Thoughts on Overdrive

[sgreco]

Now that the last official game of Overdrive has been played I want to hear what people think about the game.
I think that overdrive was very exciting. Every time a team hurdled the crowd would go crazy. The fast pace of the game made it exciting to watch without ever having a dull moment. The high amount of points that could be scored in hybrid modes gave teams that may not look so good in tele-op a chance to compete. Although Overdrive seemed to be dominated by hurdlers, speed bots had to play a crucial roll in a winning alliance because there were only two track balls. We saw many methods of pick-up, herding and hurdling.(as my teams scout) I found it very fun to analyze the different techniques teams used to accomplish the various tasks in the game. The race style of game called for the teams to design many interesting drive trains. Even though the game was, again, primarily skid steered bots. Pick-up seemed to be the aspect of the game that could make or break a hurdling robot, many teams underestimated the importance of pick-up and for most it was what separated them from the elite. The drivers came into play a lot in Overdrive, many teams had a lot of success due to the skill of their drivers.
Overall I think Overdrive was a great game that made teams work hard and come out with amazing machines. The game itself started slow but in the later weeks to the finals the game became very exciting and the quality of game play rose. The people at FIRST(as always) did an awesome job coming up with a game.

What are your Thoughts?

[Koko Ed]

Overdrive was very bland when played in qualifications but it came to life during the elims. Then it was so electric it could light up Atlanta for weeks!
Too dominated by penalties though.

[AndyB]

The fact that there was really only one objective in the game was a large turnoff to me. However, this simple game really did help non-FIRST spectators understand and enjoy the event.

Overdrive wasn't as good as 07, 06, or 04.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by AndyB

The fact that there was really only one objective in the game was a large turnoff to me. However, this simple game really did help non-FIRST spectators understand and enjoy the event.

Overdrive wasn't as good as 07, 06, or 04.

Only one objective? I can count four completely different ways to score in Overdrive, as compared to '07 (one and a half), '06 (two and a half) or '05 (three and a half) [I consider climbing a ramp or simply driving your robot to a certain location at the end of the game as halves]. The variation in robot design is far greater than last year's game, and I would argue the drive trains/manipulators used in OD are the most elegant across the board, as compared to past years' designs.

The pits seemed to be a much friendlier place - a horde of workers fixing a broken robot was not nearly as commonplace as it has been in the past. People could walk around, check out different designs, and ask questions without fear of getting in the way or impeding progress. I think this was due largely to the monodirectional and mostly offensive-minded flow of the game. While defense did play a large part in the game (moreso than most people realize), the damage inflicted was not nearly as destructive as in the past.

One thing I think could be improved was the Hybrid mode. While the concept was cool (controlling the robot with a TV remote), the physical size of the game and arena made it so the majority of spectators missed out on that feature. Also, depending on the robot's orientation, sometimes the lap counters interfered with the IR receiver. I understand that's all part of the game challenge and there are ways around it, but when trying to make the non-teleoperated period rookie-friendly, there's no need to throw in extra difficulties.

[ttldomination]

I liked overdrive,

It separated the field from a bot that was just there and didn't fulfill it's job compared to one which was really great. The "unsatisfactory" robots did not win. And if you look at teams that had success, 27, 1114, 217, and countless others, they had good robots.

Defense was less of a factor and it really depended on how good was your robot.

[Billfred]

I'm not sure if it's fair to draw comparisons between FIRST Frenzy and the games of the 3v3 era, given the differences in structure; that said, this season as a whole ranks #2 on my personal list of favorite 3v3 seasons behind Aim High and ahead of Triple Play and Rack 'N' Roll.

Good:
-The kit was more or less sound. There is nothing more frustrating than finding out that key elements of the kit of parts that we're relying on are subpar. (The 6V Fisher-Price motors of 2005 and the BaneBots gearboxes of 2007 come to mind.) Not directly related to the game, mind you, but robust robots make for better matches. (Granted, the IR board gave up on a lot of teams, but you had options between Kevin Watson's code and some other resources on the internet.)
-The overall objective of the game was crystal-clear. Make laps, throw a huge ball over the overpass. Good luck explaining any other game in that much space.
-Robots had something to do the entire match. When robots don't have anything to do, they hit. This year, they could at least score points by getting around the track. Yes, you could still hit and play defense in this game, but you had to be more intelligent about it. I like that.
-There were no huge team updates over the season, and only minimal YMTCs here on CD. That's a sign of a good game. Edit: Aim High still holds the ultimate record--there are zero YMTCs in the subforum from that season.
-There was a tremendous incentive to have a good hybrid routine. Entire matches could be decided in those opening seconds. It underscored the importance of good programming (especially to those of us that lacked it).
-The game was capable of sorting out the best from the good and the good from the rest. There was no "Who?!" this season on Einstein for me--the teams that made it there all had great accomplishments across the entire season.

Bad:
-The absence of an exact copy of the field ball for the better part of the season was frustrating.
-Some events had issues with the overpass sagging, which would then catch some robots designed to interact with an overpass within tolerance. Since you're passing underneath the overpass dozens of times over a regional, that's an issue.
-I'm still not sold on the photo-finish for robot movement but not ball movement. I imagine that many off-seasons will have their way with that rule. On the up side, that's probably the only irritating rule of the season for me--compare that with the many grumbles about various parts of last season's manual.

