Lunacy = Greatest Game Ever

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Agreed.

Every parent I talked to this year said they had no clue what was going on. Having 6 mobile goals and 120+ game pieces flying around everywhere is a lot more confusing than 4 balls, 4 lines and 2 bars.

Same here. It was the only game since 2000 that my grandparents actually had to ask my brother and I, "What's the point of this?"

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Every parent I talked to this year said they had no clue what was going on. Having 6 mobile goals and 120+ game pieces flying around everywhere is a lot more confusing than 4 balls, 4 lines and 2 bars.

That's why 2000 was such a great game. I'll explain the 2000 game in 4 lines:

- There's one Red Goal and one Blue Goal (for the Red Alliance and Blue Alliance). The goals are in the center of the field and don't move.

- Score balls in the goals - yellow balls are worth 1 point, black are 5 points.

- A robot hanging on the bar is worth 10 points and a robot parked on the ramp is worth 5 points.

Oops, that was only three lines.

Here's a picture to make the above description crystal clear:

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Cory

That certainly does not describe Lunacy. There has yet to be a worse game for accessibility to the public in the 9 years I have been doing FIRST.

I totally agree with Cory...
While it was sort of fun to play....

The general public had a very difficult time following the game.
Much of the time it was difficult to see who was scoring and on whom...

The movement of the Empty Cell to the loading station was almost impossible to see for the spectator unless they were watching one robot very closely...and the supercell entry was also difficult to watch.

We took our entire school to the regional and the comments I received were much more of the "what was going on?" type of comment.

They had difficulty figuring out which robots were on which teams...(even though the trailers had red and blue colored bumpers...) It was difficult to see the bumpers at times in melees...

Because the robots started from all over the field it was also difficult to figure out which robots were on which alliances...

Very difficult for spectators to appreciate the nuances of the game when teams were pinned for long periods of time... etc etc..

Even though I was not overly fond of Overdrive... it was easy to cheer for the Red Alliance when the big RED ball went over the bar...

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Cory

That certainly does not describe Lunacy. There has yet to be a worse game for accessibility to the public in the 9 years I have been doing FIRST.

I disagree. I've been talking to my classmates about FIRST for a few months, and during build season I'd mention stuff about Overdrive and Rack and Roll, and it would take people awhile to get it. Overdrive wasn't so bad, but Rack and Roll's grid system wasn't spectator friendly.

When I showed people Lunacy it was a lot simpler. I could basically say "well, it's like basketball with hoops called "trailers" behind each robot. 6 humans try to shoot balls in the trailers, and robots can either get balls from humans or pick up missed shots to score on opponents. There's a special ball that can be brought to the corner to activate a green ball worth more points". Then they'd get it.

My parents when watching Lunacy matches knew what was going on without having to ask any questions other than "what's the green ball do".

[Herodotus]

It's easy to understand basically what's going on in Lunacy, but it is very hard to actually follow the action itself. If you don't pick one robot and follow it around the whole match you are just going to get lost.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

I didn't like Lunacy for the many reasons. Before I post my reasons, I would like to make something clear: I am not trying to place blame anywhere.

1) The field flooring was way too expensive for teams, especially in this economy.
2) The availability and cost of the balls. How do you design a robot to hold 40 balls when you could only afford to buy about 10?
3) It was boring to watch - at least for me. I could hardly follow what was going on. I prefer a game where a team knows what their score is by looking on the field. Yes, the real-time scoring was there but it was not reliable.
4) Punishing teams for building good robots with the serpentine draft and taking away super cells.
5) Standard wheels for everyone.
6) There were only about 4 types of designs for a robot - BORING!
7) If a team was dead during a match, it killed the alliance. Dead driver stations and other control system issues decided many regionals.
8) Some robot rules were way over-designed and over-complicated such as the bumpers.

The outcome/good:
1) The game let teams who were nobody last year emerge as champions at regionals. But it was not because they were able to build a good robot - it was because of luck, standard robot designs, and a game that leveled the playing field for everyone.
2) The new look of the playing field was different and kind of exciting. The concept of the game is really cool and a change from the carpet was welcome. Just not for a game like Lunacy.

Overall, I cannot say that I liked Lunacy at all. In my book, it goes down as being one of the worst games ever. Sometimes I feel that the rules butcher the fun of the competing. I'm looking forward to a more exciting 2010 season.

