A novel strategy: Always score for your opponents

[StevenB]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

If both alliances are scoring for the other alliance, wouldn't it be better just to score for your alliance?

No, because you can lose points that you score for yourself. You can't lose points you score for your opponent. Penalties don't hurt you if you don't have any points to lose. I'm not suggesting that you should commit penalties because you can - I'm merely saying that they're a huge part of this game, and they will happen to your alliance, whether you like it or not.

From the webcasts I saw today, it was not uncommon to get five or more points in penalties. Nearly every match seemed to have a penalty on one side or another. With this kind of unpredictability, reliably winning by a small margin seems nearly impossible.

[Molten]

Ok, I'm not really competing in this years game...but reading this thread has been shocking. Any previous year this strategy would have been seen as unethical and means for not getting picked. I believe it has been brought up more then once for previous games and has never gotten this response. I'm not debating the ethics or the effectiveness. I just wanted to comment on how confused your going to have the audience if this becomes common. Also, how do you explain to sponsors that you averaged 5 points for the opponent? Finally, why is there a game that these questions have to be asked?

[WJF2011]

.

Originally Posted by StevenB

With this kind of unpredictability, reliably winning by a small margin seems nearly impossible.

Actually, not true, most games we played in were close at peachtree, we even tied 0-0 3 times, our record at the end of qualifying was 2-1-3 but we were ranked dead last due to no points in a 0-0 tie. We were picked for an alliance because they knew teams ahead of us were worse than our robot and we ended up going well into the semis.

[pfreivald]

We saw this strategy and we thought that it was very much against Gracious Professionalism, and poor gamesmanship besides. We played every game to win, no matter what...

...and we were first seed, and at the end of the day, Regional Champions. (*AND* we won the 'Cooperatition(TM) Award' to boot.)

My suggestion: just play the game. It worked for us, *and* it gives the other teams' scouts a better idea of what your robot is capable of when winning is all about who has more points at the end of a match.

The top eight teams are *so* fluid this year because of the scoring system, that scouting is that much more important -- we went from 13th to 1st in three games. Too many people seem more focused on a mathematical trick than they are on the psychology of scouting -- and IMO that is a big mistake.

Patrick

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

We saw this strategy and we thought that it was very much against Gracious Professionalism, and poor gamesmanship besides. We played every game to win, no matter what...

...and we were first seed, and at the end of the day, Regional Champions. (*AND* we won the 'Cooperatition(TM) Award' to boot.)

My suggestion: just play the game. It worked for us, *and* it gives the other teams' scouts a better idea of what your robot is capable of when winning is all about who has more points at the end of a match.

The top eight teams are *so* fluid this year because of the scoring system, that scouting is that much more important -- we went from 13th to 1st in three games. Too many people seem more focused on a mathematical trick than they are on the psychology of scouting -- and IMO that is a big mistake.

Patrick

You guys were great at FLR. Loved the robot!
I think that the qual ranking system this year is FUBAR. Smart teams should just not look at it, or they will get false hope, or become depressed. We got picked as a first choice for an alliance even though we were seeded in the high 20's. The team that picked us knew that we were good, despite a bunch of lousy scoring matches.

BTW, GoW, were you the guys we played with in the match when we had 2 bots with no field connection and we scored 5 goals on our own?

[dtengineering]

Just for the record, going for this strategy does not require "collusion" or cooperation between two alliances... one alliance can do it by themselves fairly effectively.

They can just park one robot in front of each of their own goals, to make sure that the opposing alliance doesn't "helpfully" score on their behalf, and then use the third robot to pass balls towards the opponents end of the field, making it easier for them to score.

Boring match, yes. Not a great way to show off your robot for alliance selections? No. But a good strategy to employ should you ever face off against a notably superior alliance? You bet.

The rule of the game this year, whether we like it or not, is "if you think you're outmatched... give in."

