Petition: Lower technical foul values to make this game better

[wlaroche]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Teams/students are consistently around operating robots on the practice and learning to work safely near machines is part of being on an FRC team. The rule could be "don't get your hand/arm near a robot and don't leave in the field for too long" and it would be much more enforceable and just as safe. If you've been in FRC for any reasonable length of time you have probably been hit by a robot and you probably weren't injured. I am all for safety but 50 points for pointing too enthusiastically with no robots around is extreme.

Again the rules are the way they are written this year, but they should be looked at closely and drastically improved in future years.

I am not eying to be mean here, but what is to close and what is to long? When things are bashing in front of you time is flying by. Even with the hard rules we referee by we have to make calls on who initiates the contact when both sides are running full tilt at each other.

[Doc Wu]

I think one of the reasons some penalty values are that high is to prevent them from being made for a strategic reason.

For instance, when an opponent has possession of a ball with three assists in place, a desperate defender might decide it was worth the penalty if it's value were worth less.

Safety and consistency also weigh in. Safety needs to be strongly encouraged. If a human player got a 10 point penalty, they might get a word from their coach. When they get a 50 point penalty, they hear about it from the whole team.

Consistency is not having confusion on which fouls are worth how many points. I know, the scoring system takes care of most of it, but understanding the score in the stands is easier if they are all the same, not various amounts.

In any event, I've seen many penalty-free matches, so it must be working. I don't think changing now that competitions are underway would be appropriate.

[CTHP]

I agree with many who have posted here that the 50 point penalty for a Technical Foul is excessive. It has been a game changer in some spirited matches; game play that was otherwise ruined by such an excessive penalty. And except for repeated cases of premeditated wrong-doing, how is it that one referee can assess this penalty on a team for a single occurrence of a mistake? The rules were written to cover repeated events but unfortunately included so-called 'strategic' (premeditated) events too. Apparently a single referee can read the minds of the drivers and separate innocent legal game play from a strategic, premeditated, intentional foul.

That being said, the 50 point penalty must remain since that is the way the game was designed. You can't change it now because so many others have already been judged and eliminated by it. Better to re-think it for the next season and consider that maybe more than one referee should personally and visually verify it before penalizing a team.

This could be the standard for a Technical Foul (taken directly from G22): "Violation: FOUL. If continuous or repeated violations, TECHNICAL FOUL.".

For a game (Aerial Assist) that depends on ejecting balls into the air with a suggested robot design specification to catch these balls, it seems cRaZy to say that the opponents ball was possessed by an a competitors robot just because it happens to land in their frame/chassis, as suggested by G12. Now if the competing robot drove around for the next 10 seconds with the ball keeping it from the other team, then we have an extended, strategic, maybe even repeated foul situation here but not just because in lands there momentarily. The same goes for balls colliding in mid-air, also described by G12.

In short, the foul is excessive and needs to be reassessed. Also, visual confirmation from more than one referee should be required before assessing such a large penalty. If not enough referees, then maybe a quick post-game examination of video evidence by the judging panel to verify that the single ref saw what he (she) said they saw.

[KalliL]

I believe that SOMETHING needs to be done about these technical fouls. My team just got back from Gull Lake district event, and it was terrible. Just about every match was decided by foul points. My team racked up 100 points in fouls and we honestly didn't do anything to cause the fouls. This was a seriously unfair call, but I'm not going to go into detail on it, but it was completely unfair. Every other match there was 2 or so fouls and it's very hard to recover from them, especially because of this games nature...

[billylo]

Thanks for all the candid and professional commentary here.

Here is our next step:

• Create a simple 3-question opinion collection form for the community. Link is here. This form enables us to look at other alternatives too.

• Many of you have expressed clear preferences on this thread. If you can take 10 seconds to fill out the form, it would be great.

• If you don't mind, please help spread the word to gather thoughts from students/mentors/volunteers who may not read CD regularly.

I have collected 24 feedbacks since last night. 19 Yes (changes required, different types) and 5 No (no changes to existing rules) Will provide summary updates as I progress.

Thanks again for taking the time.

[

Disclaimer: this issue has not affected 610 too much one way or the other. We have a relatively experienced group and should be able to handle different types of rules.

However, I really feel for new and old teams who get to play only once a year: 1468 teams (53.0%).. Imagine you are not a regular participant at champs, spent 6 weeks of sweat building a good robot, worked hard to fund raise to play about 10-15 matches; ended up losing important matches because of 50pt G40, G28 or others that are inconsequential, unintentional fouls that have little safety implications? The stats are clear. ONE tech foul would swing the results of 59% of final matches.

It's not too late to prevent FIRST from losing students/mentors who otherwise would have loved this game and continue to love this thing called #omgrobots.

]

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

The intent of the rule is so people don't get their arm ripped off when they get snagged by a robot intake

It is hard to say that a similar hazard exists from an off sides in football

Large hits in football can and do cause severe injury, including broken bones, paralysis, and brain injury.

Safety is an issue. But would people really be any less safe if they were only penalized 30 points for going inside the safety zone?

Another solution is to make G40 a yellow card. It only hurts the team that breaks the rule in quals, and is extremely severe, just like a 50 point penalty (which seems to be a plus for some people). Teams won't win or lose on G40 infractions any more, and the team that violates the rule will be extremely careful from then on.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

The intent of the rule is so people don't get their arm ripped off when they get snagged by a robot intake

It is hard to say that a similar hazard exists from an off sides in football

Ya, you know, other than life altering, dementia inducing concussions.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Ya, you know, other than life altering, dementia inducing concussions.

