Lunacy Review

[Cory]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

It was better than Overdrive but it certainly wasn't a FIRST Frenzy by any shot of the imagination.

I'd rather play Overdrive or any other game with the exception of Stack Attack than Lunacy.

[AdamHeard]

Human players could put up some biiiig points without even requiring a good robot. I don't like this, the game should favor good robots.

[DustinWyke]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Human players could put up some biiiig points without even requiring a good robot. I don't like this, the game should favor good robots.

Agreed.

[jblay]

the thing is that the better performing bots won in the match no matter how good the human players. that is what made the game work out.

[EdwardP]

Also the best teams tended to be the ones like 217 and 111 who rather than use their human players ablity to shoot just had them fill hoppers up for the robot to score.

Still, I do agree human players where too involved in the game.

[s_forbes]

My favorite part about this year's game was the absence of questionable referee calls. It was great how matches with penalties were somewhat rare, as opposed to last year where penalties played a role in almost every match.

[davidalln]

At Archimedes, one of the color commentators called autonomous "a programmer's dream". But unfortunately, this year, there was no inspiration to code.

Our robot picked up two regional wins this year with code that does nothing but mapping buttons to motors and has an autonomous that moves forward.

Hopefully next year, scoring in autonomous will be an important part of strategy to the extent of Aim High.

Otherwise, I though Lunacy was an amazing game and would love to see more open-ended games in the future.

[KF987]

There are several reasons why Lunacy was not a fun and exciting game to watch and play.

Dislikes
-The surface & wheels did not allow teams to be creative & unique. Almost every team had the exact same drive trains. with the exception of those w/ swerve ect.. which didnt really give an advantage in this years game. Everyone was pushed around.

-Human Players were too involved for my taste. They should not have been allowed to throw into goals during auto. Rather only to load a robot. In some of the very close matches the balls the human players scored at the beginning of the match were often the difference. Dean always talks about how he doesn't like the fact that people make a bunch of money/succeed for throwing or bouncing a ball, why have it play such a part in one of his games?

-Having a partner who cant play the game hurts you. I feel it should be neutral. If your partner didn't show up for a match it was usually a death sentence if you were playing against three descent bots. In past years if a partner didn't show up it wouldn't hurt your alliance nearly as much. A dead trailer cost an alliance at least 26 points in auto. (13 the PS usually starts with)

-End game was boring. The only time I regularly saw a robot deliver the super cell to the trailer was when I watched 217. They had a great end game strategy. I started w/ first in 06 and since then every game had an exciting end game whether it be flying down the field last minute to get on a ramp (06,07) or placing a ball on top of an overpass. All were done by the robots not the human players like this year where they often shot the super cells.

-G14 I hope this is the only year for that.

-I was on Archimedes doing field reset on thursday and the camera man asked me what the game was so he would know what to film, he thought the point of the game was for the robots to evade the HP throwing balls in to their trailer.

-Bumper rules severely limited teams ability to design their robots to play this game.

-Defense, their needs to be a time limit a team can pin and then let their victim go. Their is a place for defense, but it can't be disable a robot for the entire match, and then not be able to get out of it because there is no traction.

-Good scoring bots could not carry an alliance this year. Having bad alliance partners killed you in quals. Where as in previous years bots could cary an alliance in quals so the bots who could score would seed high.

Likes
-GDC took away questionable referee calls that plagued the 2008 season.



*Next years game will be one the most exciting ever, because it follows Luncay. FIRST went from polar opposites, a fast paced game (Over Drive) to an extremely slow paced game in 2009

[Koko Ed]

The strategy aspect and the unpredictability factor made this game interesting to follow but the action was slow and the field cluttered with traffic jams and there was far too much going on to often follow. The game rates a C- and out of my seven years of FIRST I place it fith out of seven games.

[AlexD744]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

The strategy aspect and the unpredictability factor made this game interesting to follow but the action was slow and the field cluttered with traffic jams and there was far too much going on to often follow. The game rates a C- and out of my seven years of FIRST I place it fith out of seven games.

