Making pre-match deals

[Zoheb N]

I think that making deals before a match is wrong. I know in previous years teams would score for the opposing alliance in order to raise their QP and I believe FIRST wanted to get rid of this because it took away from the fun and excitement and that is why you can not even be in possession of the opposing alliance's ringer.

[ChuckDickerson]

Forget about top row, middle row, and bottom row for a moment and think sides. What if teams simply agree to only score on their respective sides of the rack? I have a feeling it is going to come down to this a lot of the time anyway simply because of visibility issues. If FIRST wants us to compete graciously what would be more gracious than simply saying “You guys stay over there and we will stay over here and lets just see who can get the most rings on in the shortest amount of time?” No penalties for contact, etc., let’s just have a race.

[George1902]

9.3.8 Ranking Score
The total number of ranking points earned by a team throughout their qualification matches, divided by the number of matches played (excluding any SURROGATE matches), then truncated to two decimal places, will be their ranking score. Note: because your ranking score is derived directly from the match scores of the losing ALLIANCES in the matches you play, it is in your best interest to support your opponents and win by helping each ALLIANCE score as many points as possible.

"Collusion," or "Coopertition" as I prefer to call it, is the best way to "help each alliance score as many points as possible." How would you help your alliance score as many points as possible? You would (and probably do) meet each partner before the match a talk out a strategy. How would you help your opponent's alliance score as many points as possible? You would (and you can bet I will) meet with each opponent before the match, offer replacement parts or tools to fix anything broken, and offer a non-defensive match where you allow each other a row and free access to the ringers.

[Ericgehrken]

Your match ranking score is derived from the unpenalized score of the losing alliance when you win and from your actual score with penalties when you lose. So high scoring and close matches will be key if you want to be high in the standings.

[Cyberguy34000]

I'd like to say... I'm sorry.

I had not realized that this topic had already been discussed, and beaten to death before. I just finished reading the the flame-warish (not quite, but close enough), outcome of the last time this thing was brought up and I'd like to appologize if I've accidentally revived an old flame-war. I don't think there is anything to gain from further discussion, and I would like to echo Matt Krass' suggestion that this thread be closed.


Please forgive me.


-Chris

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by George1902

9.3.8 Ranking Score
The total number of ranking points earned by a team throughout their qualification matches, divided by the number of matches played (excluding any SURROGATE matches), then truncated to two decimal places, will be their ranking score. Note: because your ranking score is derived directly from the match scores of the losing ALLIANCES in the matches you play, it is in your best interest to support your opponents and win by helping each ALLIANCE score as many points as possible.

"Collusion," or "Coopertition" as I prefer to call it, is the best way to "help each alliance score as many points as possible." How would you help your alliance score as many points as possible? You would (and probably do) meet each partner before the match a talk out a strategy. How would you help your opponent's alliance score as many points as possible? You would (and you can bet I will) meet with each opponent before the match, offer replacement parts or tools to fix anything broken, and offer a non-defensive match where you allow each other a row and free access to the ringers.

This post deserves some more attention while this thread is open. I oppose collusion, but what ARE we supposed to do to "support your opponents and win by helping each ALLIANCE score as many points as possible"? This is the first game I'm familiar with where scoring for your opponents has been penalized.

[Scott358]

I doubt the "help" FIRST is referring to has anything to do with collusion.

The only way I see to "help" the opposing alliance score, since you cannot score for them, is to not play defense. This, along with the yellow/red flag, perhaps is FIRST's way to promote a more offensively minded game (without "behind the scenes" agreements being made).

[jgannon]

Collusion has happened before. It has generally been frowned upon, but it is technically legal. If you don't like collusion, don't agree to collude, and don't join a finals alliance with someone who has previously asked you to collude. There are enough principled people in FIRST to keep teams from actually doing this.

