What is missing from this years game?

[Mike]

I think this year you have a big start, not a finish. (Although I might be biased because i'm a programmer) I think the best part of the match is seeing what robots will do in autonomous.

[Paul H]

I agree. Although I haven't seen a whole regional yet, I have seen a few matches. My initial opinion from kickoff still stands....there's really only one thing to do. In previous years, even 2002, there were a few things for the robots to be good at. I liked last year the best, where there could be the best capper, hanger, and ball gatherer, and each one would have the chance to win. What is it this year? The best capper, the best capper, and the best capper. There isn't really any varioaton.

My brother is a Freshman on the killer bees now, and he saw last year's game from a general public standpoint and this year's game from the standpoint of a team member, and he said that it's too hard to keep score this year. He noted that last year you could look at the field and pretty much know who won, whereas this year it's harder than that. I also heard that he heard from a bunch of people that the game is just boring to watch.

With that said, I'm hoping that as teams get more used to the game, I think it will get more interesting to watch and we should see some interesting battles for rows.

[Will Hanashiro]

Originally Posted by nartak

You must have had a really boring regional. The Orlando Regional at the UCF Arena was incredible to watch. I was exhausted watching the final matches (warning: NEVER PLAY HALO2 UNTIL 2:00am BEFORE THE FINAL DAY), but I still was finding it to be so fun to watch. Even though my team placed 24th(/47), it was great to just watch the matches and see all of the incredible scoring that some teams like 233 (The Pink Team) or 1402 (Freedom Force) were pulling off.

I also noticed that our regional had less penalties than VCU had. While VCU refs were dishing out penalties, the only ones that we saw were for the occasional bumping while in the loading zone or the accidental tap of a tetra while not in the loading zone.

If you have another regional/nats, just ignore what happened at your last regional, and hope it turns out to be a better competition.

compared to previous years games... this game doesnt have the big finish. i'm sure you find this game interesting, and i'm sure that all of us involved in FIRST feel the same way. but i see the point that is being brought up here... for the average person knowing nothing about FIRST, this is as boring as playing tic tac toe. the previous games had the "big finish" in fighting for the bar and king of the hill, which made it fun for the average non-firster to watch.

[Kris Verdeyen]

I finally got a chance to watch some of the regional footage this weekend - a friend gave me a tape of the peachtree regional. I have to agree. I started out loving the game, and all of the last minute tetra placements, and collisions, and capping, and blocking, and re-capping. But after it was all over, none of the great on-field action seemed to matter much. Perhaps it'd be easier to watch if the penalties were kept up real time on the scoreboard with the rest of the points, instead of being a nasty surprise at the end. That would have a great effect on the game's watchability.

All that said, I do like the game - it is neat to watch, and I'm sure that teams will get better at avoiding penalites as the competitions go on.

[henryBsick]

Robot diversification.
Last year... ball gatherers ball catchers, hanger, cappers, bar defenders, goal grabbers...
This year... goal capper, tetra gatherer (for alliance to cap or to place under goal), or defender...

There are 4 ways to gain points this year... and I think about 30 ways to lose points, it is a different game, relying almost solely upon strategy.

I am pretty sure I will like it...but I won't know until thursday .
See ya' at Chessy!!

[RyanMcE]

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

<snip>...
It's boring.
And most everyone left after an hour or two.

At the PNW regional, this didn't seem to be the case. I had heard that the game was going to be boring, but it seemed to remain fairly exciting, with lots of back-and forth action throughout the day, even during the elimination matches.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

And, from the people who have seen the game the last two years I have been involved, it's missing the big, exciting ending the king of the hill or the 10 ft bar or the double ball provided the last two years. It was easy for them to figure out what needed to happen for each side to win the match. It was something to cheer for.

Well, it seems that its clear enough that with 10 seconds left and a tetra being raised to cap the center goal that will decide the outcomeof the match... that's something to cheer for. Maybe what you really mean is that the dynamic of the game didn't suddenly change with about 30 seconds to go, because the end zone bonus was so small?

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

This year the big ending is the adding up the penalties. And several time watching the matches, the group of us each added up the points and we all had different answers.

Once again, not so much the case at the PNW regional. We had our share of penalties, but in general, they didn't decide the matches like I have heard they did in so many other regionals. Almost all of the games that I saw were very clean. Many had no penalties at all. The winning alliance, for example, went penalty free throughout finals.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

And, please, I know some people are going to post about how they are wrong and how exciting this game really is. I think it's exciting. But, I am just relaying what I was told by at least 20 people this weekend...

