Is it okay to "throw" a match that will be replayed?

[magnets]

At one of our events, we experienced a series of field faults where a pedestal would never light. I believe the issue was traced to a faulty connector, but during these matches, one team would never be able to start their cycle. When this happened to us for the second time, we decided to just park our robot in the corner and wait for the replay, instead of using up a battery (we only had 1 charged on left), risking potential robot damage, wearing out tread, and revealing our robot strategy. Nobody seemed to mind after the match, and the head referee and the FTA were all nice and pleasant to work with. However, an hour or so later, a person that wasn't wearing a team shirt came up to me, and pretty much called our team a bunch of cheaters for "intentionally throwing a match we knew would be replayed" and yelled at me a bunch.

During our strategy session last night, our team decided that, due to the nature of the game, we should have a strategy for what we know will be a replay, and that we should let our alliance partners know about it. When we go to CMP, our plan is to somewhat redo our shooter by making a new one at the competition. We'll need time in the machine shop to make a few parts and time to make it match the older one, so we don't plan on having the new one ready for the first day of matches. This means we'll be running an badly damaged shooter that only has a few dozen shots left before it breaks completely. If we see that there is an obvious field fault, like a transition to teleop during autonomous mode, our plan is to park our robot in the corner and wait out the match. We understand that we are doing this at our own risk, should the head ref decide that there was no fault. However, we would be willing to bet that if matches with autonomous mode faults are not replayed, the people of Chief Delphi would attack with pitchforks, so we are fairly confident a fault like this will result in a replay.

So what do you guys think? Is this strategy GP?

[BBray_T1296]

Who said Carol got invited to championships?


I think that playing your robot safe in order to preserve it for later is completely OK and absolutely fair. Preserving the robot is much more important to your team in the long run, and destroying it would cripple the alliances in the next few hours that would be stuck with you. What you do with your robot strategy-wise is really none of anybody else's business, granted that you do not have nefarious intent.

The way you have it worded seems like you would somehow intentionally lose (like 6v0 in 2010)

If you forgo shooting, can't you just play defense?

[stufflikethat]

IMO this is awesome. I think it is the best solution if you are getting screwed over in some way in a match that hurts your performance than you should make a point to the refs (and the crowd) that you want a field fault. Of course assuming there is something obviously wrong with the field make a point. Also note that I am not noted for gracious professionalism, but I always try to be impartially fair.

[Caleb Sykes]

I am personally of the belief that "GP" should never be used to evaluate a game strategy. So in that light, I believe your strategy is neither GP nor non-GP.

However, if you were on my alliance and you did this, I would not be pleased with your team at all. Maybe you trust that the match will be replayed, but I at least do not have the ability to unambiguously tell which matches will and will not be replayed (especially this year) unless the foghorn sounds in the middle of the match.

Someone (Karthik?) has a quote about "leaving it all on the field", I'll try to dig it up later.

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by inkling16

I am personally of the belief that "GP" should never be used to evaluate a game strategy.

Someone clearly hasn't seen Karate Kid.

Personally, I would never park my robot for a match for this simple reason: every match, replayed or not, is being scouted.
If I saw a robot that parked during a match, I would assume that it is broken. Even if I discovered the reasoning - to prevent the robot from going under extra punishment - I would put a mark next to their number because that means that they don't have confidence in their own machine. If they don't, then why should I?

[Abhishek R]

From a strategic point of view, if your robot sits still for ANY reason at all, it will be noted of and seen as a downfall to the scouts sitting in the stands.

[JesseK]

Haters gonna hate.

Though I do agree that you shouldn't simply sit there. Maybe go spin in circles in front of the referee.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Maybe go spin in circles in front of the referee.

Is it too late to put on an LED panel that flashes "Replay" at the Head Ref?

[cmrnpizzo14]

Wouldn't be my choice of what to do. I would probably attempt to practice something, any chance to give our driver more practice is always good. I can't say that there is anything wrong with your strategy though. I don't that it is cheating in any way like this person told you that it was.

The only thing that I would say you should change is to run this strategy by your alliance partners before the match starts so that they understand what you are doing and why.

[magnets]

A clarification-
Yes, we plan on playing defense at the championship. I guess the words "park our robot in the corner" weren't exactly what I was looking for. We're really only worried about the shooter. In the previous match, we were up by about 30 points, and none of the opposing robots could manipulate the ball, so defense wouldn't have given us anything.

We do plan on sharing this strategy with our alliance, and we'd only do it if they agreed there is a field fault. Pretty much the only field faults we'd go for are the teleop in auto bug, and a really long (like a minute long) pedestal delay.

While it is a good way to show that there's a fault, we're not trying to do this to draw attention to the issue, we're trying to preserve our robot.

EDIT-- Yes, they knew the issue had happened, and they stopped scoring. I believe they needed to finish the match in order to get FMS logs, but neglected to tell teams that they were playing for nothing.

[Christopher149]

If it is known by all parties in the match that it will come to naught and be replayed, "throwing" the match is okay IMO.

If you are sandbagging to try to gain elim advantage, that is not okay.

In between is gray and would need more context.

[Bob Steele]

I, personally think that you did nothing wrong at all.
Perhaps the person or persons that came to you didn't understand the situation.
You have every right to do what you did and you did nothing that was ungracious at all The problem is that the match should have been stopped immediately by the field team. You should have heard the fog horn...

The policy of playing out these kinds of games caused unnecessary wear on everyone's robots and any team has a perfect right to do whatever they wanted to do...even if it weren't being replayed

If you did not know for sure that the game would be replayed it might be different. Holding back your robot and not playing your hardest in a game that might be counted would probably be counted as ungracious.

I don't know what their problem really was. Did they know that the issue had occurred before you stopped playing? Did they really know that the game was going to be replayed?

If they knew everything that you knew; I can't figure out why anyone would have an issue with what you did.

wierd

Now, if you do this at CMP or elsewhere and you are not TOTALLY convinced that a field fault has occurred and there is absolutely NO chance that the match will be counted you should keep playing for your alliance and try to win.
Now, no matter how Chief Delphi would react to a problem with the field or mistakes that were made, It will not help your alliance. If you choose your path you will be trying to help your own team at the expense of your alliance partners. I would not consider that to be good form. That is a bad idea.

[Clem1640]

From a GP standpoint, I would not throw a match.

Throwing a match could put me in a better alliance selection position. I generally let FRC rules set my FRC moral compass, but in this case I take exception. My alliance partners could be hurt by this decision.

[magnets]

Just to clarify, we aren't throwing the match. We will still try our absolute hardest and will set winning as our top priority when we know there's a chance the match will count. We aren't trying to bring down our alliance partners or lower their ranking, we still want to win, we just don't want to play the same match again and again when we know it won't count. Our alliance partners will be informed of our strategy, and if they have any objections, or they don't think that we should do it, then we won't.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by magnets

Just to clarify, we aren't throwing the match. We will still try our absolute hardest and will set winning as our top priority when we know there's a chance the match will count. We aren't trying to bring down our alliance partners or lower their ranking, we still want to win, we just don't want to play the same match again and again when we know it won't count. Our alliance partners will be informed of our strategy, and if they have any objections, or they don't think that we should do it, then we won't.

If you really follow everything that you said in this post, than I can't fault you for it. Mainly, if your alliance partners don't have a problem with it, neither do I.

My 2 cents.