Does an offsides increase the risk of concussions?

[DampRobot]

Yes. Oh, please, yes.

Jim Zontag of 33 did OPR analysis that said that a tech foul was literally twice the average contribution of a team to an alliance in week one. According to TBA insights data, the average match score this week is 55--essentially the same as a technical foul. This is unhealthy, and should be changed.

Imagine if in 2013 the tech foul was 50 points (that's on par with what is is now, comparing tech foul to average alliance score). You would have had to score an extra 17 discs to make up for a tech foul. That's more than 4 cycles. Even over your entire alliance, you could not make up that kind of point gap. There is just no way to cycle four extra times in a match. The 20 point tech foul we got last year was 7 discs, just barely possible to make up with huge cycling performance and good defense. It was harsh (and did decide matches) but wasn't always a death sentence to an alliance.

A technical foul should be something that's high enough you're never going to accept it for strategic reasons. There might be a few situations (especially last year) where taking the foul made sense, but even last year it never made sense strategically to get a tech foul. I'd argue that given average scoring this year, you're properly motivated (to never get a tech foul) by a 30 point tech foul. 50 points is excessive. You're no more motivated by a 50 point foul than by a 30 point foul.

Another problem is not all teams are smart and not all teams know the rules. Top teams will do their very best to avoid tech fouls (in any game), but not all teams can be counted on to act that way. In quals, you can be screwed by a randomly paired team's human player accidentally inbounding a second ball. Boom. 100 point penalty. You just lost the match. A ref thinks their HPs finger goes inside the safety zone? You just lost the match. They poke their intake into another robot as they're trying to get the ball? Lost the match. The opponents ball accidentally lands in their robot? Lost the match.

Fine. FRC isn't all about winning. But some of us do care about whether matches are won on the strength of the robots or on a momentary mistake by one team. That effects the level of play, and therefore whether or not were really meeting our goal of changing the culture.

FIRST needs to reduce this excessive penalty.

EDIT:
This.

Originally Posted by animenerdjohn

G40 is the equivalent of an offsides in football giving 7 points to the other team.

Would you even consider scoring in football to be a good indicator of performance at that point?

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by billylo

If you feel the same way as I do (or differently), please comment below.
(Yes for support, No for no support; either way, feel free to elaborate.

Yes. Throw up a poll in the thread?

[sircedric4]

Something should change I agree. Technical fouls swung the finals at the Arkansas regional. Technical fouls called and deliberated on after each of the last two games were over and not in real time were levied on the blue alliance. These technical fouls changed the results of the regional finals.

The technical foul levied in the last game was not even G40 but the herding the opponent's ball penalty. I challenge anyone to not accidentally bump the ball in the high intensity, and high contact match of a finals game.

This particular game puts too much control in the referee's hands with the size and human judgement aspect of the penalties. An honest mistake on the referee's part can literally cost an alliance an entire regional championship.

[mizscience]

Two weeks of regionals have passed. Changing this now would no doubt anger any teams who were negatively impacted by 50point TFs in those first 2 weeks. Yes, the 50 points is harsh - but I think it needs to stay as-is for the remainder of the season. Hopefully the GDC will take note of threads like this and factor these concerns into future game designs.

[pigpenguin]

Originally Posted by mizscience

Two weeks of regionals have passed. Changing this now would no doubt anger any teams who were negatively impacted by 50point TFs in those first 2 weeks. Yes, the 50 points is harsh - but I think it needs to stay as-is for the remainder of the season. Hopefully the GDC will take note of threads like this and factor these concerns into future game designs.

On the other hand you will anger future teams by keeping this rule in place. So if in any case someone will be mad you might as well make the game better for future players. Although I have a feeling that it will be left until next year.

[Nemo]

50 points is way too high for incidental possession of an opponent's ball. What bothers me is that if you do bump the other ball a single time, you shouldn't even get a penalty, yet it still gets called some of the time. If a random minor bump isn't enough of a possession to earn an assist, then by definition it also isn't enough to warrant a possession penalty.

[mwtidd]

Based on what I saw at UNH, I would say no. The refs were doing a really good job of only calling egregious violations. Also, it is certainly possible for a team to make up for these penalties even in the elims. Take for instance our first semifinal match:

#FRCNHDUR TY E MC 16 RF 122 BF 107 RA 3280 213 319 BA 4555 58 3467 RFP 0 BFP 70 RHS 50 BHS 25 RTS 72 BTS 12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8HCV...lMsJyhDvk57J7Q

We racked up 70 points in penalties and still won the match. Also note that this was against the alliance that inevitably went on to win the banner (after going through 3 semi final match 3s due to replays).

I was very impressed with the reffing, and never felt that a penalty we were called on wasn't warranted. Even when it altered the outcome of a match, I think the calls were fair.

Take for instance this match:

#FRCNHDUR TY Q MC 27 RF 83 BF 73 RA 1289 3499 501 BA 1307 5265 319 RFP 70 BFP 20 RHS 10 BHS 11 RTS 3 BTS 42

In a game with 60 point cycles and 75 points up for grab in autonomous, the 50 points is just enough to make it hurt when it happens. I equate the 50 point penalties to pass interference call. They can certainly affect the outcome of a game, they are sometimes controversial, but if they were less they may not be enough of a deterrent.