Problem with Penalties

[XaulZan11]

I'm not saying that different ways to penalize teams besides taking points away, will decrease the amount of penalities (disabling a robot right after it did something illegal probably will, however, as it punishes them right doing something wrong), but it will make the number of matches that APPEAR to be decided by penalties decrease. Instead of seeing a team cause 3 penalties for 30 points and saying 'well, if it wasn't for that team, we would have won', that team would be penalized by not being able to score/defend for a certain amount of time. Thus, it will be much harder to place blame and say 'that team cost us XX points'. While matches will still be determined be penalites, by punishing teams for penalities different ways, it will be more difficult to determine how much that team hurt you. It will also help my biggest frustration of seeing two alliance both play well and then see a 10 point penalty decide the match; instead of having the penalities 'hidden in the game' their contrabution won't APPEAR to have such an impact in deciding matchs.

I know that there are some problems with disabling a robot for some time during the match, but it was just an example. I'm sure the CD community can come up with different ways to penalize teams besides simply taking points away at the end of the match.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Actually there is a penalty. If you have 5 CIM's then you can't compete. What tougher penalty is there?

You misunderstand me. I mean't a point penalty.

Teams that don't pass inspection are forced to go back and modify their robots so that they DO pass inspection. In other words they are FORCED to obey the rules. They can't incur penalties... Becuase if they were capable of incuring penalties they wouldn't be allowed to compete.


And if the teams are responsible for all the penalties than why wasn't this such a big deal last year?

Here's a simple experiment you can do. Do a CD search of all thread titles containing the word "penalties" or "penalty." Set the peramiters to any-date and older.

(The number corresponds to the number of threads)

2008: 13, 2007: 5, 2006: 7, 2005: 10, 2004: 2, 2003: 1, 2002: 1

So obvously penalties were a bigger issue to teams in the 05 and 08 games. There's a clear correlation between the game and the "penalty problems." That leads me to believe that the problem is not so much with the teams but with the games...

[deejay021]

has anyone taken into account the overall scoring system throughout the scoring system... even though records take precidence over everything else... individual teams are ranked within tied records according to their average pts per game... unless ur team 1114 or are paired with 1114 penalties screw up everyones records fairly evenly...so it really comes down to maintaining your average points per game...

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

You misunderstand me. I mean't a point penalty.

Teams that don't pass inspection are forced to go back and modify their robots so that they DO pass inspection. In other words they are FORCED to obey the rules. They can't incur penalties... Becuase if they were capable of incuring penalties they wouldn't be allowed to compete.


And if the teams are responsible for all the penalties than why wasn't this such a big deal last year?

Here's a simple experiment you can do. Do a CD search of all thread titles containing the word "penalties" or "penalty." Set the peramiters to any-date and older.

(The number corresponds to the number of threads)

2008: 13, 2007: 5, 2006: 7, 2005: 10, 2004: 2, 2003: 1, 2002: 1

So obvously penalties were a bigger issue to teams in the 05 and 08 games. There's a clear correlation between the game and the "penalty problems." That leads me to believe that the problem is not so much with the teams but with the games...

So, how do you propose making an inspection penalty for actions taken on the field? Your connection between inspection/robot penalties and game penalties is flawed at best.
There are really only a handful of rules that you could enforce in such a fashion (such as the 80" rule), but doing so would often eliminate a great deal of design flexibility (making it impossible to violate the 80" rule during inspection would eliminate most arm designs, as they had to raise above 80" to score, and if tipped over would violate the rule). It would be impossible to eliminate the possibility for line violations or hurdler interference during inspection.

Penalties required a little more discipline to follow this year than some past ones, but we still the fault of teams. 1712 used two different drivers this year, and the only <G22> penalty we incurred was during hybrid. So long as you kept focused and attentive, penalties were fairly easy to avoid.

[thefro526]

I've never seen a team that couldn't compete because they were capable of getting a penalty on thew field because, well, every robot is capable of getting almost any penalty on the field. (80" is the only one that is Dependent on robot construction) so basically If your robot can move, it can get a penalty...

