Team update 16

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

BUT I will repeat that these 5 point make ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that the intent of FIRST is that qualifying matches be played to WIN.

Yet they have retained the loser gets winner's score feature of the rules, and therefore retained the incentive to "lose bigger". Trying to comeback after going down big does not serve the loser, as the loser doesn't get loser's points. There will still be a threshold "gap" and match time left at which some teams will decide to abandon the pursuit of a "true" win and instead pursue a loss result that yields the best seeding score possible. The +5 merely widens that gap. That may be enough to deter most teams from pursuing the loss. Time will tell.

I will not fault teams for continuing to pursue "lockdown" mode - helping the winner win bigger is still a benefit to the losing team - in effect, the losing team IS pursuing their best interests by doing this - this is how they "WIN" the match when a *real* win is out of reach.

It is unrealistic to expect teams to try to WIN under all game conditions when doing so in certain conditions under the existing rules is directly to the detriment of the team.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Thanks GDC, I love being a guinea pig.

//walks away frustrated//

[sgreco]

Thank you GDC.

This is a great update. Now I feel as though playing the match to win is obviously in the best interest of the teams and not much iffy ground is left inbetween. That said, the coopertition has not been eliminated so you still want high scores coopertively. So the intent of the cooperation is intact, but now winning is definitely a benefit as opposed to the 6v0.

People may complain about this being late, but I appreciate the fact that they found a problem and fixed it. Better now than never.

[Martinez]

Well... lets see how good my math and logic is.

A +5 bonus is basically a kin to a 2 goals for Coopertition points, so things will start getting weird for blow outs (ie 3 goal lead or more). Basically at that turning point, the losing team will want to score for the winning team and the winning team will want to start scoring for the losing team.

I did some calcs in Excel and at the FLR, 37% of teams won with a lead of 3 or more on Friday Afternoon. Also the average goals was 2.8 to 2.3 for the Red vs Blue Alliance on Friday Afternoon. However, the average qual points with the new system is 7.5 to 7.1 on Friday Afternoon.

The average qual point from ties was 5 on Friday afternoon over the course of 9 matchs which is 18% of matches.

I did some fuzzy logic and determined that there were 5 "6v0 matches" during Friday (ie scored 5 goals or more against a team with a score of zero) in which the average qual points is also 7.6 (without a newly defined win bonus). For the record, yes this means my team (2053) was the benificiary of a 6v0 in match 50 and I never realized it.

I *think* this will produced the desired results that the GDC and the rest of us is looking for, but it will be hard to say until we see in action. Even just the Psycological effects of winning and getting bonus points for it will have a huge effect on game play. All in all, it looks promising.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Madison

Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

Simple we went to FLR to:

• Hang with my sister and Rolling Thunder!!
• Meet Koko Ed in person
• Meet Karthic
• Wings and BBQ at Quaker Steak and Lube
• Meet Kim
• Watch the glee in Steve as Canada teams come beat up on the Americans
• Meet with 20 Chairmain's Award Winners (some of them multiple times)
• Sticklips BBQ
• Watch a rookie team take on some bigger/badder/meaner (in a GP way of course)teams and take their prizes
• Meet Paul, the President of First
• Team dinner of BBQ at Dinosaur BBQ
• Come to a place with less snow than Philly
• See team 1551 put on a robot show that will be talked about for years
• Have 5 different teams either dance with or limbo under our giant screwdriver
• Oh yea, get the bugs out of the robot for Philadelphia

Thats why we came! And we had a good time doing it.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Foster

Simple we went to FLR to:

• Wings and BBQ at Quaker Steak and Lube
• Sticklips BBQ
• Team dinner of BBQ at Dinosaur BBQ

Thats why we came! And we had a good time doing it.

I'm seeing a trend here...Florida has good BBQ?

[JHSmentor]

Originally Posted by Madison

Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

ETA: It's a good change, but the timing is obviously frustrating.

I'll second that - I just wish we even had the option of skipping a week 1 regional.

wouldn't it be nice if they mixed things up from year to year - or just move Portland to week 2 or 3.

[GGCO]

Thank goodness! However I'm still concerned with FIRST's dislike of high scoring matches. After all, what's wrong with a good robot beating a bad robot?

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by GGCO

Thank goodness! However I'm still concerned with FIRST's dislike of high scoring matches. After all, what's wrong with a good robot beating a bad robot?

The hope would be the team with the "good robot" would lend a helping hand to the team with the "bad robot" to make it not so bad.

"Good robots" vs "good robots" makes for a good show, no matter which side you're on.

[Fireworks 234]

I think this has been one of the best updates I have ever seem

Thank you GDC!!! This will help out all of the teams tremendously!!!

[JaneYoung]

Thank you, members of the GDC.

Jane

[Andrew Schreiber]

Dear GDC,

Thank You

[Dantvman27]

Wow that is a huge change, should help eliminate a losing alliance doing better than a winning alliance

[Josh Goodman]

Woohoo an incentive to win matches!!!

[Vikesrock]

Major props to the GDC for this update.

I was in the camp that saw no problem with 6v0 (I wouldn't go quite as far as to call myself an advocate of the tactic). With this update the GDC has clearly expressed that the intent of the seeding system which I will be recommending that my team respect, even in circumstances where 6v0 may still be advantageous for maximum seeding points.

Adding provisions for not penalizing incidental ball intrusion, and making the G30 yellow card optional are also great fixes to issues that seemed to crop up as the game was played for the first time.