Week 1

[Chuck Glick]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Winning doesn't matter until the final eliminations.

This baffles and quite frankly upsets me. After reading the rules over and over I have come to see that it is more beneficial to just sit still on the field and purposely lose every match in order to be ranked higher. Where is the "spark" to make winning the match worth it now? Why are we rewarding mediocre play and condemning teams who perform well match after match. The GDC should have a serious re-look at this rule as I believe that it is completely backwards. Teams should be rewarded for performing well. The system should be based off of wins and losses, THEN match points, not match points alone.


Here's what I've taken from this. Want to be ranked #1 at the end of quals? Go out every match and fill your opponents goal. Lose by a HUGE margin AND take as many penalties as you can. Guarantee that you get the max seed points. If your opponents can't move, pick a goal and keep filling it. The larger the margin the better, it doesn't matter as long as there is a big deficit. This ranking system is promoting poor play.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chuck Glick

This baffles and quite frankly upsets me. After reading the rules over and over I have come to see that it is more beneficial to just sit still on the field and purposely lose every match in order to be ranked higher. Where is the "spark" to make winning the match worth it now? Why are we rewarding mediocre play and condemning teams who perform well match after match. The GDC should have a serious re-look at this rule as I believe that it is completely backwards. Teams should be rewarded for performing well. The system should be based off of wins and losses, THEN match points, not match points alone.

But what about the teams who don't score at all?- (The GDC's opinion based on the rules and what they have said)

[Timz3082]

Originally Posted by Chuck Glick

This baffles and quite frankly upsets me. After reading the rules over and over I have come to see that it is more beneficial to just sit still on the field and purposely lose every match in order to be ranked higher. Where is the "spark" to make winning the match worth it now? Why are we rewarding mediocre play and condemning teams who perform well match after match. The GDC should have a serious re-look at this rule as I believe that it is completely backwards. Teams should be rewarded for performing well. The system should be based off of wins and losses, THEN match points, not match points alone.

It does not however help the winning seed higher by the opposing alliance scoring zero. It is in the best interest for both teams to have high scores in order to seed highly. ( if an alliance is winning and the other has zero it would be best to score on the opposing alliance to get more seeding points) The gdc does not reward mediocrity as much as you think but you do have a point that they should still count win/loss into the seeding score (even if it was +5pts per win).

[IndySam]

I agree totally Chuck. I was pissed the second I read the ranking rules.

Dean's original intent was to create a sports like atmosphere and these rules have created something like a preschool soccer match where they don't keep score.

Winning isn't the most important thing but it does need to have meaning.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Chuck Glick

This baffles and quite frankly upsets me. After reading the rules over and over I have come to see that it is more beneficial to just sit still on the field and purposely lose every match in order to be ranked higher. Where is the "spark" to make winning the match worth it now? Why are we rewarding mediocre play and condemning teams who perform well match after match. The GDC should have a serious re-look at this rule as I believe that it is completely backwards. Teams should be rewarded for performing well. The system should be based off of wins and losses, THEN match points, not match points alone.

If both alliances did this, you'd be in a pretty bad place with both of you ending up with a seeding score of 0.

It's designed to make both alliances play all out offense. Don't bug them, they don't bug you, it's as close to 2001 (4v0) as you can get and still have two opposing alliances on the field.

Art is right, playing defense is just silly. It's not in your interest as an alliance, win or lose! You'll get fewer points if you win (lower coopertition bonus) and fewer points if you lose (you get the winner's score). It matters in a close match, but IMHO that's a very hard line to drive along. It'd be safer to just go all out offense (again, my opinion).

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by IndySam

I agree totally Chuck. I was pissed the second I read the ranking rules.

Dean's original intent was to create a sports like atmosphere and these rules have created something like a preschool soccer match where they don't keep score.

Winning isn't the most important thing but it does need to have meaning.

Unfortunately after nearly 20 years of FIRST being a competitive outlet for those interested in engineering they are trying to change that... BAD IDEA. My grandfather plans to write Dean Kamen about how those who build good robots should not be hurt because other teams don't do well.

[Chuck Glick]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

It's designed to make both alliances play all out offense. Don't bug them, they don't bug you, it's as close to 2001 (4v0) as you can get and still have two opposing alliances on the field.

