Scoring For Your Opponents

[Bill Moore]

PreNote: This is not directed toward any of the triplets, but is made as a general statement.

Two points of truth keep getting repeated in this thread:

1) Scoring points for your opponent is a good strategy when you will win by a blowout, and
2) It is embarrassing to have an opponent so self-assured of victory that they begin to score for you.

My question would be "Why did the other alliance not have the ability to score many points?" Was their robot not working correctly? And, did you do anything to help them get it working properly?

If a team is struggling to get their drive system to do more than run in circles, and you are sitting in your pit polishing the chassis of your bot, then you don't "get it".

The FIRST competition isn't just about beating your opponents at YOUR best, but it is also about beating your opponents at THEIR best. If you have made no move to help them fix their robot, when you have had ample time to do so, it isn't the lowly scoring alliance that should be embarrassed for their play, it is the dominating team that should be embarassed for their unwillingness to help fellow competitors.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

The FIRST competition isn't just about beating your opponents at YOUR best, but it is also about beating your opponents at THEIR best. If you have made no move to help them fix their robot, when you have had ample time to do so, it isn't the lowly scoring alliance that should be embarrassed for their play, it is the dominating team that should be embarassed for their unwillingness to help fellow competitors.

Repped.

You just have to be sure your offer to help is made graciously and professionally. That's a careful balancing act as well.

[Beth Sweet]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

My question would be "Why did the other alliance not have the ability to score many points?" Was their robot not working correctly? And, did you do anything to help them get it working properly?

If a team is struggling to get their drive system to do more than run in circles, and you are sitting in your pit polishing the chassis of your bot, then you don't "get it".

In many of the matches that I've seen, it's not that the robots weren't working properly. A few times, the robots tipped, making scoring very difficult without very original strategies. Other times, the machines had basic design flaws which made it difficult for them to do things quickly (I remember last year, we scored maybe 1-2 tetras per match, if that).

To the credit of the Triplets (or at least 1114), I was in 1114's pit's a bit at GLR and whenever anyone asked for anything, they were eager to help. Yes, they were sitting down, but they are probably one of the classiest teams that I've seen based on their actions.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Starke340

this system of scoring is very interesting to FIRST. Besides seeing teams letting their opponents score more points, I have also witnessed losing alliances give up points. For example, at the Finger Lakes Regional there were a couple of times that losing alliance robots jumped off the ramp at the last second to not give the winning alliance more points.

You saw a robot jump off its ramp at the end of a match, OK

but how can you possibly know why that happened, unless the driver told you the reason after the match?

There seems to be a lot of mind-readers on CD this year. Reporting events you witnessed is good information.

Conjecture on what was going on in someone else's mind is not good.

As Sargent Friday would say, "just give us the facts!"

[Starke]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

You saw a robot jump off its ramp at the end of a match, OK

but how can you possibly know why that happened, unless the driver told you the reason after the match?

There seems to be a lot of mind-readers on CD this year. Reporting events you witnessed is good information.

Conjecture on what was going on in someone else's mind is not good.

As Sargent Friday would say, "just give us the facts!"

i agree with you 100%. only say something if you know it for a fact. this is why i actually went and researched what i said about the robot getting off the ramp at the last second for myself. it turned out to be true that they did get off of the ramp on purpose on the end of the match to give the winning alliance less points.

[JoeCallahan]

The scoring system has never made any real sense to me... unless you plan to put every team up against every combination of teams with every combination of alliance partners, you're going to get inaccurate results.

Some good team could go up against the best combinations of alliance partners and never win and not get many points, while some less-than- average robot who was up against the easiest teams could end up in the top eight.

I recall at the NJ regional, spike (293) had a great bot who, given the oppertunity, could score a ridiculous amount of points. I also recall after three or four matches they were in about 46th place.

We could also have a really really good team go up against a bunch of really really bad teams, or in one case score a ridiculous *cough 137* amount of points, but because their opponents only got 10 points they would not move up, but down in the rankings because other matches were much closer.

