[FAF] - June 28, 2013 - Game Design Committee

[Tetraman]

I love hearing more about the GDC every time I can, but this is just basic stuff that I already assumed so I didn't gain anything from it.

But the fact of the matter is this is a bad year to bring up the question that this team/individual had. How about Rebound Rumble where having to balance robots on the alliance bridge was (not always but usually) paramount to winning a match.

Of course YES it depended a lot on the event you were at, but the truth is that the Pyramid Climb above 10 points was...well...not worth it from a game-play point of view. It reminded me of 2005, where trying to make as many scattered tic-tac-toe rows was not as key than making two rows and protecting them while spending the rest of your time scoring a ton of 3 pointers.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by inkling16

Sometimes, when looking at a complaint about scoring values, it is useful to look at the team's context. Team 3289 competed at the Utah regional, they went 10-4 overall. The lost one qual match to the Hawaiian Kids (enough said, you guys are awesome). In their other 3 losing matches, they played against 1891, the best high-level climber there.

Believe me, I know how it feels to lose matches because there are other robots that can do things that your robot cannot, it stinks. Afterward, all that I think is what ifs.
What if we had spent our time designing a minibot deployment system.
What if we had had different wheels so that we could balance more easily.
What if we had built a climber instead of a floor pick-up device.

I can definitely see what you mean. This year my team competed in 2 competitions so far: the Boston Regional and Beantown Blitz.* At the Boston regional, we played a qualification match, a replay of that match, and 3 semifinal matches against 3173, a fcs. We won the 2 qualification matches because 3173 was broken, and then we won the first semifinal match, but then they beat us twice. At Beantown Blitz we played 195, a fcs, 4 times: 2 qualification matches and 2 quarterfinal matches. We lost to them 4 times. After seeing this, members of my team compared the simplicity of 3173 and 195 to our relatively complex floor pickup robot, and it began to seem like we made a bad design choice. We weren't angry at anybody because of it, but I can see why the asker might have needed someone to place the blame on.

*We attended the WPI regional, but it would be a big stretch to say that we competed in it.

Originally Posted by inkling16

This is the one statement that I have trouble with:

["If the side events score is decreased, maybe we can get back to all-around robots vs. specialized 'point bots'."]

Personally, I would much rather see 10 FCSs, 10 ground pick-up bots, 10 3rd-level climbers, 10 cyclers, and 10 defenders that are all specialized than 50 all-around so-so robots when I go to a competition. Then, when we all play, it will become apparent what the strongest strategy is. Engineering is optimizing and trade-offs. FRC is the same. Choose the best strategy that your team can manage, then optimize until you run out of ideas, brainstorm some more, and optimize again. If the GDC wanted, they could make games where only one thing happens, and we would all become excellent at optimizing. But they don't, because they want us to make trade-offs.

I hope the best for you guys, 3289. You appear to have done well this year. My one suggestion would be to spend 1 more day in the early build season analyzing the game and determining trade-offs.

EDIT: Pault added in 3289's context, beat me to it

I agree with the askers statement, actually. He is not saying he wants 50 all-around bots, he's saying he wants a few all-around bots mixed in with all of the specialized bots. I would love a game like that. Then, you still get the design trade offs, and you still get to see which strategy is best, but at the same time you have some of the best teams building these bots that are so inspirational because they manage to do everything. Just look at 118's reveal video this year. And even the decision to be an all-around robot is a trade off because it could easily be more effective to just specialize.

[GBK]

The Main Event...Is the main event the period between autonomous and the end game? Or is the does the main event have something to do with the "Name of the Game"
I am one of those that think the challenge was just right this year. The climb was a huge engineering challenge and had big risk. (fall off the tower and see the results) Once you got it figured out many did not have time to put too much into a shooter. However the relative ease of finding disk throwing machines on Youtube made it possible for rookie teams to make something that could score and they could do well. The scoring between the two tasks were a good balance. A good disk shooter could out score a climber without to much problem. The GDC has a fine line to walk in making a game that challenges the veteran teams and is still obtainable for a rookie team with limited resources. Keep up the good work, GDC and Teams!