I don't think you're wrong, per se. Lots of other people have been saying the same thing - and there's no denying that people actually told you that it was boring. I am just under the impression taht the PNW regional actaully was exciting. I would like to hear otherwise from a spectator if that was not the case, however. But I think the lower incidence of penalties, and the vast swings in points for caping a single goal, and the back-and-forth nature of many of the elimination matches (several ties, several comeback wins) made the PNW more exciting. Of course, I am one of the invovled people, so maybe this isn't the ase, and as I said, I would like to know what spectators thought.

Originally Posted by 2000vfr800

I guess the point of this thread is for whoever is reading this and might have some input for the future games, if you want to keep the interest of the people off the street who might get excited about FIRST and want to get involved in the future, please think about this.

Well, I think everyone and their dog will have input on how to make the games better, but here are the ones I can think of (my head still hurtsfrom yesterday, so maybe I won't remember everything):

The biggest thing is, STOP the glitches! At the PNW regional, the first thing all our schoolmates saw when arriving Saturday morning on the TRC Booster Bus was - an hour of dancing. The field equipment was malfunctioning, so alternate forms of entertainment had to be employed. The equipment malfunctioned AGAIN at the startof finals, this time for an hour and a half. Thats a lot of wasted time for the spectators.

But onto the real list: games should borrow more heavily from popular sports:

• In the three big ones in this country (Football, Baseball, Basketball), play stops on a regular basis, which allows spectators to catch up on what just happened.
• Games are longer. This allows more strategic play and more comeback opportunities. Also endurance becomes an issue.
• Fouls are called immediately (so the result of a particular play is never in question for long)
• The scoring system is simple enough that it is never unclear who is winning, and what the opposing alliance needs to do to come back

These are the things that make sports so compelling to watch. These are why when your favorite football team is down by 21 points in the fourth quarter, you don't give up all hope. This is why these sports have attracted millions of fans. I believe that if FIRST were to borrow more heavily from what makes popular sports compelling, the FIRST games would become more compelling.

I know it must be an extremely difficult task to create a unique game each year that is exciting for the teams and spectators alike, but here are some ideas that perhaps the game design committe could take into consideration:

• More visually interesting, achieveable autonomous modes (TRC-492 mentor Larry Barello has some good ideas that I don't entirely recall - I'll try to have him follow up on this thread)
• Longer matches - say, five minutes. Maybe bigger batteries if thats what it takes. This is to let the games develop more.
• Stop play for penalties. This will scoring easier to follow.
• Implement an on-the-field timeout. Say, one one-minute timeout per alliance per game to allow alliances to reconstruct their strategies if they are falling behind. I don't know if this is a good idea, actually. Let me know.
• Automatic scoring system. It's very hard for a human to keep track of the scoring of these games real-time, so let a computer do it! This is once again to keep the audience informed of the score accurately at all times.
• Consider games where the score only goes up, not back down again, just like all the major sports. Sure, in this game you could not "descore" a tetra, but you could drop an opposing alliance's score by 40 points in one move. I personally liked that, but I'm not ure how intuitive it would be to follow.

Well, I've gone on long enough I think... I'd like to hear other people's ideas.

[Denman]

wow, no one has said water/some sort of liquid yet

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Denman

wow, no one has said water/some sort of liquid yet

I hope they give up thoughts of having water in the game for good.
It's really a crazy idea.

[Carll Pallokat]

Just remember in life, it is not the game but how you play it. Personally I see this year's game or any year very exciting considering all the way different robots are built and all have to accomplish the same task. Chess to me is not an exciting game but those who play do their best to win. If you decided before you started to build a robot this year and then you did not like the game then maybe should have dropped off the team.

Life's challenges is what makes life interesting.

Watching TV is boring.

[hoag]

I think the most exciting part is watching the robots get past the end zone line within the last few seconds of the match for the extra points.

At Rochester (Finger Lakes Regional), there were many matches that had 5-10 minutes in between. Referees were busy determining the score, and the field people were always busy trying to fix the computer that ran the field. This may have been boring for an Average Joe audience.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by hoag

I think the most exciting part is watching the robots get past the end zone line within the last few seconds of the match for the extra points.

We were involved in one of my personal favorite moments. We were in the endzone, but one corner of our bot was still sticking out just a little. We have 2-wheel drive with casters in all four corners. It's designed to have the casters at one end a little off the ground for easier turning and traction on slightly uneven circumstances. We are also a ground-hugger with only a 1/2-inch ground clearance. Since the refs couldn't see under our robot even by laying on the ground, they eventually had to slide a piece of notebook paper under that corner caster to see if it was touching. It wasn't -- we got the 10 points and won.

[663.keith]

I would have to agree that the game wasn't as exciting because there wasn't a huge finish, but I also think that this game was a step in the right direction. The past two years there was one thing that a team could do to get big points (hang from a bar, get on a platform). The large point value at the end made most of the points scored in the rest of the game pretty much pointless.

