Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

The top 8 not being able to pick amongst themselves, my reasoning is plain and simple, GLR this year. It was a lot more fun and interesting with all the upsets, and 3rd matches (sometimes 4), I believe due to the top (I think it was) 6 being unable to pick one another. i don't know what happened any where else in the country, but that had to be the most interesting and most fun regional we have attened, that is the majority of my team talking.

Another problem I can see with this is that if a team wants to be picked by the #1 seed, then they could intentionally lose to fall out of the top 8. If a team intentionally loses they can hurt a team on their alliance that wants to win.

Overdrive wasn't a great representaion of making fair alliances because the third partner didn't matter as much as it had in previous games. In games where 3rd alliance partners were more valuable, the part of alliance selection when it goes backwards(8-1) had a bigger advantage to the lower seeded alliance partners. Because of this the lower seeded alliances would gain ground on the higher seeded alliances in their second pick. (don't get me wrong, I thought Overdrive was a great game. This is simply the reason I believe that the top alliances were even more successful than usual) I do not beleive this to be a problem.

[fuzzy1718]

cory no rules were broken, the 1st place seeded team was turned down by the top 6 or 5 (don't quite remember) teams. It was the rules that caused it and it made things less predictable.

I don't doubt at other regionals are fun just the way they are, that is why I don't want FIRST to do anything, just leave it up to the teams. The current system work great some of the time, so why change it on paper. I simply want teams to view the situation differantly.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

cory no rules were broken, the 1st place seeded team was turned down by the top 6 or 5 (don't quite remember) teams. It was the rules that caused it and it made things less predictable.

I actually love it when that happens. It does make the matches so much more exciting to watch. One reason that many teams do this is because they may have been picked by the selecting team before at a previous regional that season and may want to work with some others. And that's why teams choose to go to more than one regional.

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by Sgreco27

Overdrive wasn't a great representaion of making fair alliances because the third partner didn't matter as much as it had in previous games. In games where 3rd alliance partners were more valuable, the part of alliance selection when it goes backwards(8-1) had a bigger advantage to the lower seeded alliance partners. Because of this the lower seeded alliances would gain ground on the higher seeded alliances in their second pick. (don't get me wrong, I thought Overdrive was a great game. This is simply the reason I believe that the top alliances were even more successful than usual) I do not beleive this to be a problem.

We can have a whole discussion about what you pointed out here. And I am sure that not all of us will agree with each other, simply because we are all different. All the regionals that I have watched/been to, the 3rd alliance partner was a great asset to the alliance. I understand that the 3rd alliance partner was usually a lap runner who gained the alliance an extran 20 points or so, but at the same time some teams changed their strategy to play defense throughout the game. At florida regional, team 342 was a third pick by team 179 and team 69. They kept team 103 away from the ball which crippled the alliance of 108, 103, and 395. Also team 148 played defense at championship. Maybe we all didn't notice them enough because of other robots hurdling and enough actions going on around the field, but Robowranglers kept opponents from capping/knocking the ball off/kept the ball away from their opponent. From all the games I have seen in FIRST, each alliance partners played important role. It was based upon teams' strategy to either put up more points for the alliance or play defense.

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

We can have a whole discussion about what you pointed out here. And I am sure that not all of us will agree with each other, simply because we are all different. All the regionals that I have watched/been to, the 3rd alliance partner was a great asset to the alliance. I understand that the 3rd alliance partner was usually a lap runner who gained the alliance an extran 20 points or so, but at the same time some teams changed their strategy to play defense throughout the game. At florida regional, team 342 was a third pick by team 179 and team 69. They kept team 103 away from the ball which crippled the alliance of 108, 103, and 395. Also team 148 played defense at championship. Maybe we all didn't notice them enough because of other robots hurdling and enough actions going on around the field, but Robowranglers kept opponents from capping/knocking the ball off/kept the ball away from their opponent. From all the games I have seen in FIRST, each alliance partners played important role. It was based upon teams' strategy to either put up more points for the alliance or play defense.

I definitely agree with what you are saying. The 3rd alliance partner is always a necessary part of any successful alliance. I just think that this year the first two teams on an alliance could win without a third partner a lot easier than they could in previous years.

I think that the amount of points that two good hurdlers with decent hybrid modes collected in a match was too much for most lapbots to compete with. Some of the really good hurdlers were just as fast as some of the lapbots. I also found that some of the really good hurdlers could get around the track and hurdle just as fast as some lapbots could do a lap.(I don't mean to say anything bad about lapbots, as many times they were important to an a alliance).

[=Martin=Taylor=]

[

Originally Posted by Sgreco27

Another problem I can see with this is that if a team wants to be picked by the #1 seed, then they could intentionally lose to fall out of the top 8. If a team intentionally loses they can hurt a team on their alliance that wants to win.

Overdrive wasn't a great representaion of making fair alliances because the third partner didn't matter as much as it had in previous games. In games where 3rd alliance partners were more valuable, the part of alliance selection when it goes backwards(8-1) had a bigger advantage to the lower seeded alliance partners. Because of this the lower seeded alliances would gain ground on the higher seeded alliances in their second pick. (don't get me wrong, I thought Overdrive was a great game. This is simply the reason I believe that the top alliances were even more successful than usual) I do not beleive this to be a problem.

Maybe not at the regional level, but at the championship the 3rd partner is always EXTREMELY important.

On our Curie alliance all three teams hurdled and traded off defense. In this method we were able to outmaneuver defensive robots. If one robot was slowed down by defenders another took the ball.

The alliance that won Curie (67, 16, 348) won largely due to the their third robot. 348 was a ruthless defender, that could get in front of other teams and dramatically slow them down. There was just no outmaneuvering them...

The entire front end of our robot got bent in during the finals on Curie

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

[

Maybe not at the regional level, but at the championship the 3rd partner is always EXTREMELY important.

On our Curie alliance all three teams hurdled and traded off defense. In this method we were able to outmaneuver defensive robots. If one robot was slowed down by defenders another took the ball.

The alliance that won Curie (67, 16, 348) won largely due to the their third robot. 348 was a ruthless defender, that could get in front of other teams and dramatically slow them down. There was just no outmaneuvering them...

The entire front end of our robot got bent in during the finals on Curie

I have to agree with this.

Our alliance was three hurdling robots. When we were tied 1-1 in the finals on Archimedes, and had been decimated in the second match, we put a new strategy in play. Everyone was expecting us to play offense, since we had been a strong offensive player all season, so we started our robot as defense and put 1024 and 177 on offense. When the other alliance caught on that 177 was scoring, they went over to play defense on them, so we started scoring instead, and let the other robots pile up in the corner. It was a little messier than that on the field, but that's the concept that allowed our alliance to win the final Archimedes match and make it to Einstein.

On Einstein, however, the winning Curie alliance destroyed us with their defense. During the second semifinals match, I think all three of our robots were so tangled they were immobile. It was pretty frustrating standing in the alliance station, unable to do anything about the situation.

This shows that while the third alliance partner choice was great against one alliance (on Archimedes), it didn't hold up as well against another (on Einstein). Curie's alliance's third partner was also important in their strategy against our alliance. It's not all about the offensive "powerhouses", strategy is key.