The only penalty an Inspector can look for is the 80" rule. And that is only applicable in normal gameplay. I'd have to say just about every hurdler with an arm or elevator could violate that rule anyways if they were tipped.

IMO I think a lot of people are just upset with the penalties this year because they cost a lot of teams, including mine, matches. But look at Major League sports, they have penalties every game that decide a game. Moving 5 yards in football, scoring on a powerplay in hockey, a penalty shot in Basketball; every sport has them but they just get used to them.

My major complaint with penalties this year wasn't the penalties themselves but, the way they were called. In any sport a penalty is up to interpretation but, I watch some regionals call G22 by having a Millimeter of your 'bot cross the line and others where you have to almost go halfway across. So if the penalties were scored more consistently from regional to regional then I wouldn't have a problem...

Just my 2 cents.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

We built our robot to score, and play the game the way it was meant to be played, rather than to try and keep other teams from scoring.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense

I don't like it either when matches are decided by penalties, but in my experience (Portland, Seattle and Atlanta... not that I saw ALL the matches at these events, of course...) there were a lot of teams that either failed to keep their robot moving in a counter-clockwise direction

That is not a requirement of the game - you are free to travel in whichever direction you choose within a quadrant.

...or decided that rather than playing the game they would try to stop someone else from playing the game. I can't blame the GDC for the poor choices of teams that do not make an effort to follow the rules. (And yes, I know these rules took effort to follow, and am very proud of our drive team for their efforts to stay within the rules and avoid penalties. It was challenging, but certainly not impossible.)

Again...

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
ad infinitum

I can most assuredly tell you that playing defense is possible without obtaining an absurdly ginormous quantity of penalties. We chose this strategy in Atlanta and received a total of 2 penalties the entire event. Both were interference while hurdling. One was deserved; the other was a result of an opposing bot pushing their partner's hurdling bot into us while we were attempting to navigate around the hurdling process - the refs missed that one. It happens.

I am sure many others played D this year while keeping the penalties to a minimum.

All in all, I agree that while an abnormally high number of matches this year were decided by penalties, and that put a damper on the "fan friendliness" of the competition, penalties are both necessary "evils" and something teams can avoid with proper training, practice, and execution.

I do like the modification of G22 to require a more "blatant" clockwise move across the line in order for the penalty to occur.

I would, however, be willing to see penalties enacted in a different fashion... for instance a ten second deactivation of a robot that "goes backwards"... or seeing the refs provided with interfaces to the scoring system so that the penalties are recorded in "real time". But there has to be some significant consequence for teams who take the "easy path" of just blocking or interfering with a team that has taken the time and effort to design a robot that is actually capable of playing the game.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...hlight=defense
ad infinitum

There is a fine line between encouraging teams who are not as "capable" as others to step outside their comfort zone and try new robot designs and having offensive teams offer up haughty, harsh criticisms of those simple, annoyingly effective robots who choose to play the game in a different but still legal manner than the majority of FRC teams. Then there are those bots who can play the game numerous ways and would like to retain the freedom to choose the style of gameplay they wish to employ for a given match....

There is a balance to be struck between eliminating all penalties, inviting havoc and chaos on the playing field, and having so many strict penalties in the rulebook that not even the 100% offensive bots (the ones who purportedly "play the game the right way") can escape them when they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[GaryVoshol]

I will agree that <G22> penalties were easy to incur this year. I think that until the fields were set up in arena lighting settings, the GDC didn't realize the effect of reflections off the center barrier. However, there were a number of <G22> penalties right in front of the driver stations, and at the finish lines. Those should have been preventable.

All the other penalties, in my opinion, were totally avoidable. Because of the mandatory bumper rule, more robot-to-robot contact within the bumper zone was allowed. <G37> and <G42> were there to reduce contact which would be unfair, either outside the bumper zone or while hurdling.

And there were far too many teams that didn't understand penalties or other aspects of the rules.

