I am just so flustered on why the defense in First has become incredibly weak similar to how the NBA is right now. Anyone else thinking the same?
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Time to start flopping (baiting red cards and penalties)
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I think defense is going to be stronger this year than in 2023 and maybe even 2022.
2019 was a year where solid defense could win you an event as an alliance captain. That wasn’t that long ago.
I feel kind of old saying this, but my first year in FRC was 2007. The game was Rack ‘n’ Roll, and it had so much rough defense that I feel the GDC got scared and made sure that a game with that kind of defense would never happen again. Too many controversies, too many broken robots, and too many red cards.
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Most teams dont play defense correctly when it comes to FRC.
A majority of the time teams will just bash into other robot. That might work for some but, will not at higher levels. Playing a zone style defence is much more effective as it allows you to create strategic chokeholds and ultimately deny opposing alliances points when done correctly. But this of course depends on each years game.
Also in regards to a comparison, NBA players are just so much better than past years due to newer technology, analytics, better shot selection, training plans.etc.
The same could be said for FRC with the emergence of swerve. That has had a huge impact on raising the bar for competitiveness in FRC.
But thats just my 2 cents!
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Game design is the biggest contributor to the downfall of defense.
We are currently in the equivalent of the live ball/liberalized passing rules/elimination of the Jersey trap/your favorite sport example here era. The rules are made to favor offense for a better spectacle to the spectator.
The rules heavily favor offense and penalize poorly executed defense. Also the net points differential, total contribution of points scored verses points denied, has to be favorable to make a concerted defensive effort worth spending time doing. We are in an era where the endgame has been devalued and auto has been emphasized, this has had a tendency to push teams toward scoring in auto to get a lead and since those mechanisms allow you to score throughout the match that generally drives the game flow. Without a big endgame swing setup in a way you can deny your opponent getting it while scoring yourself playing defense just doesn’t do anything but maybe make you lose by less in the playoffs or give you a shot in a qual against a solo dominant robot.
There are pockets of FRC where defense is still played when the circumstances allow but those occasions are fewer than they used to be.
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In sports, you can work with teamates to shut down major parts of the game ( No G421)
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I think defense will be quite a bit stronger in 2024 than in 2022 for the fact that the defense will play similarly as to 2022, except that the field dynamics are more favorable to defense bots than 2022 was. Because there is only zone you can really score in, offense bots can’t just outswerve the opponent, fly across the field, and get a shot off. A well-positioned defender will always have to move less distance than the offensive bot to deny shots, which significantly reduces the inherit reaction time advantage offensive bots have. Additionally, most shots this year are blockable, and the apriltags are even easier to block. I’d argue that a max height robot (climbers extended) driven as well as well as the offense bot its defending will be extremely hard to play around. Additionally, the amplified speaker provides a strong incentive to play defense. Slowing shots until the amplification expires denies a lot of points for not much time spent playing defense, which will significantly hinder the opposing alliance when played correctly.
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Another factor is teams are just better than what they used to be. In the past there used to be a large percentage of teams at regionals/districts that didnt have any scoring mechanisms or ones that didn’t really work. The basic (oversimplified) math is looking at how much a robot can score vs how much a robot can prevent the opponent from scoring and picking whatever is larger. With more COTS solutions, kit bot, everybot, more teams are better at scoring, which tilts the edge towards more offense.
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Defense has always been the sad face feels of FRC. Teams have mostly resorted to defense when the thing they intended didn’t end up working well enough to score. And teams that made a scoring robot got frustration from just getting shut down. it has a similar emotional impact to finding a chokehold strategy: no one really loves playing the game or watching the game when that happens. Occasional defense (blocking a shot, mostly) has been exciting to watch but that requires very little design space. pushing another robot around is not super viable anymore thanks to swerve; can’t T-bone these days.
TL:DR, the GDC doesn’t want feel-bad moments in FRC, thus defense isn’t usually a great design strategy.
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I don’t want to derail the thread too much, but I thought that watching (and playing against) 469 in 2010 was exhilarating. I wasn’t around for 2002 but my understanding from reading posts and watching videos from around that time is that some alliances gave 71 a run for their money at Champs, and that their run through the playoff rounds was relatively exciting to watch. What other chokehold strategies have there been?
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I think the NBA comes in cycles, very similar to how FRC does on an annual span.
In the NBA, defense has gone six feet under over the course of the past 10 years and it’s only getting worse at 3-point shooting becomes even more of a necessity. We are even to a point in the NBA that you must be able to shoot from 3 to be considered an effective player by league standards. 10-15 years ago, this was not true. This is the type of play style that Shaq would have struggled with, and we are seeing the rise of new guards who can nail absolute dimes. In terms of an FRC analogy, your pick list for the NBA draft is basically just ordering every eligible player to be drafted by their 3-point shooting.
In terms of FRC, we cycle through defense heavy and defense light far more often. In fact, we do this on an annual basis. For example, I think 2018 is a great example of what you are trying to compare the NBA to. The best way to play defense in 2018 was pretty much to prevent your opponent from scoring, or just score more. You had to be the best at putting up cubes the fastest, but if you couldn’t get the scale (the 3-point shot) you lose. This year and 2022, however, I think are good examples of true defense games. Think of those years where not every NBA game broke triple digits. Getting in the way of your opponent and preventing them from scoring was viable, and it will be this year, too.
The players you drafted 10 years ago wouldn’t necessarily translate well to today’s game as matter of fact, just like how defense strategies don’t maintain the same value every year.
In terms of defense, sure, but there are defensive bots on the rise. At CNE this year, I saw possibly one of the best defensive performances by a bot that I’ve seen. 2634 went absolutely ham and was very fun to watch in my opinion. I think occasional defense is good, but you’re right in that it’s not fun to watch match after match be defense, just takes the fun out of watching.
Before swerve was widespread, it was possible for a robot driven like a bulldozer to be effective at defense in many of the games. Now the bettter offensive robots can avoid simple. There have been some amazing display of defense, but the drivers have been outstanding and usually are focused on offensive in most matches. (I also think that shot blocking defense will be relatively ineffective this year for this reason–a blocker just won’t be maneuverable enough.)
Defense during the amp period will be interesting to see.
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Just play games that are not outright scoring races. Bring back 2014.
As others have said game design is a major (if not solitary) culprit.
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One comes to mind
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Ah yes, my two favorite things.
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This is probably the solution-- if we really want high-level defense to be rewarded then the game has to lend itself to high-level offensive bots playing defense at some portion of the game (two-way robots), otherwise teams will just continue to utilize triple-offensive alliances and ignore playing defense.
Also, is defense truly weaker in the NBA now, or is the skill talent and level (both of players and offensive schemes) just at a different level than ever before? And what if the analogy of that to FRC is the explosion of accessible swerve? 
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I think we dont see it because the best drivers are usually too busy playing offense.
In the NBA, you either are playing offense or defense with 1 game piece. In FRC, teams that can score play offense the whole match.
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100% agree with you, it would be nice to see a game that relies a bit more defense. It’s always nice to see it being played well once in a while.
Whatever is designed it needs to offer a competitive advantage to play defense that is obvious. E.g. there is a clear, audience traceable objective. That’s part of the reason 2014 worked so well, one gampiece is pretty obvious.
End game defense hasn’t really existed, at least in semi modern FRC. Maybe 2008? It seems easier when the endgame isn’t 150lb robot climbing multiple feet in the air.
As far as different endgames. Minibots were unique and not main robot climbing, capping goals with multiplier balls, that sort of stuff hasn’t been around a while.