<G14> Shenanigans?

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Team1710

But let’s say you play against a very poor team in the beginning. Then the next round you play a very good team. Then you’re at a disadvantage.

What's to say you can't score for them? Your human player can throw moon rocks into your own trailer about as good as anybody.

[Allison]

I would really like to see lower limits on the rule. According to this say you score 2 moon rocks and they score zero that would be a score of 4 to 0 which would lead me to see a score of more than 3x. However I do not believe that this is in the spirit of the rule. Should this rule be applied on low scoring matches?

[Team1710]

Wouldn't that hinder your team's ability to show off your team's skill? That would hurt your chances in the finals.

[Gin]

This seems to be one of the strange rules that both help and hurt all teams. Its going to be interesting to see how this is going to play out.

[Chris Hibner]

I kind of like the rule, but I don't like it as is. I think there needs to be a minimum floor on the score differential.

Here is where I see a problem: let's say you have a bunch of teams that don't have their robot working yet, so none are powerhouse teams. The Red Alliance sinks one hail mary and the Blue Alliance sinks three. These are the only scores of the match.

In the above scenario, the Blue Alliance teams would lose all of their Super Cells for the next match despite their ineptitude. Also, what if you win 2-0?

Once again, I would like to see some sort of floor on this rule, like it doesn't kick in until the winning alliance scores at least 20 points (or some other number).

Hopefully there will be enough scoring where this won't be an issue, but if past competitions are any indication, this might be an issue.


Edit: Doh! Someone above posted this same thing while I was typing.

[ATannahill]

I think there should be at least 5 points between scores before it is taken into effect, If you do 4-0 you lose nothing. If you do 6-2 you lose nothing. I think this fixes all problems.

I also agree with Billfred that you can score for your opponents so this shouldn't be too big of a problem.

[nicktoptine]

Don't forget that once an empty or super cell is put onto the field that any robot can gain control of it. There are bound to be empty cells floating around the field, whether an alliance is down a couple or not. An alliance down an empty cell or two can possibly pick up the empty cells from the opposing alliance, push them through the airlock, and get all their super cells anyway. If an alliance is down a super cell, and the opposing alliance's payload specialist haphazardly throws a super cell onto the field, then any alliance can pick it up and score it.

I really like this rule for that reason. It adds another level of strategy to the gameplay. If you're against an alliance that is down a couple of super cells, do you use yours and risk that your opponents will pick them up and get your 60 (your alliance's 4 super cells) points plus their 30 (the two super cells the opposing alliance still has)? Or do you hold your super cells back and try to outscore your opponent with just moon rocks?

[M. Faticanti]

I understand FIRST's intent here but the rule does not make sense to me.

3 teams win match 1 by more than 2x < 3x. At match 6 one of those 3 winning teams plays (less one super cell via the rule) but their 2 partners in match 6 both lost their first match. Who are we penalizing??

Am I missing something here???

Could we have a match with 0 super cells. Team A won by 2x, Team B won by 3x, and Team C won by 2x, now they are all paired together in their next match. 0 super cells according to the rule.

Take it a step further, all 6 teams in say match 20 meet the above criteria = 0 super cells for both teams

More importantly, who's going to keep track of all this???

The more I think about it it still makes no sense

[markulrich]

FIRST is trying to give a "real-word" engineering experience, but this rule is just the opposite unless you're Microsoft trying to avoid Monopoly Laws. It should be modified or removed, teams learn more from failure than success, having the other team actually trying to bring your score up would just be humiliating. This is another example making the game too much about strategy.

Either putting a cap before the rule went into effect as mentioned above and/or comparing the unpenalized score of both alliances would be a good compromise.

Overall I love this year's game!

[DanDon]

Originally Posted by markulrich

This is another example making the game too much about strategy.

What's wrong about emphasizing strategy? Overdrive had practically no strategy (except hybrid and some defensive maneuvers (i.e. keepaway)). Lunacy is more like Aim High with regards to dynamic strategy, and if I recall correctly, Aim High was one of the more popular of the recent batch of games.

[Cyberphil]

What happens if by some random event, your opponent scores 0, because of penalties, or just robots not working. Than you are a hue dis advantage in the next match.

[Team1710]

Originally Posted by Cyberphil

What happens if by some random event, your opponent scores 0, because of penalties, or just robots not working. Than you are a hue dis advantage in the next match.

I highly doubt that will happen but it will be interesting if it happens.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by markulrich

FIRST is trying to give a "real-word" engineering experience, but this rule is just the opposite unless you're Microsoft trying to avoid Monopoly Laws. It should be modified or removed, teams learn more from failure than success, having the other team actually trying to bring your score up would just be humiliating. This is another example making the game too much about strategy.

Either putting a cap before the rule went into effect as mentioned above and/or comparing the unpenalized score of both alliances would be a good compromise.

Overall I love this year's game!

I couldn't have said it better. It sounds like socialism to me...

Anyways, what is the purpose of this rule? Not to make some rookie teams feel bad? It makes no sense to me. The really good alliances are going to win because they are superior, even without the supercell! The really bad alliances are going to lose because they are inferior, even with the supercells. The people who get the short end of the stick are the medium skilled alliances. If they get on a good alliance and shut the other alliance out they get gypped in their next round! If anything, it should be implemented during the final rounds. Even then I don't like it.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by GGCO

If they get on a good alliance and shut the other alliance out...

...then they have made a mistake. Their alliance should have employed a different strategy and not shut the other alliance out.

As with last years <G22> ("If you don't want to be penalized, don't break it!"), the proper response to <G14> this year seems obvious to me. If you don't want to start the next match missing a bonus option, pay attention to the score and don't win by a factor of two or more.

[ThunderKate]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

...then they have made a mistake. Their alliance should have employed a different strategy and not shut the other alliance out.

As with last years <G22> ("If you don't want to be penalized, don't break it!"), the proper response to <G14> this year seems obvious to me. If you don't want to start the next match missing a bonus option, pay attention to the score and don't win by a factor of two or more.

<G14> states that the rule is only valid during a "non-surrogate MATCH". We interpreted this as any elimination match.

And there is no way to pay attention to the score. This years scoring will not be like last years where there was live scoring. So one must guess the score.