Playing two different games this year?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

I cant believe people are actually considering this. What is the point of a competition if all you are going to eliminate the competition. Now I can understand scoring for your opponent when you are up big to get some extra coopertition points, but to score only for them, come on. Why would anyone want to do this?

Yes, you may move up, but where if the satisfaction in knowing you did well to earn your position. At the end of the day, I like to see where I am ranked and think about how I got there, what I did well and what I could have done better. If I followed this strategy and was ranked #1, I would not feel accomplished, I would feel I achieved "success" by cheating the system.

I have fun before, during, and after every single match, why would someone give that up in order to get ranked higher? Qualification matches are matches you are guaranteed to play. Would I give up 10 guaranteed matches to play maybe more than 2 matches in eliminations? Never.

People complain about the ranking system in the past, FIRST tries to do something new, and instead of going along with it, people try to find ways around it, and ruin the system. This is meant to encourage high scoring by both alliances, not lopsided for one. If people wouldnt come up with things like these, I think the new ranking system may have worked.

People say the crowd will be confused when the undefeated robot is not number 1. Try explaining to them why they are watching robots scoring in the wrong goal instead of competing. Good luck.

What is teaching the kids on your team? If you dont think you can win just give up and help your opponent. Some say if their drivers wont do this they will find new drivers. Let them get new drivers, dont give up your fun in because people on your team want to win with no dignity.

If you actually try this, good luck. One of the teams on the other alliance will begin to score for you. They wont pass up this opportunity. When they score for you, you just became the losers, big time.

I will never follow this strategy, I actually enjoy playing the game.

As a disclaimer, I think the coopertition bonus is really dumb.

I think you're entirely off base here though. You ask what the point of a competition is. The point is to win. If executing a strategy that requires you to intentionally lose in order to maximize seeding points is what it takes to win, then I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

You can be sure that the GDC full well knew what they were doing when they introduced the coopertition bonus. They had to know it invited scenarios to occur where both alliances will score for only one alliance. They knew that it invalidated wins and losses.

If you know that wins and losses are unimportant, winning the match becomes irrelevant. The only thing that matters is maximizing your seeding score. There are a number of ways to do that. The system allows you to be rewarded for intentionally losing and scoring for the opposing alliance. I find this highly counter intuitive and think it will be a nightmare for the casual observer to understand, but it makes perfect sense when you consider the intent of "coopertition".

I don't see anything shameful about executing this strategy. Nor do I feel that if you seed first by doing so, you somehow didn't earn it. You still have to score the points on the field to earn the seeding points to rank first.