Breakaway Discussion

[Dillon Compton]

Originally Posted by Jane n Mike

Or to take a rather more extreme case, would there be any problem with two strong opposing alliances agreeing to engineer a high-scoring tie, under which each alliance would earn triple seeding points? This is clearly the strategy under which the two "opposing" alliances could jointly maximize their seeding points.

This will never happen. Let us suppose we have two dream teams on the field, they maximize scoring during autonomous and teleoperated modes, and both enter the last 20 or 30 seconds of game time with 30 points on the board and no penalties to confuse the matter.

Sure, both teams could be content with 30 points and be happy that this match was very beneficial for their rankings, but it is now incredibly advantageous for both teams to try to score at least one point more than their opponents. Let me present two scenarios:

1.) both alliances stick to the agreed upon terms. Each alliance ends the match with 30 points and each team receives 30 seeding points. Everybody is happy, right... wrong! because one of their team members points out later that if they had done....

2.) Red alliance trusts the blue alliance and didn't crunch the numbers, so they stop scoring at 30 points and wait for the match to end. One of the blue alliance coaches crunched some numbers during the match, and, at the last second has his driver score one last ball, resulting in a match score of Red 30, Blue 31. The Red alliance did well for themselves and they receive 31 seeding points- the match score of the Blue alliance. The Blue alliance, however, receives a whopping 91 seeding points - their match score, plus a coopertition bonus equal to twice the match score of the loosing alliance.



See? I think we all know how that would go - and it's a good thing! It will encourage fierce competition, especially between top-tier teams. Interestingly, I think this new ranking structure will result in a general surpression (but not elimination) of defensive activity during the qualifying matches (you want to make sure you win, but only just barely), and then a massive upwelling of defensive games during the elimination matches.