Did Lunacy really level the playing field?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

2753 may have been the 3rd bot, but they could have easily been in the top 8 (I think it's been beat to death that the top 8 hardly ever truly represents the true top 8 robots.). They were by far one of the best scorers on Archimedes. The fact that 2753 was still around midway into the second round is absurd.

Yup, I believe several people have said their scouting data showed them to be #2 in scoring on Archimedes.

[Michael Corsetto]

Maybe 2009 was the year of upsets? Such as 71 and 1114 losing in the quarterfinals, or 968 getting pinned and losing in the Semi's. I realize every year has upsets, but examples like these are pretty shocking to me.

More so than previous years, I think veteran teams' advantage came not from their robot but from their strategy. 217 this year stands out to me in this regard. It is fair to say that Lunacy was won by the dumpers, but 217, a turreted shooter, strategized the heck out of every match and had one of the most successful seasons in FIRST history. So maybe, as far as robot design is concerned, the playing field was leveled, but thats not all it takes to win. Powerhouse teams recognized better than most that strategy (and driver training) was incredibly important, and were able to develop superior game plans to get the W.

[waialua359]

I think the larger indirect issue is that teams dont play enough matches to effectively evaluate and scout other teams in their division uniformly, consistently, and thoroughly. **No pun intended about the current 7 matches played as I understand about the logitics, cost, time constraints, etc.**
Its not like every team comes on CD or the FIRST forums frequently either to hear and observe other teams in other areas.
As one of the scouters for our team, its tough to evaluate 86 teams and sometimes all you have besides what you know/heard/seen on telecasts, is who you played with or against all weekend.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Maybe 2009 was the year of upsets? Such as 71 and 1114 losing in the quarterfinals, or 968 getting pinned and losing in the Semi's. I realize every year has upsets, but examples like these are pretty shocking to me.

More so than previous years, I think veteran teams' advantage came not from their robot but from their strategy. 217 this year stands out to me in this regard. It is fair to say that Lunacy was won by the dumpers, but 217, a turreted shooter, strategized the heck out of every match and had one of the most successful seasons in FIRST history. So maybe, as far as robot design is concerned, the playing field was leveled, but thats not all it takes to win. Powerhouse teams recognized better than most that strategy (and driver training) was incredibly important, and were able to develop superior game plans to get the W.

At the same time, with all the practice and stategizing, these teams have a big target on their back and strategies from opposing alliances will certainly be focused on them somehow.

[Chris is me]

1114's an interesting example. They were upset in the quarters of Midwest by some pretty great defensive teams, and in the semis of Archimedes by a high scoring alliance. Their robot certainly wasn't bad by any means. It seems that this is a game where any alliance could potentially be beaten, any strategy has a counter basically. And the teams that did the most well were the ones that could best form an alliance that covered weaknesses and had diverse styles of scoring and play. I haven't watched (m)any of 1114's matches, but they're proof that one great machine and team can't win matches alone, and no matter how great an alliance is you can be outplayed.

This is drifting off topic, but it seems the best strategies (and robots) are the ones that are hardest to work around. Robots with extremely fast shooters (ThunderChickens) or power dumpers that could get dozens of balls in seconds punish mistakes; robots with high capacity but slower shooters and dumpers won't be able to capitalize on a bad move by the opponent's as easily; I think this was the downfall for many shooter oriented designs.

(oh if you were wondering this was why i asked teams how many balls per second you could fire)

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

2753 may have been the 3rd bot, but they could have easily been in the top 8 (I think it's been beat to death that the top 8 hardly ever truly represents the true top 8 robots.). They were by far one of the best scorers on Archimedes. The fact that 2753 was still around midway into the second round is absurd.

I wasn't saying that they weren't one of the best bots either. I was more of saying that it wasn't suddenly a rookie bot was the absolute best in a division because of the FRP flooring.
I agree that it was absurd that 2753 fell to where they did when we were projected them significantly higher. But anyone who watched their run through Archimedes will tell you it was all three bots that caused that to play out the way it did, not any one individually.

And I don't think there were really a whole lot more "upsets" this year than any other year (other than 2008, which was mostly upset free until IRI). Look at any previous Championship and you'll see a number of upsets. 1114, 469, and 1523 in 2007 (or the fact the 2007 champs were a #8 seed). 79, 469, 222 in 2006. 118, 229, 312 in 2005. And perhaps the biggest off all, 60, 33, and 1241 in 2004.

