Hardest FRC Off-season Competitions

Competition Off-Season Events
#27

We ran all of our events before championship without using limelight at all. And at championship we used it roughly 50% of the time.

We only ever used it on lining up to the HP station, never to score.

So while I agree using limelight/vision tracking can speed up play, by no means is it needed to perform at a high level. Practice is the biggest thing which is likely what hurt 217 more. That as well as other mechanical issues they had; I know their one of their solenoids was locked for a match, and I heard they had other issues.

1 Like
#28

There was a good amount of match planning in quals too. Source: was also at the event.

1 Like
#29

In matches where we did not initiate planning beforehand, I’d say a solid 2 had any strategy pre-queue. Yes, one of those 2 was with you guys

#30

The back-to-back Ramp Riot champion hyping the competitive level of the event? Surely you have no alternative agenda :wink:

1 Like
#31

It’s pretty good—It’s fighting with BE and MKM for the top FMA offseason by competitiveness. I wish they’d ditch the no-pick-in-the-top-8 rule though.

#32

Whats BE?

#33

Brunswick Eruption I think

1 Like
#34

Yep, that’s it

#35

I definitely think Ramp Riot is typically the most competitive of the FMA events. There’s some year-to-year variance (and some of the NJ teams bowing out due to this year being a 2 day event may hurt the 2019 quality and Havoc’s schedule shift), but RR usually has basically all of the Eastern PA competitors and a solid selection of the NJ/DE competitors. BE misses too many of the Philly-area teams (1640, 1218, 365, 834, 2607, sometimes 341). RR misses 25 and 303, but typically still has 1676, 3314, 1403, 2590, and sometimes 1923 representing a strong NJ contingent. MKM is in the conversation as well, but I feel like it has the highest fluctuation in specific team attendance so it varies.

1 Like
#36

I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about

1 Like
#37

Personally, I like that rule set. It gives the elims field a new layer of depth and can balance out the bracket leading to some really tight matches. Like the 6 v 7 semis from last year.

#38

I havent actually been to an event with that rule but from hearing about it various events I feel like it has its positives and negatives. It can balance out the bracket like you said but it can also lead to weirdness in where you want to rank, suddenly being rank 8-6 is way worse than being rank 11-9. As long as no one feels compelled to throw matches though

#39

At an event like Ramp Riot where teams only have 4 or 5 qualifying matches, the rankings are already very noisy and not a great determination of the top 8. It’s hard to purposely determine your position with so few matches.

We’ll see if the rule set changes with a 2 day event and more qualification matches this year.

#40

Oh I wasn’t aware it was so little in the past. That makes more sense for the decision to have no in-picking

#41

they had a new drive team and their camera wasn’t functioning properly i heard from my friend on 217 however there could’ve been more i do not know about

#42

It does vary by year I believe. Going year over year identifying the deepest field in FMA offseasons, my choices would be these:

2013: RR
2014: MKM
2015: RR
2016: MKM
2017: MKM
2018: BE

#43

Throwing has happened before, I can identify at least one case in 2015. I hate the rule because it creates conflicting incentives for teams to either help their partners or throw matches. For us personally, it’s prevented us from picking the robot we would prefer to pick 4 times at Ramp Riot and 4 times at Duel on the Delaware.

You also have lots of high profile teams that just run new drivers and seed lower, then bring out their season drivers for playoffs to dodge the rule.

2 Likes
#44

i totally forgot that RR is 2 days this year. That would definitely be interesting to see if the rule change is still kept with 2 days of quals.

#45

I wouldn’t assume this is about dodging the rule. Many teams approach off-season events with the intention of training drivers, often multiple crews in an attempt to spread out experience and identify future driver candidates. 1712 typically enters an off-season event with anywhere between 2 and 5 drive crews, and rotates between them during qualifications. During eliminations we select the one that performed best that day, in order to ensure we’re giving our alliance partners the best odds at advancing. Sometimes those drivers end up being our in season drivers, sometimes they don’t (our playoff driver in our 2017 Ramp Riot win ended up being our technician in the 2018 season, for instance).

1 Like
#46

Aye it’s not always ill-intended, but I’ve seen it happen >5 times from the 1 or 2 seed at Duel/Ramp Riot where a team starts running season drivers and dramatically increases in performance. It may not be explicitly the strategy, but it’s a side effect of these events both being offseasons and implementing this alliance selection format that once the teams are there and in this position, they play that way.