I have to say i like 2003 game alot, but like evryone else said it had its flaws. I loved the AI modes that was something i thought was awesome. A good AI mode could win you the match. I have to agree stacking was mostly thrown out due to people just ramming stacks. Which are team stacked a few times but are arm was mostly used for protecting the ramp and knocking over stacks. I think stacking was a big part but they should of made it more of a incentive to do it. Definetly, next year i think they should go back to the best 2 out of 3 in elmination. I have to agree this years game was very exciting to watch and drive in. About relying to much on your alliance partner i am not to shuyre about that, because in ucf in one of are matches we where practicially by ourself cause are teammate blew there transmission, and we where ranked 5th and we went up agains the 1st and 7th seed team, and instead of getting killed we almost beat them. WE lost by 16 points that if we could of pusched off there robot on the top we would of won. Buit overall good game cant wait for next year
i quite honestly, did not like this year’s game. there was too much new stuff, and no one could come up with an effective, UNIQUE solution. sure, anyone can build a box with wheels to smash stacks down. anyone can build a drivetrain with tons of power (now looking back, i should’ve taken my 2002 bot, we would’ve won no problem). but that’s boring. i want to go to a competition, and see four robots doing the exact same thing, but doing it four completely different ways.
for example, last year, RAGE had a unique way to pick up balls. compared to all the other ball bots i saw, no one did it the same way RAGE did. this year, no robots stick out in my mind the same way RAGE did last year. sure, i can name a few ones that were cool, but i never really saw anything that made me step back and go “wow, that’s amazing.”
i guess what it comes down to is, FIRST needs a simple game, with tons of ways to score points. some easy, some hard. the only problem is fairly giving points out, as i believe 25 points for KOH was way too much. if not for that, i’m pretty sure many more teams would have made stacking robots. oh well, maybe next year…
what is wrong with having a simple, effective bot that can do one simple thing and do it well? honestly… if your robot is nothing more than a box on steroids on wheels, does that make it any less qualified than a giant arm or stacker? complexity or function doesnt always mean a good robot. As long as you stick to one simple, primary goal, then your robot can do well. Try and do too much at once, and you end up not really excelling at anything.
Why complain about boxes on wheels. Maybe thats the only type of robots rookie or even experienced teams could build. Its just strategy. If a stacker wants to spend 20 seconds making a stack of 5, while a dozer plows everything out of the way, then so be it.
btw… in Curie, 188 nearly came back from an EP difference of at least 80 points, until the match was DQ’ed. Im not in favour or against the EP scoring system. It seems to keep the original idea of the game going… but thats just my opinion.
How come you didn’t put the 2000 game in this poll? Of the 3 I believe this was the year that alot of growth was made. Plus it was the most fun. Just about everybody needed to work the scoring items, & most teams tried to find a way to hang or stay on the ramp. Skip that 2001 year. Please no more 4 vs the clock junk, blah.
Oh, yah the point of this thread…I liked this year’s better. More thinking involved.
My favorite Competition was 2000, with 2002 barreling right behind it. 2003’s game just bothers me way too much. You don’t need this overly engineered robot to win which retracted from what has been growing in the past few years. This year is you had a movible chasis and could push a box then you had a legitamate chance at winning a regional. I would much more prefer a game in which creativity wins regionals. As for 2001 game lets not even get into that!!!
- The elimination system, win 1 match big and the second game is useless
I definatly agree with this. I really didn’t like the way elimination was done. 2/3 is a much better way to do it more because it keeps the game interesting till the last moment. If there was a huge first match and you see the 2nd match where the other team is winning but not by a huge point scale you know who is going to win and it kinda takes the fun out of it.
I think the 2003 game was far more entertaining to watch! I would rather have the game require dependence on alliance partners. That was the beauty of the 2001 game. Teamwork made you great.
Perhaps if stacks were illegal to knock down and you were required to have a stack to be eligible to win…then stacking would have been huge. I guess if the game was not head to head, stacking would have been huge too, but I prefer the crash and smash nature of the game. Without the violence, it is just high tech ballet.
2 out of 3 means more FINALS!!! and more finals are good finals (except in exams.) Sum of 2 scoring means that (as happened in the finals at Nationals) if one or both robots breaks or is disabled, then that team has a minute chance of winning. However Sum Of 2 scoring means less time and that is probably a big motivator for FIRST.
Eric, 343
I prefer the 2003 game by a mile!
It was exciting and unpredictable.
LAst years game was deadly dull in elimination rounds.
First robot to grab and hold the goals usually won.
True this years match would’ve been better with a two out of three type elimination round but I still liked this year a whole lot better.
I didn’t play in last year’s game, so my information might not be complete, but from what I know, I like last year’s game better.
This year, if your robot didn’t work, you were dead in the water. You couldn’t score points, etc. Last year, if you even brought your robot onto the field, and it didn’t move, it got the “returned to starting zone” points.
Also, this year the ramp made the bots really tippy, and took up too much of the field. The three different surfaces made traction a nightmare.
Last year, i believe the robot contact rules were different as well?
