I wouldn’t argue against the rung being a major component of match play.
I think the generic question is if a component requires multiple robots to be used does an alliance need multiple robots to have access for the component to not be isolated or cut off?
If the only way to use a component is with multiple robots I think that is a yes.
A component that has differentiated scoring between use by one robot and use by multiple robots is a gray area. My natural tendency is to lean towards less calls, so I would say the alliance has access to the component if one robot has access and the component can be used by one robot even if there are tiered rewards for use with multiple robots. I can definitely see an argument the other way though.
I would like to give an example of Quals Match 29 at the El Paso Regional where 1817 kept 624 from scoring a single cube for 50+ seconds. Admittedly the final score of the match was decided by fouls and it should have ended in a blue victory. However, red’s scale ownership was more than double the time of blue’s because of successful defense being played.
Thanks for the match video. I think the original points stand. The facts seem to be that there are very very few examples of teams playing lock down defense on a robot preventing a team from scoring because it’s hard, and generally offensive robot drivers are far more capable than defensive robot drivers. There was counter play for the robot playing offense in all examples shown, even if it took a long time.
Both of the clips that were linked in this thread showed good defensive play, however there are hundreds of drivers who could easy outplay the level of skill displayed in the two videos that were posted, and make it around the defender in a significantly lower amount of time. All of the drivers are obviously above average and can be considered skilled, but its the gap between the defender and the defendee that matters when trying to get out of defense. If this was an easy, low skill level task, it would have been employed in far more matches, and teams like 1817 would have been able to pull off this level of success in most (if not every match they competed in) which is obviously incorrect.
You can’t reach the conclusion from the premise. You’re making assumptions that aren’t true.
All robots are equally capable to play defense
If (1) isn’t true, teams are as likely to design defensive robots as offensive
If one of those two isn’t true, you cannot reasonably determine if a prevalence of defensive teams/robots exists. Unless they’re at least a fifth as common as offensive robots, you can’t determine the difficulty of the skill based on the number of successful robots. (Assuming 1 per every other alliance to ensure inclusion in most matches).
Also, to the point of driver skill, 624 was the 8th overall seed (and at times ranked higher) on the Newton field. With as much talent was on that field this year, it’s difficult to make the case the driver in the video was of anything other than above average skill. We can look at things they could have done, yes. But, we cannot expect the majority of drivers would take those actions.
I think you have misunderstood what i’m trying to communicate.
Thesis: Defensive driving takes skill, and blocking robots for prolonged periods of time is hard to execute.
Evidence:
-Teams that have been able to do it, aren’t able to execute it every match they attempt to do so.
-Not every box on wheels can block robots effectively
Conclusion:
-There is legitimate counter play in almost every 1v1 1v2 and 1v3 scenario as long as you can get an isolated battle with one defender.
All robots are equally capable to play defense
If (1) isn’t true, teams are as likely to design defensive robots as offensive
Not all robots can equally play defense. Wheel type, number of wheels, weight, acceleration, frame dimensions, bumper configurations, bumper material are just some of the physical things that matter when playing defense
Very few people design explicitly “only defensive” robots, and even less so for the 2018 game.
If one of those two isn’t true, you cannot reasonably determine if a prevalence of defensive teams/robots exists. Unless they’re at least a fifth as common as offensive robots, you can’t determine the difficulty of the skill based on the number of successful robots. (Assuming 1 per every other alliance to ensure inclusion in most matches).
It’s very easy to determine if a defender is a defender. They attempt to play defense during the match.
It has nothing to do with what the robot has been designed to do. If someone plays defense, they are the “defender” (for the period of time they play defense)
Also, to the point of driver skill, 624 was the 8th overall seed (and at times ranked higher) on the Newton field. With as much talent was on that field this year, it’s difficult to make the case the driver in the video was of anything other than above average skill.
