We are considering three options for the co-op bridge at IRI, and will probably let each attending team vote (one vote per team) on how to proceed.
Here is an “unofficial” vote to see what CD thinks.
2 points. No change to point values, ranking structure, etc.
1 point. No change to ranking structure, just make a win worth more than the co-op bridge. Only counts if fully balanced.
1 point. Ranking based on win-loss record, with co-op points as a tie breaker. This keeps the ranking focus on win-loss, but also makes the co-op important for teams with the same record. Only counts if fully balanced.
Option 1.
The scoring system, as it stands, is great. Leave it as-is.
This invites many strategies to the competition and the meta-competition as it were. Especially when every contestant is regional-champion-or-beyond quality, as they are at IRI, I can see no benefit to denying any team the coop bonus.
[disclaimer]opinion of a likely non-participating but interested third party[/disclaimer]
Well since no one else has actually commented on the available three options, I will try too.
I am debating which option between 1 or 3 is best. Option 1 pretty much makes everyone at atleast attempt to Coop early in the event. Since all the teams attending will believe they have a shot at seeding first and selecting the best robot available. But, as the competition carries on Friday evening and Saturday morning, all the strategic and competitive juices will be in full force. Will this coop bridge be more like MSC, where there are so many qualified teams that 100% coop scores will be the norm…or will there be significant strategic plays similar to what we saw at Champs. Any time someone messes with the coop bridge (ie; not doing it in any way…) people’s feelings get hurt. I would hate for IRI to turn into another controversy over this bridge.
Clinton quoted my opinion on a 1pt coop bridge. Just not worth it to perform every match and easier to accept screwing others over. I am not a fan of option 2.
I am leaning towards option 3. It’s as close to just doing W-L-T as they are going to allow. I think the competition will devolve into no one doing it at all, since it takes too much effort to do it and at IRI you are probably going to need to score the entire match to win, unless there is agreement between the teams that a match is too lopsided and both teams agree to get the 1pt bonus for the tie-breaker. I believe this option limits controversy and makes the qualification matches more exciting.
After typing through all of this, I think I have decided on option 3.
I like option 1, but I am a bit biased as we were able to use the coop bridge effectively all season long. I know there are many who believe that it was worth too much. If not option 1, I would also vote for option 3 and use it as a tie-breaker. I don’t think option 2 with a 1 pt coop makes it worthwhile to do - it would tend to make it more likely that you would get stood up at the bridge as the game came down to the wire and a team decides the win is more important that the coop.
I want option 4: 2 co-op points but not used for anything other than the co-op award. Allow triple balances in qualifications since the robots will be good enough to either triple or defend the triple. Let’s make all IRI matches like elimination matches. It will be an insane tournament this way.
To me, all of the other options are bad for IRI. It may have worked fine for a competition season where 90% of the robots were OK or bad, but at a competition that will have the top 2ish% robots participating, what will the co-op bridge achieve? It will just be another strategic option for teams to use to manipulate rankings.
If this option is chosen, would co-op points be the first tie-breaker, shifting the other tie breakers down in priority? So HP (hybrid hoop points) would become the 2nd tie breaker, BP (bridge points) would become the 3rd tie breaker, etc.?
That is not necesarily true. While it is more difficult to triple in some cases, there are plenty of long bots that are capable of tripling. 217, 1114, 2056 all have their own dinguses to help tripling. Wave 2826 almost tripled with HOT in Archimedes, and Robostang has tripled as well, and that is just off the top of my head. There are plenty long bots that can triple.
Unfortunately, Wave has never tripled with HOT in an actual match. That was part of the problem.
Now I will go sit in the corner and cry…
Regarding Triple Balancing in Quals - I agree with Paul…teams can either decide to triple, block it, or attempt to out score it. It just adds another element of strategy to qualification matches.
If I may make a comment, while I do like the discussion that is happening, it is kind of irrelevant to the topic. Mr. Fultz gave us three options, and from what it sounds like they have probably narrowed it down to these three from all the other suggestions in the other IRI thread. So I believe that they have decided to not allow triples in quals for whatever their own reasons are.
While I won’t attend IRI, I agree with Paul. IRI is traditionally all about being competitive on the field the whole time.
The biggest incentive to add in a triple balance is that it will give more opportunities to teams to try a triple balance when they’ve never been on an alliance that had an incentive to do one. More triples = more excitement for the successes and more heartache for the teams who fall off.
Are HP’s/BP’s still being tracked at IRI? Towards the end of a full set of Qual matches, one would be hard-pressed to find two teams with identical QP’s and HP’s. Yet if BP’s were tracked (much easier) at IRI, then that could be the secondary sort after W-L-T, thus incentivizing the triple balance.
