OPR vs Coopertition Strategies

[Bongle]

As a guy that wrote lots of OPR stuff last year, I'll chime in.

OPR should never be used as the only scouting mechanism. It can help point out potential diamonds in the rough, as a team with a very high OPR probably has it for a reason. It can usually predict fairly well the teams that actually get into eliminations, but not a whole lot better than simply looking at the rankings.

OPR worked very well in 2008 because 2008 was a very robot-centred game with very little defense. Since there was little active defense, it was possible to score approximately the same amount of points every time you went out, which made the algorithm work better. It worked less well in 2009 because of the immense contribution (up to 50% from some scouting estimates I've heard) of human players, and the very heavy defense in the game. A robot might score 50 points one round, then 10 the next because they were pinned the whole match. 2007 was not an OPR year because of the exponential nature of the scoring. If your presence adds 5 points through whatever mechanism to the expected score of each alliance you're on, then your OPR will be 5.

1. Does anyone see any use of OPR or DPR this year? If so, how?

I think it should still be accurate. If your robot contributes points on average to the alliance it is on (whether by feeding balls to the next zone, scoring balls, hanging each time, or even just having a good strategy), then your OPR will be higher. Since the scores are linear and human players have very little to do with it, it should be more "accurate" than 2009.

That said, I reiterate that it is nothing more than the solving of a system of equations. It is just a slightly different way of looking at the scores that teams put up to try and find robots that may have just been unlucky with their teammates or opponents. If a robot is a feeder bot and you're a scorer bot, then the feeder bot will probably be a better choice than a scorer bot with a higher OPR.


To comment on the seeding setup:
-I think only extremely confident teams will be scoring for their opponents, so it shouldn't affect things too much. The very top teams will probably have OPRs lower than theoretically possible because they'll be scoring for their opponents slightly. This will slightly raise the OPRs of low-performance teams, but not too much because the elite teams' scoring-against will be spread across all of their opponents, and will only occur in matches that are turning out to be blowouts.