In any case, I suspect that it's not going to be a huge issue, because it's sort of a prisoner's dilemma. Collusion is not in your best interest if it looks like you're going to lose the match. Spoil one in their row at the last second, and you regain the advantage that you lost fighting over the neutral row. Nobody is going to accept a loss to help the other team get their QP. In this game, asking for collusion begets backstabbing.

[Scott Perry]

To be honest, my first reaction is don't agree to that top row. If you're in the middle, you'll get a bunch of collumns of 2!

But seriously, I won't touch the ethics or gp point of the question, though it does leave a bad taste in my mouth. All I can say is that it's a bad idea. If you make deals to win rankings, you'll never win or have a fun game against those who don't.

[Seki]

Sounds like a good plan and a small fue may try it but i don't really think it will work. during a match things tend to go aray and that would take some of the sport out of the game.
cool idea though

[Billfred]

It's not a new concept--you could agree to any sort of this-for-that in any recent FRC game.

But I don't think it's gonna be that popular--too many ways for things to go wrong for me to take that route. And I would strongly protest any such agreement on my end.

[Koko Ed]

Basically if that happens folks will prob probably react like this.
What's a FIRST season without contreversy anyways?

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Basically if that happens folks will prob probably react like this.
What's a FIRST season without contreversy anyways?

Ed pointed to the right thread. IMHO collusion of this kind cheats the other teams and the viewing public of an honest, honorable competitive experience.

[BillP]

Here we go again. When this happened in 2003 (as previously mentioned in this post), there was a flurry of discussion here, and at the various events that I attended. There were a lot of interesting points made on both sides.

Nonetheless, I (and our team) took a very strong stand in 2003 which I would like to reiterate here.

Point 1: Collusion is not "technically" against the rules. That is to say it is not against the letter of the rules. FIRST was quite clear on this when the official response to queries about the legality of collusion were effectively not answered.

Point 2: Collusion is (in my opinion) contrary to the spirit of gracious professionalism and contrary to the spirit of FIRST.

Point 3: In the "real world", collusion is illegal. Corporate executives and sports stars have been fined and sent to prison for participating in collusion.

FIRST attempts to prepare students to enter the world of technology through these competitions. Technology, without the business of technology does not accomplish much. Businesses that participate in collusion typically get themselves into trouble (think of Enron). I doubt seriously that FIRST would condone the practice of pre-match deal making, but I also understand their reluctance to make an official ruling on the subject (each of us has to decide if we are going the break the law or not).

Sorry this got a little long winded, but I feel very strongly about this subject. Collusion should be rejected by all teams. For all of you who have the courage and confidence to reject collusion, I applaud you. For those of you who don't, remind be not to buy stock in whatever company you end up working for.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

What were to happen if a team made an agreement with the opposing alliance like so... "We'll let you have the middle row for 256 points, we'll take the top row for 256 points, no spoiling those rows, though you can try to block us from scoring. All competition will be on that lower row."

If both teams honored the agreement, they'd have considerably higher QP than other teams.

If both teams made this agreement, then at least one of the teams is populated by fools.

Whether it is within the spirit of FIRST or not, making an agreement like this would be a massively stupid thing to do strategically. For the team that agrees to take the top row, they have effectively given away the game before it even starts. Assume Redabot takes the top row, and Blueabot takes the middle row. After that, every Ringer that Redabot places on the bottom row will be worth 2 points for a Singleton, 4 points if there is a red Ringer adjacent, etc. But for Blueabot, every Ringer they place is worth 4 points, as it makes a vertical row of two, plus 4 points if there is a blue Ringer adjacent, etc. Effectively, each blue Ringer on the bottom row is worth twice as much as each red Ringer. Unless Blueabot is incredibly incompetent, they will win the match every time. And a check mark in Blueabot's "Win" column is worth a lot more than the increased ranking points.

What you should be talking about is what happens if two teams make the agreement "you take the top row, we will take the bottom row, and we will fight it out over the middle row." (and on that topic, I will refer you to the immediately preceeding post by BillP).

-dave