I have the same feeling and I'm sooooo waiting for 2010. This game was a drag and I hate fridge bots. There were some impressively designed bots, but overall I was not impressed.

But I will say this game was necessary/needed when introducing so many new things to FIRST aka the Controller.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

Here's a picture to make the above description crystal clear:

And a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJFbvHRyco

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

When I showed people Lunacy it was a lot simpler. I could basically say "well, it's like basketball with hoops called "trailers" behind each robot. 6 humans try to shoot balls in the trailers, and robots can either get balls from humans or pick up missed shots to score on opponents. There's a special ball that can be brought to the corner to activate a green ball worth more points". Then they'd get it.

It's not that difficult to explain the basic premise of Lunacy. The problem is it's nearly impossible for the casual spectator to follow and extremely boring.

I find it boring watching all the matches with a 4 robot cluster stuck in one corner for 1:30. I can't imagine how boring that must seem to people who have no idea what FIRST is and have never seen a robotics competition before.

[CSideris28]

Id like to change my vote to 2000 for best game ever

[Cooley744]

As a driver, I loved it. It was very complicated and made strategy so much more fun then Rack N' Roll (just my opinion). On the other hand, the G14 overkill rule was very annoying. It discouraged teams to play to the best of their ability. In fact, I thought it was a little socialist in nature. "Let's keep everyone equal and not hurt people's feelings." <--- that's not life and after all, we are there to compete. (note, gracious proffessionalism is great, but in my opinion G14 was a little too far).

[Chris is me]

I don't like how people have interpreted G14 as punishing good play. People have decided that "good play" ought to be "score as many balls as possible in your opponents trailer". Nowhere is this the stated goal of the game. Just because people want to have the goal of score as many as possible be consequence - free doesn't mean it's punishing good play; on the contrary, it's punishing those who don't know of the rule's existence and try to circumvent it.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I don't like how people have interpreted G14 as punishing good play. People have decided that "good play" ought to be "score as many balls as possible in your opponents trailer". Nowhere is this the stated goal of the game.

Maybe I'm missing your point, but:

From 7.1 in the rule book: The object of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponent by placing the GAME PIECES in the TRAILERS hitched to the opposing ALLIANCE’S ROBOTS.

I think 'trying to score as many balls as possible' is certianly a way to attain a higher score than your opponent.

[Chris is me]

Man I have a bad habit of making mistaken posts that get corrected by you, huh :/

Well, my point is more along the lines of "it's part of the game so by trigerring it, you're _not_ playing well regardless if you want to be or not".

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Man I have a bad habit of making mistaken posts that get corrected by you, huh :/

Well, my point is more along the lines of "it's part of the game so by trigerring it, you're _not_ playing well regardless if you want to be or not".

I believe this is only the 1st time I 'corrected' you as the first time was more of a difference of opinion....I could be wrong though.

Anyway, I see your point. A team complaining about having a G-14 against them is like saying a certian football team 'would be amazing, if they had a quarterback'. In both examples, the teams brought the disadvantage on themselves (Scoring more than 2X their opponent and not signing Garcia in 2006).

In my opinion G-14 has been way over-blown. What percentage of matches were really determined by it? How much did it really prevent FIRST from achieving its goals?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

In my opinion G-14 has been way over-blown. What percentage of matches were really determined by it? How much did it really prevent FIRST from achieving its goals?

I cannot give you that data but I can show you how many matches caused a G14 to be called. From here you can determine if it is even worth looking at its affect.

I have attached 5 images (apparently you can only attach 5 files to a post, go figure) They are just some quick little graphics I tossed together. Each circle represents a match on the specified field. A red circle is a red win and a blue circle is a blue win. The intensity of the circles show how much the win was by, an intense blue means blue blew out red. A green dot denotes that a g14 penalty was assessed against the winning team (based purely on score, I assumed penalties were nonexistent just for the sake of having a quick program.)

Look at the occurrence of green dots and decide if G14 even had enough of an impact to warrant discussion. (And remember, they are just dots)

(I do have an image generated for all the regionals, these are based on the FRCFMS data so your mileage may vary, and these are available should anyone want them.)

EDIT: Anyone who has any suggestions on how to make the images more useful feel free to PM me.