Jason

[MikeReilly]

We certainly did not ever "collude" for the fabeled 6v0 approach. And I do think this scoring system is bizarre, but does suggest high-scoring close matches. I agree with Jeff, read the rules. I think there's way too much "Gracious" and not enough "Professionalism" (and I'm not a sore loser, we won). It was very frustrating to see a team ranked in the Top 10 that had trouble moving most of the time.

On one positive note from this strange twist, we did get some respect for our scouting team, and shared our scouting with others. There were teams in the Semis we KNEW were high penalty teams and avoided them. THAT paid off, and that's professionalism, AND we shared our info with whomever wanted it.

Play the game, not the angelic/doormat/everyone wins. We also need to teach our kids how to lose well (that was our lesson last year, and the year before, and ...)

[JackN]

If my opponents want to score for me that is fine. It is silly to me to go and score for my opponents. It is more valuable for me to win a match 4-2 than it is to win 6-0 or 7-0. The ranking system this year rewards teams that win quality matches, unlike in the past where an ugly win is worth any kind of win. Having 6 teams working to score into 2 goals is really awkward since you will wind up with several teams in the middle zone that will get in each others way. It is interesting that this game has lead people to no longer try and win hard fought matches, when a hard fought match is going to turn out well for you.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

BTW, GoW, were you the guys we played with in the match when we had 2 bots with no field connection and we scored 5 goals on our own?

We played you in Q55, and won 8-2, so unless you managed to penalize yourself three points, then no, it wasn't us!

Patrick

[BJT]

The people promoting gracious professionalism wrote these rules. I would hope that nobody would think that following the rules as written would go against gracious professionalism.

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

We saw this strategy and we thought that it was very much against Gracious Professionalism, and poor gamesmanship besides. We played every game to win, no matter what...
Patrick

But in this game a "win" is irrelevant and not even tracked. All that matters is your seeding points. And sometimes you get the most points by scoring in one set of goals, and sometimes you get the most points by scoring in another set.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

But in this game a "win" is irrelevant and not even tracked. All that matters is your seeding points.

That is absolutely false. In this game, showing off your great robot to other teams matters a great deal more than your seeding points, and how well your robot performs overall is very, very highly tracked -- by scouting teams.

The scoring system this year is really, really wonky, but if you look at the top-seeded teams at the FLR, they really were the best robots -- and that was for the most part without these kinds of shenanigans.

As an *overall* strategy, this idea does nothing but maintain the status quo -- it doesn't help you stand out, and it doesn't help your rankings when compared to the other five teams on the field. Perhaps, if you know you are going to get absolutely crushed, you might consider doing this, but in any other circumstance it just doesn't seem viable to me. We've won too many close games that we "should have lost" in the past five years to not go for the win even when we're down.

[Chris Fultz]

Let me clarify -

Seeding points is FIRST's way of ranking teams.
Scouting is our way of ranking teams.

For ranking, win loss is irrelevant, it is purely seeding points, and that is what I was referring to.

For scouting, we don't even look at win/loss or even seeding points.
We look at our data on each robot's performance - scoring ability, hanging, defense, control on the field, consistency, penalties, etc. This data helps us craft a strategy for each match, and that is also why a low "ranked" team is often higher on our draft list than a "higher" ranked team.

Strong scouting is more important this year than most and you cannot rely on the seeding points ranking system to identify the strongest teams.

[Grim Tuesday]

I would just like to note the fact that this was used AND WORKED at Fingerlakes regional today (no less, from a rookie team). They got into it with their alliance and the amazing thing was, the MC understood what they were doing. However, few teams followed their lead, due to gracious professionalism. In fact, however, their score on yourself thinking got them into number 3 seed, and well into the semifinals...

EDIT: Winning qual's arent very important, unless you get into the top 8. Our team was in 27 seed, and were the first pick of a 7 seeded team. And we would have done even better if both of our alliance partners hadent pooped out during the match (lol we scored 5 points, and played all three zones)

[Bill_B]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

.... In fact, however, their score on yourself thinking got them into number 3 seed, and well into the semifinals...

So that is what you tell your sponsors, Molten. How you got to the semifinals will not seem important to your sponsors. The amount of time their name was in front of the audience will be a major concern to them.