I’ve always been on the fence for this game… I normally play a fairly sizeable role in my team’s scouting efforts but this year it didn’t feel interesting so i sat back. Once we classified a team’s skills, we knew exactly how to work with them and more importantly what they were capable of against us.
While the eliminatory game was kind of interesting, the qualifiers were boredom incarnate. I’m pretty sure i’m regurgitating earlier discussions here so i’ll summarize: In the elimination matches, there is a winner and loser… people have something to lose even if the other guys aren’t on the field at the same time. In the qualifiers, you’re fighting the intangible forces of random things like how a goal’s casters are positioned (which decides the direction its gonna go when you push it and so it gets stuck on the bridge… you see where i’m going:))
Anyways… Lets go back to in-game on-the-fly strategies as opposed to the pre-planned flight plans of this year.
I was on a rookie team this past year so I don’t know about scouting in previous years. I was on a small team (5 people) so we didn’t really cover much ground. I hated scouting. Everyone on my team got tired and we all decided to bag scouting.
C~ya,
Carolyn who is glad to (hopefully)be moving to another team next year (if they take her)that is bigger
I agree with Jon that this year the strategies for how a game was going to be played was often decided on competely before the match started. This was my fourth year participating on a FIRST team (and second year as an official member) and I think that everything was more spontaneous in past years, including the years where there have been alliances.
I understand that the alliances were set up to have people learn the concept of team work. Yes, that makes sense. I just don’t like the fact that the stategy of a particular team (or alliance) usually didn’t change throughout the match very much, which was a big result of not having team directly compete against one another.
~Angela who never realized that she enjoyed the 2v2 better than how the game structure was this past year
*Originally posted by Jon Abad *
**I’ve always been on the fence for this game… I normally play a fairly sizeable role in my team’s scouting efforts but this year it didn’t feel interesting so i sat back. Once we classified a team’s skills, we knew exactly how to work with them and more importantly what they were capable of against us.
While the eliminatory game was kind of interesting, the qualifiers were boredom incarnate. I’m pretty sure i’m regurgitating earlier discussions here so i’ll summarize: In the elimination matches, there is a winner and loser… people have something to lose even if the other guys aren’t on the field at the same time. In the qualifiers, you’re fighting the intangible forces of random things like how a goal’s casters are positioned (which decides the direction its gonna go when you push it and so it gets stuck on the bridge… you see where i’m going:))
Anyways… Lets go back to in-game on-the-fly strategies as opposed to the pre-planned flight plans of this year. **
There was A LOT of in-game and on-the-fly strategies this year :D. It just looked like we knew what we were doing :p.
Matt, I agree with you 100%. We always planned for the perfect match, but it rarely happened. As a driver, you had to be prepared to fill in for someone it they had mechanical failure or just plain screwed up. I can see how the spectators may think that it was all planned out. But it was far from it.
Sure… There’s always the “Well, that didn’t go as planned… time for plan B” right around the 59sec mark or what have you but while you’re reacting to the stuff that didn’t go right, there’s no active element like having someone playing against you right where you want to be… My point is that overall, you’re always planning to do the same thing from match to match and 80% of the time, things work out fairly closely and you’ve got a very similar match to the last one.
Our team, in my opinion, certainly did quite a bit of on-the-fly strategizing when we attended the Lone Star Regional, but that was mostly do to our extreme lack of suffecient planning ahead of time:D .
I gotta go with Jon on this one… it was the boring-est game I’ve ever participated in.
I’ve been on stage for all 6years of my FIRST time, and I’ve got to vote that it was doubtfully any more exciting from there than it was from the stands.
And I think on-the-fly driving and on-the-fly strategizing are two different things… yeah, someone’s not holding up their part of the strategy and you have to step in and assist… it’s a good thing and was about the only on-the-fly in this year’s game…
But in past years, and as we’ll see at BattleCry… there will truly be on-the-fly reactions to what the other team is doing and changing of strategy. I go into a match intending on grabbing on goal and balancing but shoot! the other alliance decides to go into the match and gain control of both ramps… man… we gotta think fast, change of plans to maximize points… it’s about capitalizing on what the opposing alliance DIDN’T think of before or doesn’t expect from you… it’s about seeing the situation you’re in and realizing, crap, we’re gonna lose if we don’t do something different! suddenly you’re defending instead of grabbing a big ball… balancing a bot instead of filling goals… etc etc etc… less “shoot, team XXX dropped the ball, let me put on the one i grabbed juts in case they did”… that’s nothing… that’s second nature…
2v2 is a great thing, I think, that FIRST should go back to without a doubt. Cause honestly… it’s a much more exciting game and a much better way to make and keep friends and teams as ‘off-stage alliances’ and such…
*Originally posted by colleen-t190 *
**I gotta go with Jon on this one… it was the boring-est game I’ve ever participated in.
I’ve been on stage for all 6years of my FIRST time, and I’ve got to vote that it was doubtfully any more exciting from there than it was from the stands.