I understand FIRST's logic, that you should only award points based on how hard the match was, but how hard the match was can not be measured in points. If they want to do that they need to create a major league and a minor league. All good bots to the left, all bad bots to the right (which obviously they won't do.)

In the game this year the amount of points scored is based heavily on how hard you get hit by other bots, and it seems the bots who were best at hitting people were also the ones who couldn't really score any points. If there was a bot that was just a drive train with some strong motors and great turning/speed that just smacked 25 around, they wouldn't have had near as many points at the NJ regional. But just because your opponent didn't manage to get any points doesn't mean the match wasn't hard. Dodging three tank bots just to get a few points in the top goal is no easy task for any bot.

It seems they were trying to fix the 'easy matches shouldn't be rewarded' part and by doing so they created many more problems than they had. This isn't like a sporting event, major league and minor league teams don't play against eachother and thus how many points they score and how many points they PREVENT their opponents from scoring measures how good they are.

Having to score for your opponents to get your rightly deserved points is ridiculous in the first place.

I think if you're insulted by the other team scoring for you, you probably should take a look at the scoring system and you'll understand. If I do badly enough in a match that they have to score on themselves to get a good ranking, be my guest. I'd do it in their position.

It sort of makes me wish we had just put 25 on the offense in that match and used both 486 and our alliance partner to score on our own goal near the end so that we got a good ranking, but then again 25 didn't score all 137 points

There were a lot of good teams at NJ that were not ranked well... but they got picked as alliance partners, so I suppose we can say scouting to the rescue

[BobC]

Originally Posted by JoeCallahan

The scoring system has never made any real sense to me... unless you plan to put every team up against every combination of teams with every combination of alliance partners, you're going to get inaccurate results.

Some good team could go up against the best combinations of alliance partners and never win and not get many points, while some less-than- average robot who was up against the easiest teams could end up in the top eight.

I recall at the NJ regional, spike (293) had a great bot who, given the oppertunity, could score a ridiculous amount of points. I also recall after three or four matches they were in about 46th place.

We could also have a really really good team go up against a bunch of really really bad teams, or in one case score a ridiculous *cough 137* amount of points, but because their opponents only got 10 points they would not move up, but down in the rankings because other matches were much closer.

I understand FIRST's logic, that you should only award points based on how hard the match was, but how hard the match was can not be measured in points. If they want to do that they need to create a major league and a minor league. All good bots to the left, all bad bots to the right (which obviously they won't do.)

In the game this year the amount of points scored is based heavily on how hard you get hit by other bots, and it seems the bots who were best at hitting people were also the ones who couldn't really score any points. If there was a bot that was just a drive train with some strong motors and great turning/speed that just smacked 25 around, they wouldn't have had near as many points at the NJ regional. But just because your opponent didn't manage to get any points doesn't mean the match wasn't hard. Dodging three tank bots just to get a few points in the top goal is no easy task for any bot.

It seems they were trying to fix the 'easy matches shouldn't be rewarded' part and by doing so they created many more problems than they had. This isn't like a sporting event, major league and minor league teams don't play against eachother and thus how many points they score and how many points they PREVENT their opponents from scoring measures how good they are.

Having to score for your opponents to get your rightly deserved points is ridiculous in the first place.

I think if you're insulted by the other team scoring for you, you probably should take a look at the scoring system and you'll understand. If I do badly enough in a match that they have to score on themselves to get a good ranking, be my guest. I'd do it in their position.

It sort of makes me wish we had just put 25 on the offense in that match and used both 486 and our alliance partner to score on our own goal near the end so that we got a good ranking, but then again 25 didn't score all 137 points

There were a lot of good teams at NJ that were not ranked well... but they got picked as alliance partners, so I suppose we can say scouting to the rescue

Last year in Atlanta we were able to stack tetras 6 or 7 high almost every round. Which was very good, we could cap the center goal easily. At the end of day one we were dead last and no wins if I remember right.

[Kate00]

I have pride. And to have another team not only blow me out, which I can accept, but to humiliate me by scoring for me, makes me lose respect for myself and my robot and alliance partners, that we're THAT bad. I have never been in the situation, but thinking about it, I can imagine how humiliated I would be if my alliance sucked badly enough that the other team had to score for it, showing that they noticed how bad we were and felt sorry enough to score for us.

