Game design /w surface leveling the competition?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

In previous years a dead robot was something that a team could overcome, this year it's a death sentence.

People, make sure your partners can move and have autonomous ... else you risk an inevitable loss.

It's not quite a death sentence (at the regional level) always, although it is incredibly hard to overcome. Wise defense and quick scoring allowed for some of the top teams to win a qualification match or two (albeit closely) with a dead or almost dead partner. 2199, 1727, and 836 even managed to sneak out a QF match victory when 1727 lost drive power. They needed a penalty to do it, but the fact that 1727's trailer was essentially full forced the other alliance to score on the other bots. Most importantly, because 1727 was stuck, it became painfully obvious where the other alliance was going to score, so their alliance reacted properly and scored on the bots scoring on 1727.

As for leveling the field, yes and no. It's not so much a leveling the field effect as it just made making a dominant bot that much harder for everyone. The top level teams have been sunk down, so they are no longer immortal, but the bottom level has also fallen and often provides easy targets for the elite teams to feast upon.

The statement that rings the most true is that each alliance is only as strong as its worst member (assuming the other alliance isn't blinded by the strength of their good bots, which is often the case, and doesn't strategize properly). If the alliance has one bad bot, they will get eaten alive. If an alliance has three quality machines, they can make life difficult for the top teams, although not always beat them.