Yes…? I agree, and already noted that. The skill gap is what matters, and by admission of a “skill gap” then clearly means that there is a level of skill that is required to be able to play effective defense.
We can look at things they could have done, yes. But, we cannot expect the majority of drivers would take those actions.
I agree. 1817 is very clearly an above average defender both through a good robot design for defense, as well as a skilled driver. Clearly good defense can be outplayed, as if you watch other 1817 match videos you see offensive robots making it around them significantly easier than 624 in that video.
Given that the rest of this post just duplicates what you’ve said, I’d argue it’s the opposite. I’ll try to explain again.
You’re stating why the assumptions I posted aren’t accurate. It was rather clearly implied they weren’t accurate in my prior post. If I believed they were accurate, I wouldn’t state you couldn’t use those assumptions to reach your conclusions. The fact they’re inaccurate means you’re using a bad methodology to reach your conclusion. But, I’m glad we agree they’re bad assumptions to make. At least we’re starting at the same point.
This is where the assumptions come into play. Yes, you can look at a robot trying to play defense. Similarly, you could watch 1817 try to put a cube on the switch/scale. It was painful in most instances because that’s not what the robot was designed to do. Your “evidence” is primarily watching robots that weren’t designed to be defensive trying to play defense.
It’s generally easy to drive a nail into a board with a hammer. If you only measure the difficulty by watching people swing a screwdriver at the nail, you’d also claim it’s complicated to hammer a nail.
When you want to attempt to measure the skill required to perform a task, you need to use something that makes sense. Measuring the skill based on the performance of offensive robots attempting to play defense is a bad measuring stick. Your entire argument essentially focuses on this bad unit of measure.
This point also went over your head. Your argument has had a focal point stating the level of difficulty to play offense is much less than the level of difficultly to play defense. You’ve gone to the length that you’ve shown someone of lesser driving skill on offense will succeed versus someone of greater skill playing defense based on this skill gap between the two roles.
In the example shown, you’ve mentioned the actions 624 could have taken to avoid the defense. But, you’ve opted to ignore a quick analysis of the 624 driver’s skill. I brought that part into the discussion. If 624 has a high performing driver, as they did, that means you cannot reasonably claim most other drivers would take the actions you believe they could/should have taken. We’re looking at something a driver that was highly accomplished was doing and not a team that struggled at events. This shows an example of a highly skilled driver on both offense and defense. It shows an example of a robot designed to be offensive and a robot designed to be defensive. It shows the gap isn’t as large as you’re suggesting.
I have a feeling I’ve seen far more matches for both 1817 and 624 this season. Have teams avoided 1817’s defense? Yes. Has 1817 fundamentally altered the game play in the majority of their matches? Yes. Have they completely locked down an opponent for 30+s in every match? No. Did they hinder opponents for the entirety of their matches keeping them well below their typical production even if not a complete lock-down? Absolutely.
In an attempt to ensure your thesis is accurate, you’ve gone out of your way to set very restrictive measures. You’ve then taken bad measurements to provide evidence. And in the end, you still can’t show it to be unequivocally true. It’s not that I’m not understanding what you’re saying. It’s not a difficult concept. It’s that I’m disagreeing. The primary reason we see offense taking over defense has little to do with the skill gap and more so with teams wanting to play offense. To play defense well, the decision must be made well before the point “they’re playing defense in a match” just as to play offense well, the tool must be designed for the task.
Good that we can come to an agreement for the first part of the post I think.
I think I finally understand your point, so that’s good that we can get some clarification on that.
Allow me to explain my point of view on your position.
I do not believe we can positively ascertain what 1817’s intent was when they were designing their robot without explicitly asking several members on their team. As we both agree, the majority of teams to not build solely for defensive ability.
There is a very distinct difference between comparing teams that weren’t designed to do the scale to teams that weren’t designed to play defense.