This year there was no huge point scoring object that made the rest of the game pointless. Inherently, this made the game less exciting at the end.

Another problem with this years game was (as stated before) the lack of different strategy - you either scored tetras, or blocked. This also led to a
bit less exciting game.

I think FIRST made a good step by eliminating a huge scoring object, but fell flat in multiple, smaller ways to score. FIRST needs to find a game where there is opportunity for different strategy, but no one strategy overrides the others

[Billfred]

I just got back from the Florida regional, and I think that the big finish this year is sufficiently big.

As for the what-just-happened and is-that-illegal thing, I'll throw a concept out here. Suppose that instead of throwing cloth flags during a match (which most of the time the audience can't see), the refs punched them into handhelds (a la real-time scouting)? With a bit of Wi-Fi tinkering, it could then tie in with real-time scoring, and if it were done well enough could be displayed on the screen (instead of that ginormous field drawing).

This year's game would be easy enough to throw flags on handhelds. Imagine the following screen shot (in pure ASCII art), if you will...

 RED   PENALTY   BLUE
 [  ]  Loading Z. [  ]
 [  ]  Human Pl.  [  ]
 [  ]  LZ Hit	 [  ]

Or even simplify it further to a red square and a blue square--tap to throw a flag. If anyone can actually do such a thing, go right ahead.

[karch]

this is my first year with high school first robotics, but i agree that allowing robots to diversify in structure, and not just strategy, would make the game more exciting.

pnw was very exciting during the elimination rounds, though. esp. in the semifinals, and that first match vs. alliance one, tying 40-40. blocking in mid-air, consistent capping on both alliances, and just barely making it home made my heart skip a beat. and i do think the joe shmoe audience found it interesting too..

[Jack Jones]

"Re: What is missing from this years game?"

In a single acronym - KISS.

What ever happened to that "You design next year's game" post from last fall? Didn't it say to design a game that could be described in 30 seconds or less, and should be easy for the crowd to score?"

OK - time me!
The game begins with a 15 second autonomous period where the robot's software pilots them to find the green thingy tetrahedron (look it up in Websters) and place it on one of the goals across the center of the field, which are also tetrahedrons (well, eight of them are, and the other one is too, but only the top) but are not the same size as the other tetrahedrons. Or, the robot can knock down a tetrahedron (like the others, but not the same as a goal) that's hanging inside another tetrahedron, which is a goal. But the goal is to dislodge the non-goal so that it's not touching the carpet outside the goal. Or, the robot, but just one on each side, can start with a tetrahedron and put it someplace - preferably inside or on top of a goal; but they don't get the bonus they would have had they picked up and scored the green thingy tetrahedron, which they only get if they do it in the first fifteen seconds. The goals are easy to find because they have a yellow triangle under them. Of course, if a player touches a tetrahedron during this fifteen second period - actually 18 or 20 seconds because the crew has to have time to un-hang the tetrahedrons that hadn't been un-hung and to place the bonus tetrahedrons that nobody seems to get - they get a 10 point penalty, which is equal to either 4, or 6, or 8, or 10 scored tetrahedrons, depending on how and where they were scored, unless they were de-scored, when they'd be worth either 3 points and ownership, or nothing at all, depending on how they were de-scored.

The next two minutes really gets complicated, because the auto loader isn't human and the human loader has to stay on his pad until the robot enters the zone (a red or blue triangle, which is like a tetrahedron in two-space). But the robot doesn't enter the zone by entering the zone space, it enters the zone by touching in two-space. Then the human can place a tetrahedron on the robot. If she touches the robot, it gets disabled, which it already was because she left her pad, but now it stays disabled even if she returns to her pad, which she can't because the referee won't let her. If she doesn't touch the ground in the box with both feet, or the robot isn't touching the triangle the team gets a 10 point penalty. She should also get a penalty if she leaves the rectangle, which is not the box because the box is inside the rectangle, but nobody seems to know what the penalty is because the referees don't call it because there's not enough room to stay inside the rectangle and still avoid the ref, cameraman, loose tetrahedrons, and other human players who are also trying to stay inside the rectangle in order to reach the box and place a tetrahedron without touching the robot, which has to be touching the triangle. The same is true for the auto loader except that it doesn't have a pad, it's OK if it touches the robot, and it doesn't have a box nor a rectangle.

The goal is to score more goals than the other team, and/or to make more tic-tac-toes, and/or to get back home. Of course, the real goal is to get fewer penalties than the other guys because some of them count more than, three, or ten, or thirty of the scoring possibilities - depending on where and who it was, and/or how the infraction and/or the goal was either committed, and/or occurred, and/or was scored, or de-scored.

And that's all there is to it!