This is fine in theory, except for the fact that only few people actually READ and UNDERSTAND the manual. There are several posts now from people who don't understand why they moved up in rankings even though they got blown out in their last match. This is inexcusable. The GDC doesn't want people to "lawyer" the rules, but things like this are what make us have to.

[commodoredl]

It is still very difficult to break the mentality of "must win" in a match. The idea that you can lose 9-0 and suddenly be 5 places higher in the standings is completely backwards, in my opinion, and having to explain to your teammates that it was "good" to have been blown out just causes confusion.
There is at least one team in the top 10 in our regional that has no place being there.
Seeding complaints aside, the strategy evolution is interesting, to say the least.
Like I said, it's difficult to break the mentality of needing to win in the match. In our second match, we were behind 2-1, and I originally told our robot to play defense on the other robot so that we could pull ahead. The defense isn't really the issue here, it's more that many teams are playing ineffectively. If your midfielders/defenders aren't able to cross zones and can't effectively pass balls forward, you will be dead in the water not getting any balls. Our team has had to transition zones much more than we anticipated during matches, just because we had to accommodate our alliance's needs.

[funggiss]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Ball posession is EVERYTHING. Even if you don't have a kicker, possessing balls and being able to maneuver consistently with a ball in tow triples the amount of points you'll get. With only a few balls ever accessible, everything you can do to make this number higher is necessary.

Hanging is really, really nice to have.

and we have hanging and the most consistent own 6/6 attempts

and we have a vac but we need to be more aggressive with getting the ball

[funggiss]

going over the bump is really a must have good thing we can do it well

[XaulZan11]

Before we bring the torches to FIRST's headcourters, let's remember that the previous system was not perfect either. You could have a team that didn't make it on the field earn 2 ranking points if they had good partners. There were always teams in the top 8 that were not one of the best 8 teams. Also, there are still 3 or 4 more matches tommorrow that will help reduce some of the variability and improve the rankings.

I do think this system isn't the best, but the last system wasn't perfect either. The only thing we can do now is just work within the system. Next week when my team plays, you can bet we will only be focused on scoring; no defense (until the elmination rounds...).

[Doc Wu]

Originally Posted by Chuck Glick

This is fine in theory, except for the fact that only few people actually READ and UNDERSTAND the manual. There are several posts now from people who don't understand why they moved up in rankings even though they got blown out in their last match. This is inexcusable. The GDC doesn't want people to "lawyer" the rules, but things like this are what make us have to.

We're seeing a number of teams that haven't even got a fully functioning robot yet. They're struggling to make that work, not understand some esoteric rules that make no sense.

Even teams that are fully functioning and understand the "coopertition" and excessive penalties, want to win. It's human nature to want to win. Try telling your teenage drivers to stop scoring and let the other alliance catch up.

Plus, it's confusing to spectators who are struggling to understand the game that we've had seven weeks to figure out. How do we sell a game to the public where winning is a secondary goal?

I liked the mechanics of this years game, but the rules have spoiled it for me. It may get corrected somewhat after the first week, but how fair is that to those who play in the first week of regionals?

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Doc Wu

Try telling your teenage drivers to stop scoring and let the other alliance catch up.

I will not be telling them to stop scoring, I will either be telling them to stop defending or to turn around and score for the opponent.

It definitely does NOT benefit your alliance to stop scoring at any point.

This is the coach's job, and if my teenage driver's don't want to listen to me during the match then I will go find some new driver's and see if they're any better.

[Chuck Glick]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

I will not be telling them to stop scoring, I will either be telling them to stop defending or to turn around and score for the opponent.

It definitely does NOT benefit your alliance to stop scoring at any point.

This is the coach's job, and if my teenage driver's don't want to listen to me during the match then I will go find some new driver's and see if they're any better.

I am just going to tell my alliance to score in their goals at will. Hopefully the mass amount of balls will rack up a few DOGMA penalties and get me more seed points.

[Doug G]

Based on just penalized scoring points only, we found that about half of the top 20 teams at our regional are misplaced. We have about 10 teams that are ranked pretty high by our scouting system, yet have a very low FIRST ranking. SCOUTING is key here folks. If you don't have a good scouting system in place get one!!! We just finished our beta test on our DS scouting system and the database and it really, really, shows some major discrepencies. Assuming you want offensive robot rankings (not always necessary in elims).