fundamental flaw with GDC?

Before I start this post, I just want to say that I know the GDC (Game Design Committee) has an incredibly difficult task each year in trying to please so many of the brightest minds on the planet. They should be applauded for the amazing job that they do. What I’m about to propose was already slightly started in this thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76339&highlight=GDC however I would like to take it a step further.

 As I understand it, the GDC is purposely composed entirely of individuals who are not directly involved with any specific team.  This is kind of like getting a group of the best car designers in the world together to design a great car, but then making sure they never drive it!  Anyone else see a slight flaw here?  Wouldn’t it be beneficial to have people involved right from the start who are looking at the game from a builders/players perspective?

The Proposition: FIRST appoints a [size=]GAME APPROVAL COMMITTEE[/size] (GAC) sounds cool to say eh :wink:

  • A select group of 5-10 experienced FIRST mentors who may or may not be currently on a team would get full disclosure about the upcoming game
  • This committee would be involved early on and would be able to modify the final product or possibly even help in development
  • Each member would be approved by they GDC
  • These individuals would sign a non-disclosure agreement about any details related to the game
  •   The GAC is banned from pre-designing their own teams robot, of course they will have ideas, but they are not to draw or CAD up anything.  They can be trusted with this on the basis of Gracious Professionalism
    
  • Even with the above point, these mentors will provide an advantage to their team even if they don’t speak about it until after kick-off… my take on this is so what? I would gladly give this advantage to 5-10 teams in FIRST so that the other 1,700 teams have a richer experience! I mean the beta teams this year had the new controller months ahead of the rest of us and did anyone notice a problem there? I didn’t.

Who is on the GAC?
I’m not really the one to make the call on this one, but here’s some thoughts I had:

  1. The GDC chooses, much like the beta teams were chosen to test the cRIO this past year

  2. I like this one --> Each team in the finals on Einstein from the previous year (6 teams total) as an added reward would send one of their team mentors. Can you imagine how that would have played out this year? it would mean that the game would have been approved and tweaked by Karthik Kanagasabapathy (team 1114), Paul Copioli (team 217), and JVN (team 148)… wow, I can only imagine!

    I’m a big fan of the game this year, but I think there were some real issues with some of the rules that detracted from the overall game experience, and after talking with people at some of the regionals, I know I’m not alone in these thoughts. And I’m pretty sure having a GAC in place as proposed would have made the necessary changes before kick-off.

    As with any year though, FIRST never really has a bad year, its one of the most amazing experiences you’ll ever have and we’re always coming back for more!

Anybody willing to back this idea?

As I understand it, the GDC is purposely composed entirely of individuals who are not directly involved with any specific team. This is kind of like getting a group of the best car designers in the world together to design a great car, but then making sure they never drive it! Anyone else see a slight flaw here? Wouldn’t it be beneficial to have people involved right from the start who are looking at the game from a builders/players perspective?

This isn’t true. Dave Lavery is involved with Epsilon Delta, team 116. There are a couple of posts on here that allude to the relationship, and at kickoff this year Dave also told a story about how he and his team got started with FIRST. I don’t really know to what extent he’s involved (i.e. is he build lead, electrical, admin, does he attend every meeting, etc), but I don’t think that really matters either.

Other than that, a GAC sounds like a decent idea. I’d say we allow only a small additional committee comprised of WFA winners and a random variety of senior mentors (5+ yrs experience, or whatever) review the rules. NDA’s would be attached, of course, and I’m not suggesting the everyone review all rules – actually I think it would be less hassle and run smoother if:

  • Small sub components (e.g. bumpers) of the robot were reviewed independently for clarity, via a small 3-5 person group.
  • The committee would be given a draft of the rules pertaining to the component, the intent of the rules, and all requirements that the rules are supposed to meet.
  • The rules could be verified for clarity so they meet intent and requirements.
  • The purpose of the committee would be to help reduce the confusion in the way some teams interpret the rules. This will be successful so long as the sub committee comes from a variety of teams rather than a small region of teams,

i think your main point here (GDC consists of people that are mostly uninvolved) is kind of untrue and rather insulting; as jessieK said dave is a prime counterexample to this. It would be unfair not to say that everyone else on that committee is either heavily involved or was heavily involved with mentoring a team. How do you think they got there?

