Ranking

[Jim Meyer]

I'll side with the game committee on this one, at least for the time being. I think if it were the win based system we'd see far too many of these matches end 0 - 0. I think that ballances out these odd everyone score on the same goals matches.

The BCS calculation for College Football definitely isn't simple. I don't think a complicated ranking system makes the sport any less interesting or entertaining. It's the odd strategies that develop from this particular complicated ranking system that make it confusing. I'd be in favor of an even more complicated system that didn't encourage this strange behavior.

I really don't get these "everyone score in the same side" matches. Lets say the blue alliance decides to score in the red goals. Why wouldn't the red alliance get a comfortable lead then start scoring in the blue goals? It'd be like getting two points for every goal scored, points that can't be taken away by penalties.

[Koko Ed]

I avoided looking at the rankings most of the day because I didn't want to give myself a bigger headache than I already had from queing in week 1.
I had people coming up to me requesting tutorials about the ranking system.
How do you explain this to the average person off the street what's going on?
Whatever happened to making a game easy for the public to understand?

[Eugene Fang]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I avoided looking at the rankings most of the day because I didn't want to give myself a bigger headache than I already had from queing in week 1.
I had people coming up to me requesting tutorials about the ranking system.
How do you explain this to the average person off the street what's going on?
Whatever happened to making a game easy for the public to understand?

Simple explaination: you want to beat your opponents, but only by a little.

Now the hard part -- explaining why FIRST wants us to do this to a non-FIRSTer.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by EugeneF

Now the hard part -- explaining why FIRST wants us to do this to a non-FIRSTer.

Because FIRST wants everyone to have a sense of accomplishment even if you didn't accomplish anything during the match.

[sanddrag]

It seems to me that if you know you are going to lose a match anyhow, you're better off to score for your opponents, and not at all for yourself. Does this make sense?

[XaulZan11]

Since so many teams and even more spectators are confused with the new ranking system where wins/losses do not matter, why doesn't FIRST show the seeding points each alliance gains instead of just goals, bonus, penalties and final score? I think this would really force people to understand the new ranking system.

[Ed Law]

I don't know if other teams realize that seeding points are only important for the top 8-12 teams to become alliance captains. If you are not an alliance captain, high seeding scores will not mean anything at all. We did not pick based on ranking that use seeding points.

So for teams that are ranked in the 20s and below and it is close to the end of the qualifying rounds, why sit in front of your goal to get meaningless seeding points. Go and fight hard and show other teams and spectators why you spend so many hours building that robot. Why pay $5000 and all the late nights to just sit in front of your goals?

We don't care about seeding points. If you can play the game well and fight hard to win even when you are behind, other teams will notice and pick you to play in the elimination round.

Sportsmanship is about trying your best and give your opponent a good honest match. Winning or losing is not important as long as you try hard. That is what I teach my students so I will never agree to play this scheme. However I do not think it is un-GP, I just don't want any part of it.

[davidfv]

Just to let people see how a regional could work with the seeding points, we put this ranking simulation together in the beginning of the year. We are pretty sure it is correct. If you find it in error, let me know. It is a good training to help with understanding the seeding system.

The workbook contains two sheets, matches and Rankings:
Matches
Initial Matches were set up with a 57 team regional and 8 matches
Penalties
Random Number between 0 to 5
Score
Random Number between 0 to 10

To Run Simulation is a two step process
Matches Worksheet:
To obtain a random penalty and Score press control+= on the Matches Worksheet
Rankings Worksheet:
To obtain the rankings, prese (ctrl+shft+z) on the Rankings Worksheet to run the macro.
This macro will tally the wins, losses and ties
Will calculate seeding points and coopertition bonus
Add the qualification seeding and sort based on the total qualification points

Match played:
On the ranking sheet, it shows each match the team played to review the scores

The visual basic Macro simply searches through the scores and tally's wins/losses, and calculates seeding points and coopertition (TM) bonus. Hope it helps.

[Ross]

We just came back from Granite State, and came in last place.
Going into the competition I thought the seeding points were confusing but other then that didnt have much of a problem with it.

Then getting to competition and seeing how things worked i stated to have a problem. I understood that the algorithm was there to not promote a blow out match (9-0) or something, but when it came to our matches all them were low scoring (1-0). Which meant that even though we were winning the majority of our matches and were the only robot that scored in the match we ended up being seeded last place. Even ones we lost were 0-1 matches which meant that we had no chance of seeding high.

The algorithm works if you have higher scoring matches but not if it is low scoring. I understand the having a winning record is not important but our matches were in coopertition spirit i.e. close in score but because it was so low we ended up getting no seeding points. So here the algorithm worked against us. 9 out of our 10 matches were 0-1 whether we won or lost. Thus we were in last place.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Ether

Just like NFL head coaches who call a timeout to "ice" the opposing team's kicker.

This isn't a bad FIRST strategy either, actually.

Originally Posted by sgreco

I understand that, but the point of a competition is to compete. So the rules must have been phrased poorly such that teams are playing a match, but yet not competing against each other. FIRST is a competition for a reason; I hope the competition part doesn't get lost in the future because FIRST is far better than a science fair.

So someone needs to tell me what the point of a coopertition is...

(I'm a little confused how "coopertition" is defined as "scoring for your opponents, when if you cooperpete correctly they gain NOTHING from being scored on and only from you scoring on yourself. That's stupid)

[Dmentor]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

So someone needs to tell me what the point of a coopertition is...

