G14 Match Impact

[SamC]

The '09 season is finally over. Over the past months we've all seen (and heard) on these forums, and in the shop, complaints and compliments on the game. One of the biggest (in my opinion and observations) complaints has been that of [the big bad?] G14

Originally Posted by The Game Rev I

<G14>CELL Count Modification –If the assigned ALLIANCE score, before penalties, for the last
non-surrogate MATCH played by the TEAM was more than twice (2x) the opposing
ALLIANCE score, before penalties, then one EMPTY CELL or SUPER CELL will be withheld
from the initial set of GAME PIECES made available to the PAYLOAD SPECIALIST for the
TEAM. If the assigned ALLIANCE score, before penalties, for the last non-surrogate
MATCH played by the TEAM was more than triple (3x) the opposing ALLIANCE score,
before penalties, then a second EMPTY CELL or SUPER CELL will be withheld from the
initial set of GAME PIECES made available to the PAYLOAD SPECIALIST for the TEAM.

The optimist (or skeptic, depending on how you look at it) in me isn't actually convinced that G14 had that big of an impact on the game as a whole. In some cases, I'm sure the added points would have been beneficial, and game changing; but for the most part, I'm sure most would agree that the teams getting G14 penalized were able to outscore the majority of the competition so as to make the super-cells pure bonus and not strategy dependent.

All that to propose an idea. I am by no means an expert programmer, but I know that this idea, in theory, is possible. What I am thinking is creating a program that does the following for any given competition

Open Match 1
	Evaluate Red-score & Blue-score for 2x & 3x Penalty
	If there is 2x OR 3x Penalty
		Get Teams on offending alliance
		Record score difference [for future statistics]
        Else -> Move on to next match
For-Each (Teams-on-offending-alliance)
	Repeat score evaluation for their next match
	If there is 2x OR 3x Penalty
		Get Teams on offending alliance
		Record score difference [for future statistics]

That structure continuing for every match played. (With more detail, obviously) Possibly collecting other random data to use for statistical analysis of the impact of G14.

I've talked to several people about this idea, all agreeing it is a somewhat large project, but would put to rest the argument of whether or not G14 "ruined" the game. So I figured I would propose the idea to the community at large. Whether or not the idea will become reality, I don't know, but the idea is out there for what it's worth.

What are your own thoughts, ideas, suggestions for settling the score of whether or not G14 did anything to change match outcomes of the masses?

[sgreco]

Your ideas seem good, I don't know if we'll ultimately find a way to figure out its total effect, but it's a good idea.

What I will say though...Regardless of how much the scores were changed by G14, the fact that teams were being discouraged from doing well, and encouraged to not try their best at certain times is unfair.

A bigger insult to a team than losing by double or triple points, is having an opponent scoring on themselves to avoid it. The rule really doesn't accomplish anything. Regardless of the effect the rule had, the idea behind the rule is just wrong. Even if it didn't have any effect, I'm still opposed to it. Let teams play to best of their ability always. It's way more fun that way.

[Bongle]

It nearly made a big difference in the GTR finals.

Match 1: 1114, 2056, and 2185 unexpectedly lose. The blue alliance can potentially seal the deal in match 2 and make for the biggest upset ever at GTR.

Match 2: Due to a simple timing mistake, 188 needlessly misses the match when the ref refuses to let them back on the field because they didn't return before the timeout expired. The blue alliance spends this match surreptitiously trying to drive up the score AGAINST themselves, hoping to deprive the red alliance of all their supercells in match 3 when the blue alliance will be back to full strength. They aren't quite successful, removing only 3 of the red alliance's special balls with a score of 119-48.

Match 3: Both teams play hard, with the final score being 97-90, and the red alliance winning by a super cell. If blue had managed to fully activate G14, this outcome may have been entirely different.

Though I guess "almost" making a difference isn't the same as actually making a difference. It certainly affected blue's strategy in match 2, though.

is having an opponent scoring on themselves to avoid it.

Teams have done this ever since your ranking score was based on the losing alliance's score. It was not a new phenomenon with G14.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by SamC

All that to propose an idea. I am by no means an expert programmer, but I know that this idea, in theory, is possible. What I am thinking is creating a program that does the following for any given competition

Open Match 1
	Evaluate Red-score & Blue-score for 2x & 3x Penalty
	If there is 2x OR 3x Penalty
		Get Teams on offending alliance
		Record score difference [for future statistics]
For-Each (Teams-on-offending-alliance)
	Repeat score evaluation for their next match
	If there is 2x OR 3x Penalty
		Get Teams on offending alliance
		Record score difference [for future statistics]

I believe something similar was suggested back during the season. The problem is obtaining data. G14 is calculated before penalties were applied. The scores in the FIRST database (and TBA) are post-penalty.

