Team update 16

[Madison]

Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

ETA: It's a good change, but the timing is obviously frustrating.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Madison

Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

Madison,

Definitely a good question, given the massive problems with Week 1 events this year and previous years. It seems like there's little incentive to attend them unless you have no other option and it's very unfair to the teams forced to attend these events. Definitely something for discussion in the off-season. Off the top of my head, some possible solutions are:

1. Reduced entry fee for week 1 events. Takes the sting out of potential problems.
2. Drastically reduced number of week 1 events (one?) so FIRST can throw all available talent at them to help them run smoothly.
3. Full-on official scrimmages on official fields in an official tournament fashion. Assuming you can find the teams to make it happen.

Or some combination of these three. But at this point it's looking more and more like something needs to be done to address the quality of week 1 events, or you're going to see an exodus of savvy teams from these events.

[qwertyuiop[]\]

Originally Posted by Madison

Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

Stupid? I wouldnt be so rash in your wording. My team, which only goes to one regional, period (no atlanta either), sees week one events as more fair because it puts us at less of a disadvantage. no other teams have had actual experience in playing the game in week one as opposed to in week six where teams are coming back for the 2nd or 3rd regional. I would call it a SMART move for smaller low budget teams that only go to one regional to go to a Week 1. we are already at enough of a disadvantage to teams that are fortunate enough to have a full scale practice field, and a second robot to practice with after ship date.

EDIT: BTW, gdc nice revision on the rules

[Coach Norm]

The coach is me likes this update very much. It brings back the strategy to both alliances. If you are willing to gamble either way, you can.

Originally Posted by qwertyuiop[]\

Stupid? I wouldnt be so rash in your wording. My team, which only goes to one regional, period (no atlanta either), sees week one events as more fair because it puts us at less of a disadvantage. no other teams have had actual experience in playing the game in week one as opposed to in week six where teams are coming back for the 2nd or 3rd regional. I would call it a SMART move for smaller low budget teams that only go to one regional to go to a Week 1. we are already at enough of a disadvantage to teams that are fortunate enough to have a full scale practice field, and a second robot to practice with after ship date.

EDIT: BTW, gdc nice revision on the rules

We are a third year team here at 2468 and we went to a first week regional last year in OKC. I have to agree that the field seemed more level since it was the first week for all teams to attend. In addition, to a young team it was very important for us to get to more than one regional so we could get more experience.

[Chuck Glick]

Thank you GDC.

You have managed to fix so much with one simple update. Teams now can see the advantages of playing 3v3 to WIN (while close to maximize points) and not 6v0 for just ranking. Also thank you for addressing the accidental 3" incursion penalties. This will help EVERYONE after watching how many teams were receiving these penalties (accidentally or due to negligence in design).



Side note: This will effectively end most 6v0 matches, but I bet we see one or two depending on what teams we see playing.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Chuck Glick

Side note: This will effectively end most 6v0 matches, but I bet we see one or two depending on what teams we see playing.

At the very least it will enlarge the points deficit threshold needed for making the decision to lock down your goals and lose big(ger).

This seems like a goodly amount of GDC-brand grease to apply to the squeaky wheel.

[Alex Cormier]

In my opinion, the update was both good and bad.

In one hand, it was great to see the GDC noticed that their system had a major flaw. In the other hand, the best time to have put out this update was before the "official" regionals start.

My team played in a week 1 regional and was a subject to every change in the update.

We were the first team to get a yellow card from G46 (match #1 of FLR), we played 6v0 matches (match 58 and 63), and we got a yellow card which turned to a red card for G30 (early Friday). Interesting how every change in this update was a little reflect of what 3181 did on the playing field. (Maybe the update should be changed to Update #3181 )

It is a horrible thing that teams pay in full for the local regional and even away regionals on week 1 and the system changes drastically after the fact. I have no problem with decreasing the amount of week 1 regionals or decrease the amount of registration or have more official week 0 events to work everything out.

I will not walk away from FIRST from this point, I truly believe in this program and I will further mentor teams in my area that need help. I have gone through this system and I love it. There just needs to be some changes.

[coldfusion1279]

Thanks GDC.

It's a shame the week 1 regionals went the way they did... but better late than never I suppose. On to week 2! (and on to different concerns with the ranking system?... I hope not)

[Akash Rastogi]

I question why we keep attending a week 1 regional.

This is barely a thank you to the GDC.

[thelittlesister]

Wish FLR wasn't week 1 but im glad GDC has found a solution! Week 1 participants were more or less the ginuea pigs for the trial, but i'm glad all the other weeks will be better...hopefully! =P Thanks!

[JesseK]

Thanks GDC. I understand the intent of the new seeding system, and sometimes even the best of intentions lead to unexpected consequences.

Madison, iirc, you have an FTC team going to Atlanta too right? We'll see ya down there (FTC1885). I'm just glad I won't miss the conferences this year.

[George A.]

I want to commend the GDC, because frankly they were going to upset people regardless of how they acted.


If they let things continue the way they had been going, we would have gone through 5 weeks of regionals, and the Championship with people outraged at the seeding system, and way the rankings were ending up. (The Bayou regional is a good testament to why they had to change it)

On the other hand, if they do change it (as they have) yes, the people playing in the week 1 regionals kind of got screwed, but they did the greatest good for the greatest number. This way at least the final 4 weeks of regionals can be played with how the game should be played.

Would it have been ideal to have this update before regionals? Yes, but in some of the scrimmages I saw, robots were struggling to move let alone score. So there was no way to really know how things would play out.

So let's give them credit, they saw an issue, made a tough decision as to whether to fix it or ride out the storm, and did what they felt was in the program's best interest. In my opinion, it should make the final weeks a bit more entertaining.

[cmh0114]

I'm also one of the people who saw no object with the 6v0 method. I wouldn't say that I liked it, but I was okay with it as a valid strategy.
Now, I don't have to worry about that! No more scoring on your opponent in order to get double seeding points, either. This will bring it so much closer to the wins/losses systems we've had in the past.
I can't wait to see how this turns out!

[Swampdude]

MUCHO RESPECT GDC!!! BRAVO!!! That's how to demonstrate good practices. I think in addition to this perhaps next season 2010 week 1 teams could elect to get a break on registration fees perhaps. This changed my whole attitude about Florida. I was almost dreading it....

[George1902]

Originally Posted by cmh0114

No more scoring on your opponent in order to get double seeding points, either.

Why not? This update didn't remove the coopertition bonus.

If I'm winning 8-2 with 30 seconds left and 2 balls to score, do I make the score 10-2 or 8-4? The former nets me a seeding score of 19 under the new rules, while the latter nets me a seeding score of 21. The incentive is still to score for the other alliance.

Vice versa, if I'm losing 2-8 with 30 seconds left and 2 balls to score, do I make the score 4-8 or 2-10? The former nets me a seeding score of 8 while the latter nets me a seeding score of 10. Once again, the incentive is still to score for the other alliance.

Can someone explain to me what is different with this update? Yes, there is a bigger reward for winning, but once the match is out of reach for one alliance, 6v0 comes back into play.