Worst Scoring System in Years

[Eugene]

Every year we think that the FIRST came up with the worst possible scoring system and every year they beat the previous year. Here are the ranks from the Philadelphia regional according to the average match scares. Notice the wide discrepancy between the ranks by scores and ranks by QPs in some of the lower scoring teams. I attached the excel datasheet if anybody wants to check my math.

Eugene



EDIT - I think that the game on other hand was one of the best, especially the partnership of the human and the robot, and the beacons.

EDIT - As you notice the results of the ranking by different methods were most similar at the extremes, while the middle ranks fluctuated wildly.

EDIT - Please do not take the title of the thread as an insult to FIRST. This was just an attention grabber. I honestly believe that every year FIRST tries its best to make sure we have a great game.

[Cory]

This game is not defined by points, it is defined by wins.

Your argument is irrelevant.

Cory

[Eugene]

I think that the rank should reflect the overall performance of the team. I do not think that using the definition of the game as the proof that the rank adequately reflects the performance is a good argument.

Consider the following scenario. Team A and Team B both had high scores but team A won by a few points. Team C and Team D both had low scores and team C won by a few points. According to FIRST, Team C should be ranked above team B. I do not consider that fair. The system used by FIRST would have worked had every team played every other team. Unfortunately that is not possible.

Eugene

P.S. Note that I’m not crying here about the fact that the scoring system was unfair to my team. In fact, we ranked 15 places higher by using FIRST’s system than by using the match scores.

[Eugene]

Will:

So you are saying that we should favor the attractiveness to spectators over fairness?

Eugene

[Will Hanashiro]

Originally Posted by Eugene

Will:

So you are saying that we should favor the attractiveness to spectators over fairness?

Eugene

well, i guess what i'm trying to say is that this system is both fair and spectator friendly. if you win, then your ranked higher, and if you lose, your ranking drops. its as simple as that.

in no way am i saying that this system is perfect, just that its one of the better FIRST systems. i'm sure that we will be able to find flaws in whatever scoring systems FIRST comes up with in the future, and the "perfect" system will be hard to develope.

overall, i feel that this is a very good scoring system, and it is both fair and spectator friendly.

[P.J. Baker]

Originally Posted by Eugene

Will:

So you are saying that we should favor the attractiveness to spectators over fairness?

Eugene

For reasons stated by others above, I too think that this is the best scoring system in years.

As far as fairness is concerned, the scoring system is fair because every team had the opportunity design their robot and strategy around it. I could only really view it as unfair if they changed it mid way through the build season in a way that would make some designs and strategies much better than others.

[Cory]

I still maintain that a win is a win. It doesnt matter how it happened, or how many points were scored. Generally, barring machines breaking, the better alliance/robot will win.

In previous years, a team could win every single match, but not score a ton of points, but some not so good robots would get paired with real good teams, and then theyd get a ton of points, when they didnt really deserve them, or just score lots of points but not win. Guess who ended up on top? Team #2. Now THAT is unfair.

It all boils down to one thing. It doesnt matter how many points you score, it only matters if you win.

Cory

[Eugene]

Cory:

I think that the alliance partner is an uncontrolled variable present in both scoring systems; therefore that argument cannot be used. To me scoring points represents performance, while winning represents chance. Hence, I think our argument boils down to what matters, winning or building a robot that can successfully complete the task.

Eugene

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by Eugene

Cory:

I think that the alliance partner is an uncontrolled variable present in both scoring systems; therefore that argument cannot be used. To me scoring points represents performance, while winning represents chance. Hence, I think our argument boils down to what matters, winning or building a robot that can successfully complete the task.

Eugene

first of all, since points scored is the sum of the points scored by the alliance, it is just as dependent on the ally as winning (notice how the alliance with higher points wins?). secondly, since they rank by wins, then a highly ranked team is probably a very effective one. unlike past years, this system doesn't punish a defensive strategy.