And hey, we have the best GAC here- CheifDelphi. i’m betting you more than half the revisions to the set of rules over the years have resulted in contradictions found by the mentors and students who visit this site. Sure the process occurs later than your proposed GAC, but the collective minds of the thousands of people here and elsewhere are much more prone to finding loopholes and bugs than a group of 5-10 privileged people.

In one way or another, what you’re already asking for, exists. While some of it may not be “formal” much of what you’re asking for exists. Between FIRST staff members involved and the volunteer GDC - many of whom are a part of or have been a part of FRC teams - games get scrutinized, reviewed, etc. Does that always result in what we want as individuals - no way. Is it a perfect system? - nope. Is it an incredibly difficult and multi-faceted task? You betcha!

Please be careful about what you may think a GDC can/cannot influence. It’s not always very cut and dried as to what a GDC can control as opposed to what the FIRST organization, or more specifically in this case, the FRC program decides upon/controls. This year, for instance, control system issues are not necessarily game/GDC issues at all.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to serve on the “old” F(V)TC GDC with both JVN and Karthik - how cool, indeed!

I like that every year the members of the GDC walk around and talk with teams about what they liked and disliked about the game. It is a great way to express your opinion about the game and add ideas for improvements to future games.

This exists on a community level here on CD to some extent. The only problem in a forum this open is that once a thread reaches a certain size, inevitably if falls off track and becomes useless.

The problem with small committees is that they are often too close to the problems at hand without the diversity of the entire population. With regard to the bumper section clarity example, I think the GDC was confident within their small community that it was perfectly clear. They all discussed it amongst themselves and agreed that the wording was appropriate for release. It is likely another small committee would have felt the same way.

I think the GDC does a good job at planning games with the resources and time they are given. The GDC is also appropriately open to constructive community feedback.

I like your ideas. And I think I agree with the flaw you pointed out.

I was confused for a second, because anyone who is a gamer knows that GDC (game developer’s conference) was last week, so I thought you were talking about that. :smiley:

As other posters have pointed out, many members of the GDC are or have been involved with a team. When designing the game, their insight is often much deeper than we realize. While we may complain about certain attributes of a game each year, the small inconveniences we may face in the short term often have a greater purpose to educate us in the long run. The games that the GDC designs are always well-thought out, but it is only natural that tens of thousands of smart high school students may have a few questions about each year’s new game. The GDC does take feedback from the FIRST community- think about how rules change during the build season, or how they ask for game ideas each year. I wouldn’t say that there is a fundamental flaw with the GDC, they do a great job pleasing the vast majority of the thousands of people involved in FIRST each season.

Your proposal intrigues me, not to be too critical but I have a few questions.

How does introducing more people solve the problem? I know you may think that more brain power will result in more clear rules but this rarely is the case. In fact, introducing more people will cause rules to become more unclear because you will have several different voices instead of one unified voice.

What makes the head coaches of the Champion teams qualified to do this? I know that on RUSH (I use it as an example due to my experience with them) the head coach, Mrs Kyle Hughes, is a wonderful leader and strategist but can’t even drill a hole properly (no offense Mrs Hughes, Im just making a point) And on some teams the head person is brilliant mechanically but doesn’t understand strategy to save their life. You need people who can do both, or at least a committee containing both types of people. Really the problem here comes down to, who do you pick to be on this committee?

No matter how many people you have go over the rules do you honestly think that 1700 teams with some of the brightest engineers and students in the world can’t find flaws?

More committees sounds like how the US makes laws, I dont want to get a rule manual that is as long as some of the bills that go through Congress. Also, if I ever hear a rule read something like the following I will cry.

“The robot put on the field and operated by the team which will hitherto be referred to as “The Robot” shall not weigh more than 120 lbs excepting regulation bumpers (see Rule 174.3 A) and a regulation batter (see Rule 258.96 R) and shall not exceed the starting dimensions 28” x 38" x 60". The Robot may extend outside of these starting dimensions provided it follows the rules in Appendix E(Extending Mechanisms)"

In all honesty though, more committees involved the more the rules could start sounding like lawyer-eese.

Now, keep in mind, those are just concerns that come to mind, Im not saying they cant be addressed or that your solution won’t work. In fact, I applaud you for having the courage to come forward and propose a solution instead of sitting back and complaining impotently.