Let me guess 03' is at the bottom, I couldn't figure that game out when I watched a video, I still think it's which bot could knock over a ton of bin in auto, and then win. Maybe there was a bonus for ramps, I don't really know.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

Let me guess 03' is at the bottom, I couldn't figure that game out when I watched a video, I still think it's which bot could knock over a ton of bin in auto, and then win. Maybe there was a bonus for ramps, I don't really know.

2002 was my least favorite(it changed completely in the eliminations and became a boring pointless tug of war). I also realized my count was off. I've been around for eight seasons (time flies i suppose) so 2009 comes in sixth.

The list.
2004 (the robots were so athletic and amazing. Most Ohhhh/ahhh moments a FIRST game had.The game was so diverse)
2006(best game to watch)
2008(I thought it was a rather fun game to watch really. Especially when it's played well)
2003(this game was better than it got credit for it's only sin was giving way to many points for the top platform)
2007(not a bad game really but brutality at the championship showed it's flaws and the endgame was frustrating and trumped all the hard work good teams did and they could do nothing to stop it)
2009( great at strategy but boring to watch)
2005(very vanilla to be honest)
2002(bleh)

[Jared Russell]

In my 9 years...

Best
2006 - Aim High
2007 - Rack N Roll
2009 - Lunacy
2008 - Overdrive
2003 - Stack Attack
2005 - Triple Play
2004 - FIRST Frenzy
2002 - Zone Zeal
Worst

All in all I liked Lunacy a lot. I loved the changeup of not driving on carpet (though I think it is only fun when it is just that - a one year changeup). I loved the simple game dynamic of driving with a goal stuck to you. I loved the way the supercell brought excitement to the endgame (something that 2008 and 2005 really lacked). I LOVED the lack of robot penalties.

I did NOT like the fact that many of the build rules, taken together, made for very limited room for innovation. Too many robots looked the same (and if you limit your query to the subset of robots who were "elite" this season, there were basically only 3 or 4 winning designs out there). I also did not like how we chose a game piece that was almost impossible to find after kickoff (especially in the northeast).

The game itself was much more fun to play than to watch. Robots moved slowly, huge scrums were the norm, and there wasn't a lot of "wow" factor.

[Enigma's puzzle]

I personally loved the game except for the human player aspect. IMHO, if they had let you put as many balls as you could fit in your robot, and then scattered the rest accross the field it would have become incredibly robot focused, i think that would have been a better way to go. Maybe you could allow the human player to shoot super cells, but i would have been fine without human players except for as super cell administrators.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

...and there was far too much going on to often follow.

This to me is the biggest issue with this game. I have brought many non-FIRSTers to watch events this year and every one of them said that there was always a lot of chaos and it was hard to follow.

I've said this before (okay, I say it after EVERY YEAR), and I'll say it again: ever since the games went to 3 against 3, the games have been nearly impossible for casual observers to follow.

I also always propose this to the IRI powers that be: is it possible to run an hour of unofficial matches sometime during the IRI weekend as 2 vs. 2 just to see if it makes the game easier to follow? I still don't know if that's the cure, but I really would love to give it a try.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

This to me is the biggest issue with this game. I have brought many non-FIRSTers to watch events this year and every one of them said that there was always a lot of chaos and it was hard to follow.

I've said this before (okay, I say it after EVERY YEAR), and I'll say it again: ever since the games went to 3 against 3, the games have been nearly impossible for casual observers to follow.

I also always propose this to the IRI powers that be: is it possible to run an hour of unofficial matches sometime during the IRI weekend as 2 vs. 2 just to see if it makes the game easier to follow? I still don't know if that's the cure, but I really would love to give it a try.

At our little dog-and-pony offseason event, we had 2v2 playing Overdrive. To my eyes, it made the game more exciting and easy to follow, and each robot had a trackball (if it wanted it).
It should be noted that the reason we did 2v2 is we only had 16 teams and a ton of technical difficulties, but I was happy with the outcome.
That being said, I believe the reason FIRST has gone 3v3 is the sheer number of robots competing. By putting six robots on the field instead of four, the playing time increases by 50%. At an event like IRI with 72 teams, each robot may play 3 or 4 times total in a 2v2 format. For some teams, LNHS is a long way to go to play three matches.

Since it seems en vogue to do so:

2006 Best
2009
2008
2005
2007 Worst