Ranking

[sgreco]

I have declined to comment on the scoring system all year...

So all I have to say is: Any scoring system that ever gives people incentive to score on themselves at ANY point during ANY match needs to be re-evaluated.

What was wrong with the old days when the teams that won got the best seeds? What part of earning your seeding position isn't fair?

[beachmom561]

I understand that they want to find a better way of ranking seeding points but this just seems too full of political correctness of trying to make everyone feel good. Kind of the new scoring rules of t-ball. Everyone wins so no one feels bad.
A better way can surely be found.
Believe me, our team has had years when our bot did great but the alliances we were in just didn't do well. So, even though we did well individually we have been seeded low on the list. We ended up getting picked for alliances in the quarter finals anyway most of the time. Because of profiling, this happens quite often.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

Pro-tip:

Friends don't let friends play defense! (in qualifications)

If both teams have scored points, playing limited defense to secure a win is often more beneficial than a zero defense match.

[davidfv]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Did you guys go into this without reading and understanding the seeding rules?

This leaves me completely baffled and befuddled.

IndySam... Sounds like many people did just that...

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Did you guys go into this without reading and understanding the seeding rules?

This leaves me completely baffled and befuddled.

I encountered this with MANY teams at FLR. It's frustrating trying to explain a strategy only to have the other drive team not comprehend why the strategy is beneficial to them because they don't know the system.

Teams often overlook Section 9 of the manual, this year it was very evident. Hopefully by championship all teams will understand the system.

[Vikesrock]

Maybe we need to get people to make multiple announcements about this at events, many teams obviously don't understand this based on the gameplay I'm seeing (I'm not just picking on you two).

WINS AND LOSSES DO NOT MATTER FOR RANKING THIS YEAR. They affect how many qualifying points you receive from a match, but after QPs are assigned the system no longer tracks who won and lost the match.

9.3.4 Match Seeding Points
All teams on the winning ALLIANCE will receive a number of seeding points equal to the penalized score (the score with any assessed penalties) of the winning ALLIANCE.
All teams on the losing ALLIANCE will receive a number of seeding points equal to un-penalized score (the score without any assessed penalties) of the winning ALLIANCE.
In the case of a tie, all participating teams will receive a number of seeding points equal to their ALLIANCE score (with any assessed penalties).
9.3.5 Coopertition™ Bonus
All teams on the winning ALLIANCE will receive a coopertition bonus: a number of seeding points equal to twice the un-penalized score (the score without any assessed penalties) of the losing ALLIANCE.
In the case of a tie, all participating teams will receive a coopertition bonus of a number of seeding points equal to twice their ALLIANCE score (with any assessed penalties).

The Coopertition Bonus is the important part here. It is added to the Seeding Points earned as described in section 9.3.4 in addition to being recoded separately as a tiebreaker.

You want high scores in this game! If both alliances are scoring high it is much better to win than lose, but a 5-0 loss is better than a 3-0 win!!

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

... a 5-0 loss is better than a 3-0 win!!

I just want to point this out as a part of Vikesrock's post. If this is what the system promotes, I sure hope I'm not the only one that has a problem with it.

[ubermeister]

I think the scoring system has many problems, but I am starting to see how it works.

The system obviously degenerates when the scores are low and the penalties are high (see my previous post.) But, if you work with the assumption that you are a good team, you will see that you will be highly rewarded, and rewarded more for winning against other good teams.

The system isn't supposed to sort the entire team list by how good they are, it is only supposed to find the top 8. The rest are essentially random, since they are going off mostly other teams' scores. The top alliances are going off mostly their scores and their coopertition.

The one thing I still don't like is how in a 5-5 tie, one penalty causes a 10 point swing in how seeding points are distributed. It gets too discontinuous on evenly-matched teams.

[Don Wright]

Just my thoughts on this...

First of all, I don't think the ranking system really affects the non-FIRST people that are coming into the arena and watching the tournament. Most of them really don't watch a ranking screen to see everyone's rank. They see the competition and how the matches turn out. Of course, explaining to them why all the robots might be all scoring on one side might be fun...but usually, if all the teams are scoring and playing offense, then I think it looks good to them.

I was surprised at how well the rankings worked out at Kettering. From my general observations, the top 8 teams were deserving and I didn't see any "oh they shouldn't be up there" teams. I think it was also backed up by most of the top 8 picking other top 8 teams which showed to me that the rankings were right.

Sure, it's a strange system, but I'm anxious to see how it plays out for the rest of the season. We all just have to do two things...

