Seems like it’s been that way for a while…I’ve heard more than a few complaints about this, but it’s not going to change anytime soon.
FIRST wants everyone to have a (more or less) equal amount of time between matches, right? Say you have 45 minutes between your last match and your next match…guess who else has had 45 minutes between those matches? That’s right…the teams you just finished playing with / against. The pairings might have changed, but the robots are still the same.
If FIRST did move to a more randomized schedule, without as much of a concern for time between matches, people would complain about not having enough time to fix up their robot. It’s a lose-lose situation, unfortunately.
Still…better pairings would be nice. 818 didn’t get to compete with or against 33 for the entire Detroit Regional, and I would have loved to see that happen (even though we would have probably lost). Maybe things will improve a bit next year…