[Steven Sigley]

Originally Posted by EricH

The more options you have, the more challenge you have--and a low-resource team can determine what they can and can't do and do what they can just as fast and as well as a veteran who can do more, but has a harder time deciding what to do because they have the extra freedom.

Just like Rack n Roll: you do ramps, you do defense, or you do scorer, and if you're veteran try both.

[Akash Rastogi]

Do people want the field leveled?

Why?

How would you do it?

Don't answer any of these on here because they've been beaten to death in other threads.

If Dave says that the GDC had no intent of leveling the field, then that's good by me. I do remember hearing that specific phrase used as well though. Will have to dig through to find out where.

I for one don't want anything "leveled." This is a real competition environment and I'd like to keep it that way, regardless of team capabilities, money, blah, blah, and blah. This is my honest opinion and not my team's: If people want a "leveled" and "fair" competition, step down to a lower field like VRC or FRC overall. IF that sounds mean/whatnot, PM me.

[Thermal]

FRP Glassliner doesn't level the playing field, nor was it ever intended to do so.

[waialua359]

I'll go out on a limb and say that the FRP Glassliner didnt level the playing field, but instead limited what veteran teams either did in the past, wanted to continue doing, and/or what they wished they could do because of their capabilities.

[hillale]

I'm fairly confident in the ability to factually say that the FRP actually made the playing field kind of bumpy, in a small, consistent fashion across the "crater." The levelness of the field in relation to what? Tangent to the Earth's surface?

On a more serious note, I think that the game challenge every year is to drive teams to innovate and strive to better play the game. I know that we never stop thinking of ideas to make our bots better and more efficient. Leveling the playing field should be the last thing that the game should try and do. Making every team equal (leveling the playing field) sounds kind of like socialism, and with the human thought process and flaws, it just doesn't work.

[GaryVoshol]

You cannot point to any one individual team and say their results this year proved or disproved any "leveling" concept. Teams change from year to year all on their own. Case in point, a couple years ago we got down to the final pick by the #1 alliance at GLR. I suddenly realized that two unpicked teams still on the sidelines had been on the Einstein winning alliance the previous year. At least one of them wasn't going to be in the finals at GLR.

How teams adapt to the challenges given each year by the GDC determines whether teams are a perennial powerhouse or a one-flash wonder. Or anywhere in between.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

217 this year stands out to me in this regard. It is fair to say that Lunacy was won by the dumpers, but 217, a turreted shooter, strategized the heck out of every match and had one of the most successful seasons in FIRST history.

I just want to correct this statement. While 217 certainly played with great strategy all year, it really was their ROBOT that was so good.

There's a very common misconception this year: DUMPER = GOOD, SHOOTER = BAD. This is very far from the truth (at least the whole truth). The REAL maxim this year should be: HIGH THROUGHPUT = GOOD, LOW THROUGHPUT = BAD.

The reason why the turreted shooters got a bad rep is that very few teams built a turreted shooter with high throughput. 217 was an exception (as was 1114 and a few others). 217 could unload 20 balls (er, moon rocks) in about 3-4 seconds - very dumper-like throughput levels. What made 217's ROBOT so great is that they could unload as fast as any dumper, but they had the turret so they didn't have to be well aligned. THAT is what made 217 so deadly - they didn't have to hunt someone down and pin them with perfect alignment to score. Their turret allowed them to score while chasing or when they were in an otherwise poor orientation, while us dumpers had to be sure the planets were properly aligned. Heck, I've seen 217 score when they themselves were being pinned. It was a truly impressive machine.

[Chris is me]

217 certainly did shooters right. They basically maximized on all of the advantages of a shooter design while eliminating the disadvantages with sheer speed. And that "shoot over robot that is pinning us" trick was one of the things that made me go "man I wish I thought of that!".
at least we got the speed part down
Meanwhile, other well-built robots with high capacity that could only shoot 1-3 balls per second did not do as well, "giving shooters a bad name". The ones that could needed a pinning partner or extreme mobility to go in, get a few balls in at a time, then leave.

By the end of the season I just ended up calling all of the fast shooters "turreted dumpers", as that's really how they acted.

[sgreco]

Just to add to the shooter discussion, 217, 1114, 1771, 1717, 188 and 40 could all pretty much compete with the best all types of robots.

If I could do the game over again I'd build a power dumper, but there is nothing wrong with shooters.