I liked this year’s game a lot more than last year’s. For one, the 2002 game was all about the power to control goals. Balls bots basically became worthless throughout that competition, but I guess Stackers did this year too. I really liked the field this year too, there was a lot more to it than just colored carpets, 3 goals, and balls. Even if the elimination round scoring was screwy this year’s game was awesome 
Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing the 4 team alliance make a come back…
*Originally posted by AnimeRaul234 *
**Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing the 4 team alliance make a come back… **
Me either. I like the variety.
The 2002 game was MUCH better than this year’s. THe main thing I don’t like about this year’s game is that the autonomous portion is too important. Whichever team gets to the stacks almost always wins. In last year’s, though, a team could zoom across the field at the last second and pull a goal to their zone while the other alliance was waiting for 10 points in their home zone. The potential for quick, exciting turnarounds in match momentum was much greater last year.
2002 game = dull compared to 2003 and 2001. IN the 2002 game all you had was a flat feild with 2 goals that you pushed around. This year you had to get on top of a slick surface and stay up there for the points. in 2001 you had to balnace on the ramp and clock out before 18 secs to get he multiplier. This year the AI was a nice change it put more work to the programmers and it was a nice twist. I hope to see more of that next year maybe make it so it has to do more in that 15 secs
How is there any debate??? Stack Attack was my favorite game from the past 3 years. It was exciting, no match was the same, there were lots of different factors that could change a game there were so many different robots, so many different strategies. It was very exciting to watch. It turned my parents from casually asking about what was going on at robotics, to full time fans(even flying to nationals to watch!)
I can not explain enough how this game was much better than any I have seen before, however I got around 20 hours of sleep the 5 days I was in Houston, so I am going to call it here and go to sleep.
now if I would have to pick my favorite game, I would say 1999. That was my freshman year, and I wasnt very involved, but hanging from the bar was a sweet play mechanic which really added variety.
Out of the last two, 2003 definately takes it. My main gripe with 2002 was the fact that there could be a bot like 71. Nothing wrong with 71, mind you, they are geniuses for having dominated so totally. But the fact that one bot could dominate the main play mechanic was kind of boring and made the game one sided. This year, anyone can be beat by the correct alliance. I havent seen anyone with one dominating idea which is thouroughly unstoppable. We have variety, action, and a game which requires a new depth of strategy. I say bravo to FIRST for this years game.
Oh yeah,autonomous rocked.
Both games were good in my opinion. They both had strengths and weaknesses that added to the exictement of the games. If i was a viewer, i would have to like this years game better because it had more complications in it, such as the ramp and the wall. If I was a competitor (which I am), I like last years better because the creativity factor was so much higher. Last year was my rookie year and we had a bot that was made mostly out of wood, and one very large steel plate that dominated most of the matches. This years game was too much alliance weighted. A #1 team in QP matches could lose if they were with a bad alliance partner. Last year, out team almost beat the #3 and #6 seeds single handedly after their bot died. The factor that your bot didnt have to be great was a drag this year. I know that ours wasnt (we blew our transmission 4 of the 6 rounds we competed in) but at the end of day 1 we were #13 out of 58. That was unbelieveable, although we did finish in 29 (we still took the crown of North Hollywood though). Last years game, while plain on the visual aspect, was a much better game if you were a competitor. So overall I give last years game an A- and this years game a C+. Thats my opinion. Hopefully next year there will be a three person alliance involved. That would make the game so much more exciting for spectators and fun for teams. My $0.02.
I much prefer this year’s game over 2002.
Good things:
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Autonomous mode is a great addition. It adds programming to the essential elements of robot design. I’d like to see autonomous function play a bigger part in future games.
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This game makes teamwork necessary. It would be very hard for one robot to win the match alone, unlike last year where a robot could grab three goals and dominate the match. While your machine is being king of the hill, the other side has a two to one advantage among the boxes.
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On-field strategy is very important. The best strategy changes in response to actions by the other team. This makes it essential that the rest of the field team help the driver respond to changes on the field.
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Multiple field surfaces and the ramp make drive design more complex.
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Visual appeal. I really enjoyed watching a whole wall of boxes crash down onto the ramp. The battles for the top of the hill were also fun to watch.
Bad things:
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Visibility. It’s hard to change strategies in response to something you can’t see. I don’t see how this could be avoided though.
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Elimination scoring. The descoring matches were very dull to watch. Best two out of three would be better.
Greg
ranked in order of appeal to me
2000 great game of both offense and defense Best that I have competed in.
2001 I liked the strategy of this game and the robots where not simply rolling boxes, required teamwork and communication. Remember all of the inflated abilities of some robots.
2002 Too many rolling boxes that do well do to good alliance partners
2003 Too many rolling boxes that do well do to good alliance partners
I want to see our robots have to perform a skill and get rewarded for good designs ie stacking in a protected area where you don’t lose points.
of the 2, i liked '02 better.
my fav year had to be '99. it was so exciting. having to raise the floppies in the air was a cool challenge, and if anyone raised their floppies too soon or too late… ooh… the tension!