As others have stated, it’s complicated.

I’d like to see a game where the running score is the actual score when the siren sounds, including penalties which can be posted in real time. This years game score at times seemed to come out of a random number generator run after the game ended. It takes away a lot of the end of game drama when the score isn’t real. Hopefully the GDC will keep that in mind for future game design.

I don’t know how the GDC works. Rather than be concerned with who is designing the game, it would be interesting to know what the rubrics are. This years game was technically interesting but the scoring was not accurately reported in real time. Autonomous mode was more or less unimportant. The end of game supercells were important to the scoring but kind of got lost in the normal game activity. The game needed more visual “wow” factor.

Maybe this thread was started because this years game was not up to previous years standards? That’s my contention. The enduring way to fix that is by addressing the base criterion to which the game is designed. Define what is important for the game, for this year and all years, then the game has to conform to that. It’s not enough just to have an autonomous mode and end of game bonus period, they need to really POP.

I’d like to see more rules where they state the intent. It is harder follow the intent of the rules when many times I have to guess the purpose.

i totally agree…
real time scoring was down at our regional… and not knowing what the score was till we were off the field and back in our pits kinda took away the excitement… i remember just staring up at the screen waiting for the score and i was in the way of another team tryna get there robot to the field haha

but i liked the aggressiveness and fast paced action this years game provided…
it showed me that you dont need an offensive robot to win. esp since we have human players involved.

I guess I will speak up on this one too.

First off, the postulate by the original poster is flawed. The FRC Game Design Committee does indeed include significant representation by senior mentors associated with long-term veteran teams, and has ever since the GDC was first formed. Over 50% of the GDC membership (including myself, Vince Wilczynski, Jeremy Roberts, and Aidan Browne) is actively involved with current teams. Other members of the group have previously been involved with teams, even though they may not be currently involved.

With regard to the formation of a “Game Approval Committee,” that is a function that (as Rich Kressly notes) also already exists. While not using that particular sobriquet, there is a group that takes a look at the game and rules each year as they are being developed by the GDC, and provides feedback in several different areas.

I am not saying that the ideas of the original poster are not worth consideration, but rather noting that both that particular problem and solution have long ago been addressed and factored in to the current process. The issue is that the meta-problem he describes (“from the perspective of the teams, the game experience should be improved”) is much more complex than might initially appear.

There are many, many constraints associated with the design of the game each year that may not be readily apparent. As noted above, many members of the GDC bring their team experience to the group. They are there specifically to use that background when developing the game. But they recognize that as part of the process, some compromises must be made to balance out competing requirements.

Each year, the GDC attempts to design a game that is a “best fit” solution for the constraints (both formal and informal) that are delivered from the teams, the sponsors, the audiences, the FIRST Board of Directors, the venues, the unions, the shipping companies, the available budget, the KOP suppliers, the event managers, the Regional Directors, the FIRST staff, the show producers, the media representatives, the FRC founders, and several other sources. Many of these constraints are self-competing, if not completely mutually exclusive. The net result is that the “perfect” solution space in which all constraints are satisfied and all parties are happy is virtually non-existent.

So, to be blunt, we don’t even try for that. We try for a compromise solution that appropriately balances the prioritized needs of all the stakeholders. But we have a (I believe, healthy) recognition that whatever solution is developed, no matter how optimal, will probably never quite be viewed as “perfection” when examined from any one particular customer viewpoint. Each year, we expect that each customer constituency will find a shortcoming in the game when viewed from their particular vantage point, and they will let us know about it. We take that information and listen to it carefully, and factor it into the process - either for the current year, or the next year. We do constantly try to improve the process, we try to reduce the size of the “dissatisfaction space,” and we try to respond to the perceived flaws of the overall experience (for the teams and ALL of the FRC customers). But while that is happening, we also ask that everyone recognize that their requirements are not the only requirements.

-dave

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I think the only flaw with the GDC is only one member is known to be able to consume inhuman amounts of Krispy Kremes in an inhuman amount of time.

I do agree with this, and feel it would help development early in the season, so that you can focus on what is allowed and isn’t more independently, and spend less time waiting for team updates and GDC rulings.