[Eugene]

To All:

I totally agree that winning matters. What bothers me is the fact that there are only 8 games that are played. Excluding the variable presented by the alliance partner and assuming that the team scores do not fluctuate much (the data supports that), if the ranking was done by scores than no matter how the teams were paired, the better performing teams would consistently be an top whereas by using the win/lose system the ranks would fluctuate far more. If you look at the table that I compiled, you would notice that the difference in ranks by different methods is huge. One of the statistical methods (which is what we should use in our argument if we were to consider ourselves scientists, as in fir_S_t) that is used to evaluate the validity of the test is the correlation of scores between that test and other tests. In that aspect, the current scoring system would not be considered valid.

Eugene

[Eugene]

I think that anyone who participated in FIRST for four years can be considered a first-a-holic. I totally love the competition and in no way did I mean to put it down.

Eugene

[Cory]

Again, I dont see your argument. How do you define better performing? a team like 365/71 in 2002 would dominate the competition. Guess what, they scored darn near zero points because their strategy was only really good in the eliminations.

I know this isnt 2002, but there are robots that do one thing really well, like blocking the bar, or harrassing other robots, and keeping them from effectively completing their objectives. Neither of these types will score a lot of points, but they can be very good robots, that effectively achieve the game's challenges, and WIN. This is a competition, points dont matter, theyre only the means to a win.

So, in the NFL, the top team is the team with the best win/loss record. Let's say that they score on average, 21 points per game, but they go 16-0. Now let's say the last place team is 8-8, but has scored a total of 600 points, because they blew out inferior opponents multiple times, but lost 8 times. What you're saying is that even though they lost half their games, they got lots of points, so they should be #1 above an undefeated team, even though they didnt win!

Eugene-what you just described is this year's system... Adding a constant number of points onto the winning team's score does nothing but uniformly raise *all* winning scores, making them look higher than they effectively are.

Cory

[Eugene]

My general position on defensive vs. offensive strategy:

FIRST is supposed to represent what the world should strive to be. A world, where there are more participants than spectators. A world that rewards those that make it a better place.

Let’s start with the definitions.

An offensive robot works by performing better than the opponent.
A defensive robot works by disrupting the performance of the opponent and preventing him to do what he is designed to do.

Now let’s apply that to some real world situations.

Would you prefer a market system in which companies compete to deliver a superior product vs. a market system in which the companies use various other means to force their opponents out of business?

Would you like to be in a soccer game were pushing (although the contemporary society will probably like this idea) is allowed therefore players that are heavier, which is a trait that is irrelevant to soccer performance consistently beat players that are actually skilled at maneuvering the ball?

Going back to robotics, I think that the game would be much more entertaining if the robots were trying to outperform each other instead of having one robot prevent the other from doing what it is supposed to do thereby resulting in a game were robots just end up sitting on the field.

To sum up, the life of a person is not about winning or losing, it is about performing and allowing others to do their best.

Good Luck to all this season!!!

Eugene

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by Cory

Eugene-what you just described is this year's system... Adding a constant number of points onto the winning team's score does nothing but uniformly raise *all* winning scores, making them look higher than they effectively are.

Cory

Cory,

I guess I misunderstood your argument as well. Did not you say that teams that win deserve to rank higher? If so, than raising the score of all winners would insure that. Furthermore, by continuing to use the performance as a factor in ranking we would favor the better performing teams over those that simply got lucky by being paired with a weaker opponent.

Eugene

[Eric Bareiss]

The only difference I see is this years system eliminates the significance of freak matches.

In 2002 if you win your match 70-0 and your apponents got DQ'd you got 210 qualifying points. If you get any reasonable amount of points for the rest of your matches you would have seeded 1st (this did happen). This year you would get 2 points for winning and move on.

I think if anything the scoring system does a better job of showing robot performance. It shows how good you are at winning. If all you had to do is score one ball more than your apponent why would you do more? If you had 10 balls and they only had 4 why would you hang?