would I tell them that they were unprofessional.

[GaryVoshol]

I am not sure where people got the idea that this was a "no-defense" game. It is a game with a different kind of defense. In past games, robots often played defense by keeping the opponents away from the target - the Rack, the Tetra goals, etc. In this game, we've been told we can only keep robots away from their "target" of moving around the Track for 6 seconds, and cannot hinder them at all in their pursuit of the "target" of a hurdle. There has been no limitation on keeping robots away from the trackballs.

Quotes from the Q&A which show the GDC has reiterated this:

• FIRST Overdrive has never been defined as an "all-offense, no-defense game." Defensive strategies, used appropriately, are perfectly acceptable.
• A Robot, and any Trackball in the possession of that Robot, only receives protection from interference while it is in the process of Hurdling (as specified in Rule <G42>). Neither the Robot nor the Trackball receive any special protection at any other time.
• There is no rule that would prohibit the blocking robot's action. There are also no rules that would prohibit an appropriate counter measure by your robot. This scenario would likely become a pushing match.

[tennispro9911]

Rules are written to be followed. FIRST went over the rules numerous times and I'm sure accounted for many defensive manuevers that teams would come up with. They debated this before us. Don't think we came up with a strategy they didn't. THERE ARE ONLY TWO TRACKBALLS! What does that tell you? They expect a team not to be able to or have to hurdle. What can a team do to be most effective without hurdling? Defense. Pure and simple, defense was expected and written into the rules. It is not against GP. In fact I'd argue that if a team has a strategy that can win, and they chose not to follow that perfectly legal strategy that is against GP. It is unfair to their alliance partners to not follow the most effective strategy. If FIRST didn't want defense, they would have the two alliances play on seperate fields and see which alliance scored more points at the end. It would be completely boring but it would stop these supposedly unfair practices.

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by vadyr

I can only hope to see a match where all four balls are pinned and the other two robots are just cruising around running laps -- then what would be said.

I cannot envision this ever happening (of course, never say never, eh?). The only reason an alliance would choose that strategy is if they were going up against 2 or 3 good hurdlers with only 1 or none on their side. Two alliances going against each other when both have 2 or 3 good hurdlers are going to send 1 'bot out for defense and the other 2 will hurdle/lap or maybe play keep away, but not pinning. I won't say it would never happen, but it would be a strange scenario. I believe that in this type of match up, the alliances would opt for the "shootout" as they are offesively minded teams - look at the finals in Detroit. They were some of the highest total scoring matches that I've seen.

As for teams with hurdling robots getting mad a teams who play a defensive/pinning type game - no way. We are a hurdling robot and had a ton of defense play on us at GLR. Did I get frustrated with it? Yes. Did I get mad at the other team for doing it? Heck, no! I congratulate them for a strategy that worked for them. It's called competition - do what you can within the rules (and without trying to harm another robot) to gain an advantage. I would say there is nothing ungracious or unprofessional about playing a defensive strategy - this coming from an offensively minded team.