That being said, the GDC does an excellent job of answering questions and updating the game, and does well in providing a fairly clear and concise set of rules.

As far as the original idea, of creating a GAC, this would likely only make the process harder. Too much bureaucracy stifles progress, and makes it harder to fine tune the game before release. And while more people might suggest things they think would improve the game, people disagree. So this group making the game more fun for some would make it less fun for other. There is no simple solution, however the GDC does a good job of getting a solid game each year.

As is usual, almost every time I can add something I find that Dave Lavery had gotten there before I can post. And while I think almost any of Dave’s posts can be immensely illuminating, the one just above deserves special mention. I’ve had game discussions with many of the GDC members and in doing gained an insight into how difficult the job really is. I don’t think they have yet designed a perfect game and don’t really expect them to succeed, even though I’m sure at some of them have that as a goal each year. It sometimes seems as if the major complaints from the previous year are corrected at the expense of some other aspect. I’ve had my share of ‘what were you thinking?’ discussions with some of these individuals. As long as it’s a genuine question and not just complaining, I get a reasoned answer. It’s not always one I agree with, but at least I’ve gained some insight.

Let me offer one other way to gain some insight to the process: Design a game yourself. We do this every year as part of our Fall training for new team members. They use VEX kits to play a 2 on 2 FIRST style game on Parent night after a short ‘build season’.

So in designing your game, remember that you need a field that is easily and inexpensively constructed, game pieces that are easy to find. Robots should be able to manipulate them, but not too easily. The game rules need to be complex enough to challenge the participants and simple enough that they can be grasped by the audience quickly. The game has to be playable by the most basic of bots (think squarebot in the VEX world) yet difficult enough to challenge experienced builders. Avoid judgment calls by the referees. And whatever you do, don’t appear to have the slightest hint of any previous game whatsoever.

And that doesn’t even touch on all the issues Dave brings up.

Personally I think one of the hallmarks of FIRST has been consistently well designed games through the years. My congratulations and thanks to the members of the GDC.

Besides, in this world, perfect would be boring and there would be nothing to debate.

I appreciate the excellent work done by all involved with F.I.R.S.T. and I appreciate that they listen to the community and respond.

We hear from the CD GAC from January thru April :slight_smile:

I really don’t think a GAC needs to be implemented. I think that the game goes through several revisions before we ever see it and a lot of the Quality Control is almost done. What I would like to see is some way for the GDC to foresee possible problems that can only be seen through gameplay.

Watching kickoff and seeing Aidan reading the newspaper talking about how few penalties would be called made me so happy. Yet somehow this game seems to be one of the most penalty filled yet. Why? The Human players. Worst of all, I think in most cases these penalties could be largely avoided if someone was responsible for making these small subtle changes.

For Example…
1. Penalty for the human player breaking the plane of the porthole in the outpost.
There should have been some sort of “airlock” device attached to the hole to render this penalty moot. Human player sets the ball in and pushes some sort of lever to push the ball out. The penalties from this should not influence matches, but they do.

2. Penalty on human players touching the balls .5 seconds or so before the match starts.
I have to blame this one the lack of uniformity about how a match is started. Game Announcers would say 3…2…1…GO! But GO! didn’t actually mean go and human players would grab balls a little early. I saw this called at GTR a number of times. If GO doesn’t mean GO then don’t say it. It should be 3…2…1…(Match Starts with the “Charge” sound).

3. Penalties on human players for “touching” the super cell early.
This cost us one match because our human player touched the super cell around the 25 second mark on accident. Never removed it form the rack, just placed his hand on it for a second. Is that really worth a 20 point penalty? Especially when the rules say nothing about “touching” only REMOVING?

Now I know it’s easy to say “well the human players should know the rules and therefore avoid them.” I agree with that to an extent, but if small changes can be made to easily ELIMINATE them, then I think it should be done. It’s these kinds of things that bring down great games. And they wouldn’t involve huge rule changes. It’s this subtle fine tuning that we are missing IMHO.

The human player rules are exceedingly simple. If your human player can’t follow them and constantly gets penalized, I think that’s a human error and not a flaw in game design. It’s really not difficult for the human player to NOT get penalized.

I don’t disagree with you, all I’m saying is that there are changes that can be made to make these a non-issue.