To me, it would say that they didnt even have the respect to think that we could do it ourselves, that they couldnt respect our dignity, let us have respect for our effort, and them have respect for our effort.

I understand that it's part of the game, that it is in a team's best interests to do it. I would never be angry at a team that used this strategy, because it IS part of the game. I can respect that, and if it's part of their strategy, so be it. However, when the rule sets teams up to be humiliated, makes it so that their robot, that they worked on for 6 weeks and invested time and effort into cannot even have the dignity of losing respectfully, I don't much like the rule.

[sanddrag]

If somebody increased my score, even if they were only trying to help themselves, in this game, they would help me in the process. And I would thank them for that.

[Rick]

If any team would like to give out points, by all means go ahead.

Many teams have discussed this strategy and it is very controversal. I believe all teams should play thier game to the fullest. If you are beating an alliance with a comfortable margin, keep scoring and playing your game. The scouts are in the stands watching you at each competition. I would have doubts about any team that let up on the competiton. Every point that we score, has to first go through the machine that our team spent 6 weeks of hard work on.

One match many years ago during an offseason event, one of our partners yelled at the end of the match for our team to get in the other allinaces home zone. We ended up losing the match by a small margin and that created confusion and lack of trust for other teams.

My bottom line: Play your match, not your oppenents. Because when those penalties add up or the calculations are not right, you lose matches. If you are a great offensive machine, you will be picked by a high ranking team or rank high yourself.

[nehalita]

It's either getting more points for yourself or getting more for the opponent.
I figure if a team's going to get mad, they'd probably get mad either way (being beaten by a lot or having the score carried).

so do what you feel you feel you need to do. don't think too much about it.

[GaryVoshol]

There has to be a tie-breaker for teams with equal w/l/t records. FIRST has elected to set that up to be the losing team's score. This certainly can cause scoring for the opponents - as the triplets did this year. I recall seeing 67 pick up an opponent's tetra last year to score a row for them, for the same reason.

While it can be seen as insulting, it isn't meant to be so. The alternative is to have rankings based on your own scores - which would encourage running up the score. In my mind, that is more insulting. FIRST has created a solution to one problem that creates a lesser problem. It's a trade-off - you can't have everything perfect.

The fact that scoring for your opponent also increases their ranking makes this option better than the "running up the score" option, IMO.

Even more insulting would be to get ahead, then step back from your controls and stop playing. That's the "I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back" taunt.

[Btower]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

There has to be a tie-breaker for teams with equal w/l/t records. FIRST has elected to set that up to be the losing team's score. This certainly can cause scoring for the opponents - as the triplets did this year. I recall seeing 67 pick up an opponent's tetra last year to score a row for them, for the same reason.

The fact that scoring for your opponent also increases their ranking makes this option better than the "running up the score" option, IMO.

Even more insulting would be to get ahead, then step back from your controls and stop playing. That's the "I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back" taunt.

Actually, the ranking points are rather complex.

First is Qualifing Points (QP's)
Win - 2pt
Loss/DQ - 0pt
Tie - 1pt

In the event of a tie in QP's they use ranking points (RP's) which are awarded as follows:

Win - The lesser of Unpenalized Alliance Scores from either Alliance
Loss - Penalized score of losing alliance
Tie - Penalized score of own alliance.
DQ - zero

I just finished a backup scoring sheet in excel, what a pain.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

i seen when you guys did that, i was surprised that you actually had that planned, i was thinking " no way, thats the first time i seen that this year "

[Chrisms]

Personally i think it's unfair.

the whole idea behind the ranking system factoring in how much or how little you won by is so that if you get matched with a awesome alliance, and the other alliance isn't as great, you don't get a giant boost in your rank for winning an easy match.

I think boosting your rank like this is very unfair. Is it legitimate? sure. But fair? no. That's not fair to the team's who truly WORKED to just pull out of a match and win by a single point.

My two cents, like it or not, it's my opinion.

-Chrisms