[dr1008]

i dont know about some of you but i do like some penalties but i really do agree with you on the matches being decided by penalties and i think that some of them should be more severe, for all of you that were at the buckeye regional you know why. i am one of the drivers for team 1008 and the way my alliance was made for the finals matches our robot was the only one that could hurdle. we lost our first match because of some plain bad luck, the second we dominated with a score of like 80 to 40 or something like that. the third match we were hurdling and a bot from the other alliance on purpose hits us from the back and pushes us up onto the overpass and got us stuck, we were impeding in no way there were 2 lanes open and the bot that pushed us had stopped and waited for us to let go of the ball so they wouldnt be hitting the hurdler. but in my opinion it was extremely against gracious professionalisms and we ended up losing that match and a chance to advance because of it. they were given a 10 pnt penalty but our alliance had to give ourselves a going back across the line penalty to get our bot down. we finally did but with not enough time to spare to do anything.

in my opinion there should be less penalties for dumb little thing but the bid things that actually affect matches should be of a higher cost to the fouling team

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dr1008

in my opinion there should be less penalties for dumb little thing but the bid things that actually affect matches should be of a higher cost to the fouling team

Perfect world... It's kind of hard to tell what does/doesn't affect a match in realtime.

So here's what I suggest. Someone go to the Game Design threads and suggest different penalties. I think it technically possible to enter individual team penalties, realtime. I also think that the refs have a hard enough job as it is.

The thing is, the points/penalties relation is what affects the game.

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

Here's a simple experiment you can do. Do a CD search of all thread titles containing the word "penalties" or "penalty." Set the peramiters to any-date and older.

(The number corresponds to the number of threads)

2008: 13, 2007: 5, 2006: 7, 2005: 10, 2004: 2, 2003: 1, 2002: 1

So obvously penalties were a bigger issue to teams in the 05 and 08 games. There's a clear correlation between the game and the "penalty problems." That leads me to believe that the problem is not so much with the teams but with the games...

Aye, there is a correlation. It's not exactly what you think. 2002: 10 points, move a goal/robot and you get them back. Same in 2003 and 2004. 2006, shoot a few balls or put two robots on the ramp, 2007, same general idea. OK so far? Good, because here's the correlation.

In 2005, touching a robot in a particular area of the field was 30 points. Many matches had that as the winning score! In contrast, 10 points was 3 tetras, or 1 row, or 3 robots behind the home line, all of which were pretty tough to do and keep--and 10 points was a relatively minor penalty! Follow me so far? The penalty was out of proportion. 2008, one penalty for a very minor infraction meant one lap, with hurdle, to undo, plus keeping opponents at bay. Again, out of proportion to the damage.

So it's not the number of penalties, it's the proportion to the score that's the issue. If the GDC gets it right, there are fewer complaints. If they don't, the refs get badmouthed, the GDC is blamed, etc.

And then there's the other thing... It really helps to just play the game and try to avoid penalties.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I don't like to see a match decided simply on penalties. More often than I would like to count, I witnessed matches where more than 80 points in penalties were assessed between the two alliances. I know the value of penalties in keeping the game played as intended but G22's were assessed when the team was unable to correct for them. With the reflections off the center divider, lighting, and parallax errors, most drivers would not be able to see if the robot bumper crossed the plane on the far side of the field. If they were pushing against another robot at that crucial point, it was not possible for a driver in either the center or left driver station to determine where the plane was in relation to their robot.
Rules and penalties are a difficult thing to design as they require taking into account the game, the participants and the audience.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

I can most assuredly tell you that playing defense is possible without obtaining an absurdly ginormous quantity of penalties.

True enough, and I'll leave the discussion of the relative merits of offense and defense to the many threads that you referenced.

All in all, I agree that while an abnormally high number of matches this year were decided by penalties, and that put a damper on the "fan friendliness" of the competition, penalties are both necessary "evils" and something teams can avoid with proper training, practice, and execution.

This was the main point I was hoping to get across. If you don't like the penalties... don't break the rules. Yes, that was occasionally difficult to do this year, regardless of whether you were playing offense or defense, but if the penalties were not significant and match-deciding then there would not be much incentive to pay attention to them, would there?

There is a fine line between encouraging teams who are not as "capable" as others to step outside their comfort zone and try new robot designs and having offensive teams offer up haughty, harsh criticisms of those simple, annoyingly effective robots who choose to play the game in a different but still legal manner than the majority of FRC teams.

