<G14> Shenanigans?

[johnr]

I am confused. Is this rule meant for finals only when your alliances are locked in?

[cbudrecki]

I can see how that would work much better, but I don't believe it's the intent of the rule.

[Abra Cadabra IV]

No, it appears to apply to all matches.

(Although I think it would make more sense should it only apply to the elimination rounds, given that it would be fairly easy for a weak team to get screwed over just because they had a good alliance the previous round.)

[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.

[ExarKun666]

Originally Posted by ThunderKate

<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.

Not entirely, the balls in the basket will add up to your raw score, but I can see where penalties will be hard to figure out.

[Abra Cadabra IV]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

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.

I dunno about that... it's pretty hard to keep track of how many balls are in six different bins moving randomly around the field. Even if you could, I can see teams purposely keeping their own score low until the very end of the game, which forces the opposing alliance (if they're keeping track of score) to keep their total low enough that a surprise Super Cell or a mass dumping of moon rocks could pull the losing alliance ahead in the final seconds of a match. Personally, I wouldn't risk it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there's still penalties to take into account. One overenthusiastic payload specialist throwing a Super Cell in early could bring the match score from, say, 6-10 to 6-0. Again, not something most teams want to risk.

[johnr]

I still don't get it. See if you can follow this.
match 4--you win by huge amount.
match 12-- you had huge win earlier but your new partners lost hugely earlier.
why would your new partners be penalized.
I'm slow ,forgive me. The only way i see this working is if you stay with the same partners the entire comp.

[ExarKun666]

Originally Posted by Abra Cadabra IV

I dunno about that... it's pretty hard to keep track of how many balls are in six different bins moving randomly around the field. Even if you could, I can see teams purposely keeping their own score low until the very end of the game, which forces the opposing alliance (if they're keeping track of score) to keep their total low enough that a surprise Super Cell or a mass dumping of moon rocks could pull the losing alliance ahead in the final seconds of a match. Personally, I wouldn't risk it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there's still penalties to take into account. One overenthusiastic payload specialist throwing a Super Cell in early could bring the match score from, say, 6-10 to 6-0. Again, not something most teams want to risk.

But like you said for the opposing team to keep track of the opponent's carts' and how many balls they have, and how many pts the other team has will be extremely difficult, not to mention penalties, sure you can attempt to low score it, but then it would be hard to figure out in your head how many pts you need to overtake them, penalties included, and personally I don't think a driver will concern themselves with such things, it's not a huge risk basically is what I'm saying.

[GGCO]

I don't get it either, John. Some say that it encourages more strategy, but since you don't know the score until after the match it is basically all guess work!

This rule is total "Lunacy"!

[ExarKun666]

Originally Posted by GGCO

I don't get it either, John. Some say that it encourages more strategy, but since you don't know the score until after the match it is basically all guess work!

This rule is total "Lunacy"!

My personal take on this, is the following, and you can disagree, that if you scored high, and another alliance team scored low, whomever is in the corner actually throwing the super cells will be penalized or not (ball wise depending on the team) and the other team on the side will have the same thing (either penalized or not ball wise, depending on the team)

[ATannahill]

If you look through some of the pictures either by TBA or another person, you can see their live scoring banner on a blue screen, it looks like it can hold live score. Not counting penalties of course.

direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2242118...7611844292070/

[ThunderKate]

Can you clarify ExarKun666? I am wayyyy past confused on your post.

[ExarKun666]

Well if they do count points, like last yr, electronically then make sure your team is staying ahead pt wise, but by a reasonable amount. However if they don't do it electronically as the game goes, and only calculate at the end, play safe, and play your best, if this does happen, worse thing is you don't get a super or empty cell next match.