Am I the only one who LOVED the seeding system this year?

[hektormagee]

Originally Posted by IKE

There is still a mathematical and motivational disconnect with the seeding system.

Your seeding score must be based on your alliances score in order to have you motivated to do well.

Case in point: Archimedes. Going into the match Team 33 had the #1 seeding score (the eventual event #2) going against team #254 the eventual event #1. The only team that could contest this position lost a match before us. We could have done a 6v0 or even sandbagged the match in order to ensure we kept the lead (anything less than us scoring 13 pts. and loosing). This match had a great set of teams and had the potential of being spectacular. We knew this, and our opponents knew this. We made a conscious decision that rather than throw the match, we would go for it. then end result was a spectacular 20 to 18 defeat that catapulted 254 into the lead. This set the new seeding record of 61 points. For us, a 22 to 0 defeat would have been much better with us blocking shots on our goal likely playing against the entire other alliance and one of our partners that had a vested interest in our opponents doing well. That's what I don't like about this seeding system.


In order to get the same benefits, they could have done:

Winners Seeding= Winners points + 2* loosers points + C
Losers Seeding= 2*loosers points.

This would have had all the benefits and not given the incentive to do a 6v0.

Do we regret Qualifier Match 119? Heck no. We had spent two days getting one of our alliance partners ready for the Battle Royal, and it was arguably the greatest match of the year. 20 to 18 with 4 bots off the floor and the last 2 points scored in the final 10 seconds! It was spectacular. Great job 254, 330, and 45 and thanks to our partners 233, and 1111 for helping put on a great show!

And that is one of the reasons I am not in love with this seeding system.

Agreed. The only thing that I do not like about the seeding system is that the loosing alliance is not accredited for their own scores. I'm going to add a little bit to the proposed scoring system:

Winners Seeding= Winners points + losers points + 2*difference in score
Losers Seeding= 2*losers points.

My major gripe with the system was when a match had many semi-heavyweights, and the scores were close because everyone thought they could win the match, the seeding scores were high. when there was A heavyweight or two going on an alliance, they would sandbag the match and the match where the two heavyweights should have gotten much more qualifying points then the semi-heavyweights.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Why shouldn't the LOSING alliance get a proportional benefit to the closeness of the match?

Hence Winners = W+2L
and losers = 2L

For the example I gave, this switches it from a 61 vs. 20 seeding score to a 56: 36. It still pays dividends to win, but isn't quite as bad to loose a close high scoring one.

Also if you win 20:2 then winners get 24, losers get 4. instead of 24 & 20 respectively.

As I tell the kids, DO THE MATH!

[Nathan Streeter]

Yeah, to be honest, I also prefer this new seeding system over the w-l-t system. The only thing that I would like to see change is that the winner should only get the same amount for a goal in the loser as in the winner... a ball in the opponent's goal is worth twice as much as in your own goal! So, I'd recommend changing this by either:

Winner: 2W + 2L
Tie: 1W + 1L
Loser: 1W

Winner: 1W + 1L + 10
Tie: 1W + 1L
Loser: 1W

I'd actually prefer the first option, as it would make the winner's advantage over the loser and tie proportional to the level of play at the tournament... Just my thoughts!

[Tom Ore]

The seeding system does seem to help the best teams rise to the top, however, there still seems to be a quite a bit of luck involved. In the 16 - 20 match, team 67 won and moved into 2nd place (which they really deserved.) If our alliance had won (with the luck of a few balls bouncing in our favor,) we might have had a much higher seed than maybe we deserved, and team 67 would have been left much lower.

I like the concept of the seeding system but it seems a bit too sensitive to the match outcomes.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by hektormagee

Winners Seeding= Winners points + losers points + 2*difference in score
Losers Seeding= 2*losers points.

.

The issue with this is system would be that you are rewarded for driving down the other guys score. Defense guys will love this system, but Offense guys will hate it. Anytime difference is added into the system, the net results will be more defense unless scoring 1 point is significantly easier than stopping someone from scoring a point.

[kgzak]

I liked the seeding system this year but I was not in love with it. Losing teams should get more credit for losing. I really don't like 6v0. At MSC one of the other teams wanted to go 6v0 and I (along with most of my team) refused. If the losing team is rewarded more for their fight. The match our alliance wanted to go 6v0 was against 469 201 and 2612. Had we not gotten all the dogma penalties it would have been a fairly close match and if we had been rewarded for fighting we may have been ranked higher and that might have affected what we did with our robot (we made a lot of changes at MSC)

Sorry that is very poorly put together but I am tired, If you need me to clarify please ask.