I prefer Paul Copioli's take on it: "I'll take a G14 every match, because that means I will win the tournament."

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

I believe something similar was suggested back during the season. The problem is obtaining data. G14 is calculated before penalties were applied. The scores in the FIRST database (and TBA) are post-penalty.

You can get the pre-penalty scores from twitter (frcfms) or FRC-Spy as well as the number of super cells scored.

[Chris is me]

I've said it a lot, but G14's an aspect of the game you were supposed to account for, and if you activate it, you either (a) screwed up big time or (b) it didn't matter at all. So if you lost a match because of G14, it's not "that stupid rule's fault", it's your fault.

That being said, you either didn't use the Supercell at all or you had Supercells and could choose to not throw them by watching the score. If my team could win without relying on the Supercells, we didn't try to use them.

That being said I don't think you can really measure the "impact" of G14.

[Rob]

I think that this is a pretty interesting idea. You may be right in your hunch that G14 had limited impact, but a analysis of results could show just how litte.

There is one truly unfortunate part to the whole G14 situation...Due to rematches, G14 was falsely applied across a huge number of matches in 2009.

I observed rematches where original G14 results would have been changed, but the subsequent matches that were effected by this were not replayed (that would have required almost a whole qualifying schedule to be replayed in some cases...)

I also observed teams having cells removed in a rematch based on the results of their last qualifying match (a match that was later than number in the one being replayed)

In the end, if there were matches replayed at your regional, then G14 was pretty much randomly applied through the event. This means that any analysis would only be valid for events that did not have replayed matches.

My personal opinion is that G14 was a poor idea from concept to implementation. All it really served to do was put more burden on already taxed event volunteers. Due to unforseen field problems that led to replays, it was often not even applied in the situations where it was intended.

[OScubed]

I think G14 is from last year's game and you should stop worrying about it and concentrate on building your team for next year. In real life (IE when you go to apply your engineering skills to tasks in industry) there will be constraints on all sorts of things - many of which may or may not be "fair" or even "intelligent". You must learn to either work around them or use them to your advantage - preferably a bit of both. Rules like G14 fall into the category of a learning experience. So learn from it and move on, because next year the rules will be different and there will be some other constraint you don't like. And when you get to the real world the number of constraints you DON'T like may well outnumber the ones you do

The complaints both for and against G14 are well known and I'm sure FIRST will take that into account when building next year's rule set. But since the game may be entirely different a G14 like rule might not even be appropriate. Concentrate on learning new stuff, filled with positive energy and G14 will fade into the background just like your 2nd grade math final - how many of you actually remember that?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by OScubed

I think G14 is from last year's game and you should stop worrying about it and concentrate on building your team for next year. In real life (IE when you go to apply your engineering skills to tasks in industry) there will be constraints on all sorts of things - many of which may or may not be "fair" or even "intelligent". You must learn to either work around them or use them to your advantage - preferably a bit of both. Rules like G14 fall into the category of a learning experience. So learn from it and move on, because next year the rules will be different and there will be some other constraint you don't like. And when you get to the real world the number of constraints you DON'T like may well outnumber the ones you do

The complaints both for and against G14 are well known and I'm sure FIRST will take that into account when building next year's rule set. But since the game may be entirely different a G14 like rule might not even be appropriate. Concentrate on learning new stuff, filled with positive energy and G14 will fade into the background just like your 2nd grade math final - how many of you actually remember that?

Lee, I agree teams should be focusing on what they can improve from this season I also feel that an important step if every season needs to be evaluating the game. This year the most controversial rule was G14, as a community we need to step back from the emotional cries against it and evaluate how it affected the game this year.

I think that evaluating the FRCFMS data is a start. I don't think that showing that a g14 was called is relevant. Many teams did not rely on the Super Cells, they won the old fashioned way, putting lots of balls in their opponent's trailer. We need to use the data to find what teams consistently won because of Super Cells and then find matches in which they were affected by a G14 penalty and lost. In no other circumstances does G14 actually have any effect.

