Scoring For Your Opponents

[irishninja]

If the opposing alliance is scoring for you, just double your efforts and try to score even more. I'm sure that there are games in which one team, thinking they were ahead more than they were, scored for the other team and ended up giving them the game.

[Elgin Clock]

Try to keep track of what they actually have, because if you don't.. Hey guess what, you could score posints for them and make them win!!!

HA HA HA!! That would be great.

To each strategy their are plusses and minuses, and this is a risk you will have to take on.

[meaubry]

I believe Karthik said it as was stated to him - "insulted" which also could be interpreted as "embarrassed"?

I agree in part with what most have said, but I think the qualifying points emphasis has been set up to to try and eliminate the reason for a "blowout" in the first place. There once was a game that you were rewarded the most by just barely beating your opponent - the safety margin was very small. Since then, penalty values and high point value at the end (hanging, being on the ramp, getting home) created a big enough gap that you didn't want to risk losing by that slim of a margin.

If the qualifying points were not at risk, there would be more than one way to do that. But, sometimes in this game you have to be cautious especially if you don't know how far ahead you are (scoring system shut off) and don't want to risk losing a close game by penalities (which can add up quickly with the offsides rule, and the lower goal scoring infractions).

I guess I can see how some teams could take it as a slap in the face - even though the justification is clearly to increase your (and their) qualifying points, very few will feel better knowing that the opponent was able to score more for them than they were.

Maybe, that is what FIRST should do - limit the amount the opposition can score for the other team, by the amount that team was able to score or themselves.

[Koko Ed]

I remember in 2003 when QP was such a roblem teams started brokering deals to keep their stacks intact so both alliances would score hefty QP points win or lose. THe debate split FIRST right down the middle.
Some saw it as a great strategy and others saw it as corrupting the ideals of competition. It gets real funny when you start thinking about QP points as much (if not more) tha the win, which is probably why FIRST started going with the W/L record over just QP points so it wouldn't be as much an issue.
I'm not all that fond of the QP points but they are a part of the FIRST landscape so we live with them. If you choose to focus on them just understand the risk and be rprepared to take the consequences if they backfire.

[Jack Jones]

I'm curious as to how others feel about this? Would you be insulted if your opponent scored for you during a blow out?

Of course not! It's all in the spirit of Cooperatition. The way the hen cooperates with the fox by being tasty.

[Bharat Nain]

As long as the rules are like they are, people have to accept it and live with it. Unless it was intentionally rubbed in their face that their robot is not good enough and you are going to show them how it's played, there is no reason to be insulted or embarrassed. They just had the chance to play against a greater robot and it should be fun. The competition is not about getting embarrassed or insulted, it is about having fun and that's what everyone should do. Now go have fun!

[LPaton716]

Ranking points help you and your opponent do well. After all you might be with one of the teams in your next match. It's all part of strategy.

Speaking of strategy...if there is an alliance with robots that cannot handle(pick up) balls well it would be a good idea to put balls in their opponents goals when you are on offense. That way your opponent can't possibly score those balls and now your human players have control of them. You can then throw them to your side of the field or save them to fill up a robot.

It's a rather back wards strategy but it might work really well if your shooter mechanisms weren't working that match or you could only push balls.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by LPaton716

Speaking of strategy...if there is an alliance with robots that cannot handle(pick up) balls well it would be a good idea to put balls in their opponents goals when you are on offense. That way your opponent can't possibly score those balls and now your human players have control of them. You can then throw them to your side of the field or save them to fill up a robot.

It's a rather back wards strategy but it might work really well if your shooter mechanisms weren't working that match or you could only push balls.

Nothing backwards about it, and I've already seen teams do it. It is actually quite an effective way to load up "top loaders".

[JAlpert]

1) Sports analogies do not apply here. There isn't a single major sport (involving a ball, at least) in which your playoff seeding is entirely based on your opponent's score. This is because win/loss records usually suffice (i.e. there is no incentive for a basketball team to blow the other team out, because all that matters is the win). FIRST plays few games with many teams, resulting inevitably in lots of W/L ties. Thus, in FIRST, the tiebreaker is a key strategic element, where in most major sports, nobody cares about this rare event.

2) Every team is at this competition to win. Period. Teams do what they have to do to win. If it is possible, within the confines of match play, to advance your position by scoring for your opponent, it would be a brutal mistake not to do so. The system is there for you to use.

3) This topic comes up every year. In 2003, elimination rounds were set up such that the alliance with the highest point total at the end of two rounds won. The points an alliance received were a multiple of the loser's score (I believe the multiple was 1 for the loser, and 2 for the winner). The dominant strategy was to win the first round no matter what, collecting 2x your opponent's score, and then lose the second round as badly as possible. If you lost with a score of zero, you were in the best position possible, because neither alliance received any points in the second round, and your alliance won by default (because you won the first round). It was a terribly broken scoring system, but the teams that won used what they were given to the best of their ability. Teams complained it was "unsportsmanlike" to lose intentionally. Teams said FIRST didn't intend the game to be played that way. But the fact of the matter is, whether FIRST intended the game to be played in that manner or not, they set the game up that way. De-scoring that second match wasn't losing. It was winning within in the confines of the system. Just like scoring in your opponents goal isn't showing off. It's advancing your position (winning) in the confines of the system. And that is all that matters when you're out there playing a match.

Jeff