[LWakefield]

I didn't really like the seeding points this year. It helped us a MSC, but it screwed us over at Atlanta. Luck has a lot more to do with where you seed. It depends on who you go against.

[Racer26]

What if you did something like:

Win: W+2L+C
Lose: (1/(W-L) * L)+ L + W
Ties: 3T

This way:

A 20-2 match gives 29 SS to the winner, 22.1 SS to the loser, and a 20-18 match gives 61 SS to the winner, and 47 SS to the loser.

Yes, a match won or lost by 1 point results in the C element being the only difference. I think this is a good thing.

[Starke]

To echo what has been said, I like the seeing point system. It is a good way to keep the best teams somewhere near the top.

THE PROBLEM with the seeding system is that no other sport does it that way. To the outside public, it is seen as very confusing when compared to a WLT record. I had a tougher time describing the POINT SYSTEM to outsiders this year then the GAME ITSELF!

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

What if you did something like:

Win: W+2L+C
Lose: (1/(W-L) * L)+ L + W

This way:

A 20-2 match gives 29 SS to the winner, 22.1 SS to the loser, and a 20-18 match gives 61 SS to the winner, and 47 SS to the loser.

A 18 point difference from the winner and the loser gets a 7 point SS difference? I agree with most of the earlier ideas that winner's points should not get included in the loser's SS.

If there's a 20-2 match, I say the alliance that only scored 2 deserves only 4 seeding points even if it means a 25 SS difference, since it isn't fair for a horrible alliance to get a big boost in seeding just because they got caught against 3 powerhouses.

With a 20-18 game, it was a narrow defeat, so I'm fine with the loser getting a nice big boost in seeding (36 loser points vs. 61 winner points. Makes much more sense than 18 vs. 61

Alternatively, what if the score difference subtracted from seeding points, such as this formula (winner remains same as current)
loser: (2*L)-(Difference/2) (nothing below zero)

[efoote868]

Rather than editing my post, I'd like to clarify:

20-16 means more points than 33-0.
Also, whats more degrading: A shut-out of 15-0, or your opponents scoring for you for a score of 10-5? (Not sure if that happened this year, but it was a common occurrence in 2006).


I also dislike the fact that this scoring system makes it better to win by penalties than to out-right win.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I interpret that as proof that it works. If only one team on each alliance were elims caliber and that match happened, I would be very dissapointed, but as you said, every team in that match was very good.

I think the losing alliance should have got more QP's.

[Chexposito]

I liked the system. I don't like the teams who did not get the system and played defense. They made it a clear goal to point out that defense was not the way to go, until finals.

[Cuyir]

I agree that the system worked fairly well, though I would have preferred a bigger bonus be given to the losing teams in the closer games.

One other thing I didn't really like was that it is basically pointless to play defense, especially if you know you're going to lose the game. This makes it nearly impossible for defensive bots to gain a high seed unless they switch to playing offense. Take 294 - they were #1 seed in Newton division, but I believe they told us they prefered to play more defensively from the far zone. They had to use a completely different strategy to gain that seeding spot than one they wanted to use in the elimination rounds. This problem was worse for weaker bots: they could play defensive and hope they were noticed by the scouters on a high seeded team or switch to offense and hope they could get some seeding points.

[Don Wright]

The seeding system hurt us sometimes, and helped us sometimes. But, I will say, that without a doubt, it did it's job. I've never seen a system where at the end of qualifications, the top 8 were as proper as they were this year. And I think this is proven by the large number of inner top-8 picks I saw at the events I attended.

I think the problem with the seeding system was the way it was worded...because people still don't get it (as proven by many posts above). There are no winners/losers in qualifications. Only points. So...it should have read something like this:

"There are four goals...two red, two blue. Robots score balls into these goals and points are added to the red score, or blue score based on the goal color. Robots are encouraged to score in either goal to try and get as many seeding points as possible. Various strategies and coopertition efforts are expected (and encouraged) to get the best seeding scores based on the strengths and weaknesses of all robots playing in that round. Seeding points are given as follows:

- Which ever color goals receives more balls, all robots on the field get a seeding score equal to the number of balls scored.

- The similar color alliance will receive two bonuses: 5 points for getting more balls + 2 times the number of balls in the other color goals.

- The other color alliance will receive no bonus.

- If there is a tie for the number of balls scored in the red goal and blue goal (with alliance penalties deducted), each robot receives 3 x the score.

- Point penalties are then assessed to each alliance, if appropriate."

Or something like that...