The first issue is finding teams that scored super cells often. To find this you could take every single match that a super cell was scored in and then list the teams in them. Teams on this list multiple times can be assumed to have scored super cells (not 100% but should give us an idea) Then we can look at all their matches and see when they had a G14 assessed against them. This will involve going back to the previous match for all teams on their alliances and finding out if a G14 is in effect. If it is AND the alliance lost the match it can be assumed that this match MAY have been affected by G14.

[Chris is me]

It's not even that simple. You need to isolate it to teams that consistently Supercelled, AND needed two to win the next match, AND lost the match. That's even giving the benefit of the doubt that the team only converted on one side of the field.

[EricLeifermann]

That being said, you either didn't use the Supercell at all or you had Supercells and could choose to not throw them by watching the score. If my team could win without relying on the Supercells, we didn't try to use them.
.

The problem with holding your super cells at the end of the match because you were actually looking at the "real-time" scoring was the fact that scores changed so dramatically from the "real-time" score that was being showed at the end of the match that you really couldn't trust what you saw on the screen.

I absolutely agreed with Paul in the getting a G14 every match because if you get a G14 every match that means you are winning every match.

I also don't really care how G14 affected anything cause it didn't seem to affect the finals on Einstein at all.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by OScubed

I think G14 is from last year's game and you should stop worrying about it and concentrate on building your team for next year. In real life (IE when you go to apply your engineering skills to tasks in industry) there will be constraints on all sorts of things - many of which may or may not be "fair" or even "intelligent". You must learn to either work around them or use them to your advantage - preferably a bit of both. Rules like G14 fall into the category of a learning experience. So learn from it and move on, because next year the rules will be different and there will be some other constraint you don't like. And when you get to the real world the number of constraints you DON'T like may well outnumber the ones you do

The complaints both for and against G14 are well known and I'm sure FIRST will take that into account when building next year's rule set. But since the game may be entirely different a G14 like rule might not even be appropriate. Concentrate on learning new stuff, filled with positive energy and G14 will fade into the background just like your 2nd grade math final - how many of you actually remember that?

I don't really think it's a waste to do this analysis, it could potentially teach a lot of people a valuable lesson (not to make a big stink over something they don't know for sure is bad).

I'm pretty curious how much of an impact it had, because I believe it to be minimal.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

The problem with holding your super cells at the end of the match because you were actually looking at the "real-time" scoring was the fact that scores changed so dramatically from the "real-time" score that was being showed at the end of the match that you really couldn't trust what you saw on the screen.

It wasn't particularly accurate, but if it said you had a lead of roughly 20 points, you basically knew you won the match. The only time it would be a problem is in matches where the score is like 30 to 10. Matches where the RT score is 100 to 40, you know not to throw the Supercell.

Also from a coach perspective you start to figure out when the real time is messed up. Power dumpers are undercounted in general and human shots are all precise.

[Mr. Pockets]

Personally the rule didn't seem to be a massive issue in most of the matches we were involved in. Super cells were obtained so inconstantly that most matches it was lucky to get one super cell on fielded a match. As a result G14 was rarely, if ever, and issue.

Originally Posted by Chris is Me

It wasn't particularly accurate, but if it said you had a lead of roughly 20 points, you basically knew you won the match. The only time it would be a problem is in matches where the score is like 30 to 10. Matches where the RT score is 100 to 40, you know not to throw the Super cell.

Additionally if the match was close enough that the victor was in question then even if you did score a super cell G14 would be totally out of the picture.

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by OScubed

I think G14 is from last year's game and you should stop worrying about it and concentrate on building your team for next year. In real life (IE when you go to apply your engineering skills to tasks in industry) there will be constraints on all sorts of things - many of which may or may not be "fair" or even "intelligent". You must learn to either work around them or use them to your advantage - preferably a bit of both. Rules like G14 fall into the category of a learning experience. So learn from it and move on, because next year the rules will be different and there will be some other constraint you don't like. And when you get to the real world the number of constraints you DON'T like may well outnumber the ones you do

The complaints both for and against G14 are well known and I'm sure FIRST will take that into account when building next year's rule set. But since the game may be entirely different a G14 like rule might not even be appropriate. Concentrate on learning new stuff, filled with positive energy and G14 will fade into the background just like your 2nd grade math final - how many of you actually remember that?

I can't totally agree with this. While it's true it isn't worth our time to complain about things, would half the threads on Chief Delphi even exist if we didn't talk abou things that already happened?

I do, however agree, that it's not worth complaing about and just another thing we have to work around.