(I'm a little confused how "coopertition" is defined as "scoring for your opponents, when if you cooperpete correctly they gain NOTHING from being scored on and only from you scoring on yourself. That's stupid)

You're not alone; I'm confused too. According to the FIRST website:

Coopertition means competing always, but assisting and enabling others when you can.

In Breakaway how do you both compete and assist/enable? If both teams are trying to do their best to win, then they are competing but not cooperating. If both teams are trying to maximize seeding points and cooperate together to score for one team or tie, then they aren't competing and besides get no coopertition points. If both teams are trying to win and one team gets an "insurmountable" lead and starts scoring on themselves then I don't see this as cooperation either since the losing team gets no benefit. In fact the losing team should probably switch to scoring for the winning team. Talk about messed up - both teams scoring on themselves in order to advance their seeding.

[keericks]

<soapbox>
As I reflect on the numerous threads & posts flooding CD on this topic, I find myself wanting to comment on the greater objective/direction that this year's "seeding system" is promoting. Aside from the strategies, rules, approaches, legal vs. ethical, and all the other ideas that have been discussed here, I would like draw the attention to what I feel is an alarmingly slippery slope FIRST seems to be approaching by engraining the "coopertition" concept into "competition" rules. A little background may help explain my position:

1. I've coached my 11th grade son's FLL/FRC teams since he was in the 4th grade. As a FIRST Operational Partner I've run one of the country's largest FLL State Championship tournaments for the past four years, that attract 750+ students and 85+ FLL teams to the California's Central Valley each year. I'm a huge fan and ambassador of FIRST and its impact on the youth in our communities.

2. At the 2006 World Festival, my FLL team won 1st place in the first ever FLL Alliance Challenge with the Ocean Odyssey missions, where we worked with 3 other teams from the U.S and Denmark - our first feel for true FIRST coopertition - (the Denmark team didn't even speak english) IT WAS AWESOME!

3. I've also coached every sport my 3 kids have been involved in from baseball, football, hockey, soccer, etc. - and have always appreciated the distinct differences a program like FLL/FRC brings to kids who gravitate away from traditional sporting programs - and the opportunities they find here.

So with all that said, I can tell you from my experiences that a large part of the attaction of FIRST is the packaging of learning (math/science/tech) WITH the excitment of COMPETITION that speaks to our innate competitive spirit that I believe drives the human race towards accomplishment, improvement, and connecting with others. And while I'm not wanting get all philosophical here, I can't help but feel this year's game philosophy is squelching this spirit AND forcefully directing our brightest minds into a "thinkset" that I feel is ultimately weakening us as a society/community.

It's been mentioned in other threads/posts how there are plenty of opportunties for coopertition off the competition field - and I agree 100%. I'm proud of how well this program promotes and practices it (this web site is a classic example) - our team would be lost without it! Even as we get onto the competition field - the alliance format allows for tons of cooperation! But let's cooperate to triumph over the opposition! What's wrong with that? Opposition is a force in life that we must all learn to deal with - and I've always felt that FIRST's approach of competing & dealing with opposition by THINKING & USING YOUR MIND was the perfect answer ... Not by removing the opposition and morphing it into cooperation. Opposition doesn't always WANT to cooperate, yes?

But I do fear FIRST is trying to change the face of competition ... as strong competition seems to be viewed more and more as a bad thing, so bad that we have to start changing the rules/game to MAKE SURE that we cooperate. I know I'm not alone in my thinking as I've seen others lightly comment on this elsewhere, but I want to put my stake in the ground and call a spade a spade. Let's not water-down honest competition that boasts "the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat" - it is afterall what makes this program tick - and if you don't belive me, look at all the posts of how teams are trying to use the coopertition rules to - do what? WIN!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a proponent of win at all costs, and/or winning is the only important thing. However, "striving to win" in a gracious and professional manner brings with it amazing results ... many more than "striving to cooperate" will ever see. I'm sorry, but that's just weak.

I understand the lofty touchy-feely goal of everyone's a winner, but we don't live in a world where everyone's a winner, nor should we want to, IMO. In Pixar's movie, The Incredible's, the villian Syndrome wants to sell his super inventions to everyone in the world, giving everybody superpowers - "Because when everyone is super ... (evil laugh) no one will be!" Kind of corny, I know, but it speaks volumes.

However, not being a winner, doesn't mean you're a loser either. The FRC program and its outcomes are dealing with different degrees of success, yes? But it's the COMPETITION that creates the scale on which we measure those degrees. It's the COMPETITION that makes us want to move up those scales each and every time we COMPETE. It's the COMPETITION that makes us and everyone around us, better. You can't call something a competition, and then strip out all the elements that engage our competitive spirits. It's crushing, depressing, and outright frustrating.

So as I step off my soapbox, I just wanted to share my thoughts around the subject and hope they serve as a warning to FIRST and to join in solidarity with others that have spoken out against this new system and its inherent problems. My concerns may go deeper, because I'm so passionate about what this program has always been about, and I'm concerned about its future. But I suppose I could have justed posted the following:

Minimize Competitive Components = Minimize Growth & Attraction & Spirit

Force "coopertition" through rules/regulation = choke the competitive spirit that's made this program what it is

</soapbox>