My criticism is for teams that did not make sufficient effort to avoid penalties (especially if they then complained about there being too many penalties!) Teams that did not make an effort to avoid penalties do not fit the category of "effective", regardless of whether they play offense or defense.

If my comments were construed as a criticism of defensive machines and stragegies in general -- and I could see how they could have been -- then my apologies. It did seem, however, that many penalties were called as a result of defense, played poorly. I observed fewer penalties called as result of offense being played poorly. One way teams could avoid penalties was to simply focus on going counter-clockwise as fast as they could and staying away from opponents attempting to hurdle. In other words... attempting to score was an effective strategy to reduce the risk of penalties.

Jason

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by EricH

In 2005, touching a robot in a particular area of the field was 30 points. Many matches had that as the winning score! In contrast, 10 points was 3 tetras, or 1 row, or 3 robots behind the home line, all of which were pretty tough to do and keep--and 10 points was a relatively minor penalty! Follow me so far? The penalty was out of proportion. 2008, one penalty for a very minor infraction meant one lap, with hurdle, to undo, plus keeping opponents at bay. Again, out of proportion to the damage.

You didn't think your argument out very well. The penalities are there to stop behavior that the game designers don't want to happen. If I remember the details of the 2005 game correctly that penalty was a safety issue which should be a pretty strict penalty in my opinion. In 2008 game the penalty was the minimum amount that they could give before the penalty becomes utterly useless. The game designers did not want people backing up to hurdle and then continue on.

[Jeff Waegelin]

In my mind, the biggest issue with penalties is when they are used to enforce gameplay. The simplest and best games are the ones where penalties are not needed to make sure that teams play the game "the right way". In an ideal world, the only penalties needed will be ones like high-speed ramming and pinning - the old standbys that show up every year - and those designed with safety in mind. The ones that are used to regulate a style of play (i.e. this year's G22) are inevitably the ones that end up causing pain and frustration to teams, and lead to numerous matches being decided on penalties.

It's by no means an easy task to design a game that doesn't need penalties to be played right - I've faced the same problem with other competitions in the past - but when you can do it right, it makes for a much more enjoyable experience for the competitors, referees, and spectators.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

In my mind, the biggest issue with penalties is when they are used to enforce gameplay.

Explain to me how every single other game on the face of the earth does this without a problem. Technically, they don't. All of the major sports in the world have the same problems that FIRST does. What they make up for it is that they are constantly revising the same set of rules which is never going to happen unless FIRST stays with a specific game.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

You didn't think your argument out very well. The penalities are there to stop behavior that the game designers don't want to happen. If I remember the details of the 2005 game correctly that penalty was a safety issue which should be a pretty strict penalty in my opinion. In 2008 game the penalty was the minimum amount that they could give before the penalty becomes utterly useless. The game designers did not want people backing up to hurdle and then continue on.

Granted. But you miss the point. The point was the reasons people complain, namely the proportion of penalty points to points scored.

In 2005, 30 points was way too much or way too little, even for a safety issue. If it's a safety issue, disable/DQ should be the way to go, to keep the game safe. That has less of an effect on the game outcome and quite possibly only affects the team that committed the violation. Point penalty...30 points was, as I said, close to WINNING scores that year, at least in qual matches. So it's way too high, because that's 2 rows that don't share a tetra, or 10 tetras not in a row(and that's almost more than the best individual robots could score in one match), or whatever other scoring you like. It's either too low (safety) or too high (points).

In 2008, I'm going to have to disagree. One hurdle with line crossing was 10 points. Not many teams could do more than 3-4, and many could only do laps of herd, which gave 2-4 points each in maybe 10 laps. So it's a pretty significant chunk of scoring gone because you broke the plane inadvertently. I think they could have gone a little lower, but that's just me. See, you don't get an advantage from going backwards a tiny bit, and if you go backwards to hurdle, it's blatantly obvious. So a lot of teams were penalized for doing something that gave no advantage and had no safety considerations. (Different from 2005, where safety and defensive advantage were both on the line.)