1. Tell everyone to stop playing defense in quals. I think when people are surprised when they lose a match and still go up in standings the message will get across, but the more points scored in a match on either side helps everyone!

2. Please, please, please fix your robots to stop taking penalties. And if you have taken penalties in a match and have a yellow card for it, please be careful to not get a red card. It was sad to see two red card matches and disqualifications in elimination rounds at Kettering.

[dodar]

cooperatition points go off the losing alliance's actual score or unpenalized score?

[Valkyrie133]

If you were at FLR this weekend, you saw members of the red alliance go over and exchange high-fives with the blue alliance after a qualifying match...why? Because all six teams were deliberately scoring goals only for the blue alliance. (I think the score was 11-0 for that match.) It was great for the seeding points for those six teams, but anyone who didn't understand the seeding point system - including members of the general public who might never have seen a FIRST event before - would have have been totally baffled.

Yes, it's strategy, and it does encourage cooperation. But it also removes competition, at least until the elimination rounds. It's a bit odd to be cheering for your team's robot when it spends the entire match sitting in front of your goal to block it!

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by dodar

cooperatition points go off the losing alliance's actual score or unpenalized score?

unpenalized

[Paul Copioli]

Our first match on Friday morning we didn't move one inch (not a robot problem, a person forgetting to do something problem). We were outscored 3-1, but due to penalties won 1-0. Our seeding score was 7 (1 + 2*3).

I will come out and say I do not like the system. I will say that I prefer wins and losses. However, I understand the reasoning for the 2x losing score and how it was implemented pre-2004 was much better than this year. The reason: in those years the losing alliance got their own penalized score so there was incentive to score for yourself.

The small tweak made this year from the pre-2004 years is breaking the system. More and more teams are figuring out that 6-0 is better for their situation. If the GDC intended this, then I guess they are getting what they wanted.

If this is an unintended consequence, then that is unfortunate for all of us participating.

With that said, I am not so concerned about people outside of FIRST understanding the ranking. Why? Because I have been telling people I know that are not part of FIRST to come to the event Saturday around 12:30pm since 2000. Like many sports, round robin play (aka qualification matches) are borrrring. Elimination round matches are exciting. This has worked for people I know for years as I have many repeat spectators at many of our local events.

When the season is over, I will give FIRST my opinion of the seeding system as I feel it is my responsibility; but if it stays this way for many seasons, my teams will live with it.

I can guarantee this: I will push like crazy to have IRI be based on wins & losses in qualifying!!!

[JABot67]

I think that this year's ranking scheme has worked very well, and that is because now in order to be ranked in the top 8, you must beat good teams. Winning a great offensive match against good opponents is now worth much more than winning a match against three robots that do not move.
Take a look at the Kettering District top 8 qualifiers:

67
910
2619
33
2834
27
245
201

All of these teams were very deserving of their top 8 spots. (2619 is a beastly scoring machine; same with 2834. If you don't know them now, you will know them by the end of the season.) The reason 67 got seeded #1 was because we won q45 with 33 and 2834 and against 910, 70, and 894. Not only did we have good partners... the opposing alliance was amazing as well. 910 was ahead of us by a large margin in seeding points, and when we won 12-11 without penalties, it boosted our seeding score by 34 points.

If 910's alliance would have won, it would have boosted their score by around the same number of points, and they almost certainly would have been ranked #1. But the thing is that the ranking scheme didn't screw 910 over for losing that one match. They still ended up ranking second.

What I liked about this is that our matches against powerful opponents (such like 2619, 27, 910, 201, 51, 2834, and 245) gave us more points than "easy" matches where we were allied with good partners and didn't face very much opposition. A not so good robot can win a lot of matches if it has an easy schedule. But that robot cannot win a high scoring match against good teams, and therefore will not be ranked high. This is the reason why I believe the new ranking system better determines which teams should be in the top 8.

Also, I do not think that the new ranking system encourages you to score for the other alliance. Say your alliance can score 11 balls in a match. So you can either get 11 seeding points by scoring for yourself, or you can score 5 of those balls for the other alliance and win the match 6-5. This gives you 16 points, 5 more than if you only scored for yourself. But then the other alliance can score a couple balls or hang at the end of the match, or your alliance could get penalties, and bam, you've lost. In my opinion, that's too much risk.

But what about the other regionals/districts? Do you think the ranking system worked well for determining the top 8, or did it fail?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

I can guarantee this: I will push like crazy to have IRI be based on wins & losses in qualifying!!!

I think any off season event entertaining the thought of using this ranking system runs the risk of having a very very hard time attracting teams.