Game Manual - Team UPDATE 2014-04-15

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Manual Site, 4/15/14: http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/Updates/0#term 183

Game Manual - Team UPDATE - 2014-04-15

Game Manual

General Updates

Congratulations to all Teams on a successful FRC Regional Season! Good luck to those Teams competing at the FIRST Championship!

FIRST Choice will close this Friday, April 18, 2014.

The Q&A will be closing for questions at noon Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, April 22, 2014. Teams having questions about the game after this should bring them to the Drivers’ Meeting at Championship on Wednesday, April 23. If you have administrative questions, please email frcteams@usfirst.org.

Section 4: Game Manual

There will be no alteration to scoring values at the FIRST Championship, as mentioned in Section 3.1.4: Scoring.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Posted on the FRC Manual Site, 4/15/14: http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/Updates/0#term 183

Ugh, does this mean they're saving the secret end game for IRI?

[Iaquinto.Joe]

Wow I really thought catching would receive a boost. I'm glad they didn't, though. This game is broken in so many deeper ways than point values.

[Monochron]

I would like to complain about the game as well. Complain, complain.

[joelg236]

Well at least we have a good idea of what the game will look like at champs, no changes to the game means it should be pretty similar to MSC, Waterloo and the like.

[JohnFogarty]

Better than Waterloo, not as good as MSC. Just like usual.

[BigJ]

I don't think the game would have differed greatly from the way it's being played now even with the maximum (+10) adjustment on catches. I doubt anything else would realistically have been modified.

[Nemo]

We've seen three games with clauses allowing point changes before Championships but no changes so far. I wonder what circumstances would prompt FIRST to change the point values?

In 2012 and 2013, the end games were subject to point adjustments. When would you want to alter those values? If the tele-op scoring was higher than expected and endgame wasn't providing enough of a dramatic swing? If teleop scores were lower than expected and endgame was dominating all of the scores? If endgame was harder than expected and you want to increase its value? If endgame was easier than expected and you want to reduce its value?

In any of those cases, I think the teams that made the right predictions about the way that game will play out have earned the privilege of showing up to champs to play a game that favors their chosen strategies.

I just can't think of a scenario when it would make a lot of sense to change the point values before worlds. I think it would be a good idea to drop that clause out of the 2015 rules.

[bduddy]

I don't believe the GDC will use this option unless a game turns out like the one that inspired this rule, Logo-Motion, where the point rewards at a high level became totally out of whack. Yeah, maybe they could have rewarded catching a little more, but the points are basically fine as is and I think it's a good idea for the GDC to not change them unless necessary.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by Nemo

We've seen three games with clauses allowing point changes before Championships but no changes so far. I wonder what circumstances would prompt FIRST to change the point values?

In 2012 and 2013, the end games were subject to point adjustments. When would you want to alter those values? If the tele-op scoring was higher than expected and endgame wasn't providing enough of a dramatic swing? If teleop scores were lower than expected and endgame was dominating all of the scores? If endgame was harder than expected and you want to increase its value? If endgame was easier than expected and you want to reduce its value?

In any of those cases, I think the teams that made the right predictions about the way that game will play out have earned the privilege of showing up to champs to play a game that favors their chosen strategies.

I just can't think of a scenario when it would make a lot of sense to change the point values before worlds. I think it would be a good idea to drop that clause out of the 2015 rules.

Part of it was because of mini-bots in 2011. They were basically the decider of many games including Einstein because tube scoring became nearly useless after the second row. I don't see anything wrong with leaving the rule in just in case a scenario like that happened again. Had this rule been in the 2011 manual then minibot scoring would have likely changed or tubes scoring could have changed as well.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

Part of it was because of mini-bots in 2011. They were basically the decider of many games including Einstein because tube scoring became nearly useless after the second row. I don't see anything wrong with leaving the rule in just in case a scenario like that happened again. Had this rule been in the 2011 manual then minibot scoring would have likely changed or tubes scoring could have changed as well.

Fair enough. I should have remembered that one, along with the IRI scoring change to make the bottom row worth the same as the middle row. That would have been a good change at the Championship.

Maybe if they include that rule again, it will also cause them to discuss the potential problems with scoring values and then fix them before they release the game. We haven't had any issues with diminishing returns on scoring in the three games since 2011.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by bduddy

I don't believe the GDC will use this option unless a game turns out like the one that inspired this rule, Logo-Motion, where the point rewards at a high level became totally out of whack. Yeah, maybe they could have rewarded catching a little more, but the points are basically fine as is and I think it's a good idea for the GDC to not change them unless necessary.

Just like Breakaway inspired the end of elimination ties (unless every subscore is the same, extremely rare), even though ties in the games since have been mostly non-existent. It's unlikely to have an effect, but on the off-chance that a game has the need, the contingency is there.