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by boiler

Only one objective? I can count four completely different ways to score in Overdrive, as compared to '07 (one and a half), '06 (two and a half) or '05 (three and a half) [I consider climbing a ramp or simply driving your robot to a certain location at the end of the game as halves]. The variation in robot design is far greater than last year's game, and I would argue the drive trains/manipulators used in OD are the most elegant across the board, as compared to past years' designs

Well, I think he meant that there was only one major objective. To get/do something with with the balls. When in 04 you could...get the balls, pass the balls into the HP, then the HP would shoot them into one of the goals, you could play with the movable goal, you could hang, you could play defense...man was that game cool.

I didn't like it for the same reason. Qualifications were very boring, for the most part. Elims got "exciting" but I was never really out of my sit being thrilled by it. 4 out of 10.


To spin on Billfred's favorite list...I wasn't really that high on some of the recent games. Aim High was most exciting in my mind (probably biased but still). I gave that a 9 of 10. Then 07 with a 5 out of 10. Then 05 and 08 with a 4 out of 10.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

I liked overdrive,

It separated the field from a bot that was just there and didn't fulfill it's job compared to one which was really great. The "unsatisfactory" robots did not win. And if you look at teams that had success, 27, 1114, 217, and countless others, they had good robots.

Defense was less of a factor and it really depended on how good was your robot.

I saw plenty of matches where robots were carried to the top of the ranking this year.

[ktbcantrell]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

I liked overdrive,

It separated the field from a bot that was just there and didn't fulfill it's job compared to one which was really great. The "unsatisfactory" robots did not win. And if you look at teams that had success, 27, 1114, 217, and countless others, they had good robots.

Defense was less of a factor and it really depended on how good was your robot.

Defense was definately a factor this year... not so much a straight pushing match like last year but there were many teams that incoprorated completely defensive strategies.... Keeping the trackballs away from the good hurdling robots and blocking them from making their way around the track was a huge componet of this years game... And yes pushing was also very evident this year to from my observations..

I never once saw a robot politely bump another and then wait for 6 seconds in order to pass LOL ..

I thought this years game was very fun for hurdling teams because every match was a battle not only to hurdle but also to aquire and to maneuver around the track. 6 robots + 4 track balls = very full track...

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Good:
-The overall objective of the game was crystal-clear. Make laps, throw a huge ball over the overpass. Good luck explaining any other game in that much space.

Aim High: "Robot basketball."

Overdrive was, however, much easier to explain than Triple Play.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I saw plenty of matches where robots were carried to the top of the ranking this year.

Just like every season, there are invariably some teams that work into an alliance captain slot with a decent (if unspectacular) robot that had a lot of luck in qualifying. Almost invariably, those teams are weeded out by the time all is said and done.

Sincerely,

3-0 with the TechTigers in '07, 0-3 against the TechTigers in '07.

[lingomaniac88]

The worst thing that happened with our team is that we didn't know that the trackball would have no "give." Because of that, we threw away several good ideas.

[Tom Line]

I'm going to try to take a high level approach to this:

Things gone right:
1. Hybrid was worth the correct amount of points to make it important
2. It was nice to see the "balancing" of offense and defense. Last year was a very heavy defensive game. The year prior, and excellent shooter could somewhat negate a strong defense.
3. Drivetrains. It was nice to see speed as a part of the game. It taught me some things about efficient drive trains that I didn't know before - primarily because in the past you could gear a trans low enough and the fine points didn't matter because of the amount of power (like battery life....).
4. The weight of the ball. This pushed the systems to the limits. Many of the higher end bots were dieing in 2-3 minutes due to battery power.

Deltas, or things that could be improved for next year:
1. It was extremely difficult to replicate field conditions to test hybrid remotes. We had a remote that would work from over 50 feet away every single time in practice and in the pits, but out on the field we missed signals from less that 10 feet away.

2. Simple game, very complex rules set, and very difficult for referees to call. I'm not sure how it could have been improved, but the demand on the referees to fairly call matches was unfair to them, and resulted in many penalty-decided matches (and non-calls that also decided matches).

3. Lack of tasks that were not complimentary. Last year had a very well seperated couple tasks. I would even look forward to tasks that require small detachable robots, etc. It's time to de-homogonize the robot designs a bit. This year the goals complemented eachother (speed + hurdling). Perhaps this could have been made more interesting by having a 200 lb weight that had to be carried to gain lap points, but they were equal to the hurdle points if carried. Opposed goals (like the ramps and score) lead to more widely varied robot goals, and more interesting design solutions.

[jax1488]

to me, overdrive wasnt all that bad. better than 07 and 05

but the best years in a top three form

1=2006
2=2003
3=2004

these years had mutiple ways of scoring and a VERY exciting form of gameplay, always with some kind of struggle involved that made teams scream even more for their robot

what the games need is some form of struggle in them or something that robots have to fight over

in 06= you had to stop the opposing alliance from gaining balls or scoring

in 03= that ramp was soooooo hard to fight over, people would go crazy as the time ticked by and their robot was pushing to get on

in 04= robots who could hang on the bar always fought of who would get on. it was always a struggle to seee who would get up on it. so exciting to see that

again, this is just my opinion haha. =D

[sgreco]

In Overdrive the better alliance almost always won. Obviously the better alliance will win most of the time in any game, but we defintitely didn't see as many upsets in overdrive as we usually do.