The vast majority of drive trains/bumpers/all factors can play at something like the 90th percentile when it comes to physical traits. Most boxes on wheels with grippy wheels will suffice to play high level defense, you only start to run into problems when you have omni/mechanum/broken swerve etc when playing defense.
You very dishonestly compare this task to scoring on the scale/switch which requires a relatively more specialized mechanism to complete successfully. The comparison you make is obviously completely invalid.
It doesn’t matter if a defender robot was designed to do defense or not. What matters is the cross-section of actual teams that play actual defense. There are very few “hammers” in 2018 when it comes to defense, and a lot of “screwdrivers”. I’m not sure I can even name one team that was a “hammer”
This comparison is bad because hammers don’t exist. (unless you mean a “hammer” is a robot with grippy wheels that doesn’t easily get pushed sideways, in which case your argument is still a bit silly because there are thousands of teams that meet that description.) Or whatever other physical factors that you personally believe make a strong defensive robot (mechanically) there are hundreds of robots with the exact same criteria.
This point also went over your head. Your argument has had a focal point stating the level of difficulty to play offense is much less than the level of difficultly to play defense.
I don’t believe this, nor do I believe I have ever said that this is true. My stipulation was just simply that driving defensively required skill, and you could outskill a defender in the 2018 game, and in almost every single other robot/game combo (save 469 2010 and 71 2002)
I consider defense to be easier to drive than a great offense robot in fact, but still maintain defense is a non-trivial skill to learn.
You’ve gone to the length that you’ve shown someone of lesser driving skill on offense will succeed versus someone of greater skill playing defense based on this skill gap between the two roles.
I don’t believe this is true. In general whichever driver as a lower skill level at the task that they are performing will be outplayed.
If you have a 4/10 defense and a 6/10 offense, the offense driver will usually make it through.
If you have a 4/10 offense and a 6/10 defense, the defense driver will usually block the offense robot when they try to make a countering move.
In the example shown, you’ve mentioned the actions 624 could have taken to avoid the defense. But, you’ve opted to ignore a quick analysis of the 624 driver’s skill. I brought that part into the discussion. If 624 has a high performing driver, as they did, that means you cannot reasonably claim most other drivers would take the actions you believe they could/should have taken.
I don’t claim that most drivers would take better actions. I claim that many drivers would.
You are vastly oversimplifying the variables that go into what makes a good performing team good. If a team seeds well/performs well, it does not necessarily mean that their driver/robot is performing at that same level when playing under defense. If you rank 1 at an event that doesn’t mean you have the number 1 driver at that event.
There are role players for a reason, much like any sporting team, you have individual aspects of each team that are stronger or weaker than others. It’s possible that the best driver is on a team that can’t score nearly as well as say 624.
It’s obviously hard to argue that 624 has a bad driver, in fact I think their driver is well above average in many aspects of what makes a good driver good. 624 has one of the best drivers under no defense when playing offensively in Texas. Just like every driver in the world, they have strengths and they have weaknesses.
We’re looking at something a driver that was highly accomplished was doing and not a team that struggled at events. This shows an example of a highly skilled driver on both offense and defense. It shows an example of a robot designed to be offensive and a robot designed to be defensive. It shows the gap isn’t as large as you’re suggesting.
I agree, both robots were driven at a high level (top 10%), however i’m not sure what gap you are referring to, so clarification would be appreciated.
I have a feeling I’ve seen far more matches for both 1817 and 624 this season.
This is quite possible if you have watched every single match of a team. This year i’m probably in the ballpark of 40-50 matches of 624 and 10-15 of 1817. I can comfortably say I watch at least 1,500 matches of the game each year, one of these years I should do an accurate count of the number of matches I watch in one season.
Have teams avoided 1817’s defense? Yes. Has 1817 fundamentally altered the game play in the majority of their matches? Yes. Have they completely locked down an opponent for 30+s in every match? No. Did they hinder opponents for the entirety of their matches keeping them well below their typical production even if not a complete lock-down? Absolutely.