And I think on-the-fly driving and on-the-fly strategizing are two different things… yeah, someone’s not holding up their part of the strategy and you have to step in and assist… it’s a good thing and was about the only on-the-fly in this year’s game…
But in past years, and as we’ll see at BattleCry… there will truly be on-the-fly reactions to what the other team is doing and changing of strategy. I go into a match intending on grabbing on goal and balancing but shoot! the other alliance decides to go into the match and gain control of both ramps… man… we gotta think fast, change of plans to maximize points… it’s about capitalizing on what the opposing alliance DIDN’T think of before or doesn’t expect from you… it’s about seeing the situation you’re in and realizing, crap, we’re gonna lose if we don’t do something different! suddenly you’re defending instead of grabbing a big ball… balancing a bot instead of filling goals… etc etc etc… less “shoot, team XXX dropped the ball, let me put on the one i grabbed juts in case they did”… that’s nothing… that’s second nature…
2v2 is a great thing, I think, that FIRST should go back to without a doubt. Cause honestly… it’s a much more exciting game and a much better way to make and keep friends and teams as ‘off-stage alliances’ and such… **
The elims were actually exciting. The tension, the pressure, knowing whats on the line.
We were in the elims in UTC, Long Island, Nationals, and Mayhem. And it’s tense sure… cause you have to sit there while other people play… knowing there’s nothing you can do except pray “drop the ball, drop the bell, mess up, mess up” (Which, may I point out, is not in the ‘purpose’ of FIRST or this competition).
Basically, I think FIRST really missed the mark this year… I know they were aiming for a better, more friendly FIRST without rivalries or the competitive edge found in the most average sports. They were aiming golf while I’m a fan of football, that’s all. Golf’s an acquired taste, that’s all. And it’s definitely, I think, the most boringest thing to watch. It may be ok to play, but watching… ick.
Anyway- it’s not really exciting when you’re playing in the finals… and the clock turns from 1:01 to 1:00 and your ‘competing’ alliance realizes they won and you hear the crowd cheer and you know none of its for you. Or when you’re trying to negotiate a match and you are told that people don’t want to try for big points cause it’s too risky. they even threaten to get in your way if you try to balance a goal…
The wrong message came across and it happened in a very boring way, that’s all… and that’s what I think.
But one thing I think hit the mark in Mayhem was having all 5 teams have to play. That’s a very FIRST-worthy message, even with the auto-pairing… actually… ESPECIALLY with the auto-pairing… because it’s not fair that you should do so well to be in the top 8, and then not play because you’re too much like the higher seed (i.e. 2 double-goal robots or something). It forces creative thinking and a bit of trying in the strategy field. This years game either you did it or you didn’t. There was nothing really to be creative about in playing.
I’m ready for 2v2. I’m ready to turn off the golf and turn on the football. Cause whether you play the game with the grace of a quarterback or the brute force of a lineman, it takes thought behind your game to stop the blitz and the sack. You’ve gotta find the wholes… pass the ball… and control your own destiny
I for one saw no problem with sitting out in the finals. We did at NJ because the higher seed could do our job better. So what? we still seeded which is hard on its own. Just making the choice to sit out was part of the strategy, and it worked, we took 1st. Mayhems rule change was interesting, but i don’t think it was all that earth shattering. How ever, I was a little disapointed that we had so much advanced notice of our alliences, I think it took a little out of the planning stage for us. It was easier, but still…
I think the golf/foot ball anlogy is a good one. But I still think that both games take as much thinking and stratigizing as any other, and they are both fun to watch (im talking about the FIRST games, not golf). I will argue against the idea that all the plays were the same. They all varied in subtle ways, if they didn’t we’d have all gotten 500+ matches everytime. Clearly, we didin’t, so some teams had the right idea and some didn’t. So which is harder? We don’t really know yet. Which is more fun? Thats subjective.
So pretty much, this is a old discussion and maybe we should just wait till after Battle Cry before saying which is really the best. Till then, its just speculation.
I guess I’ll weigh in on this issue. All I know is that it is nice to hear some folks saying what we’ve all been thinking…this game is boring. I mean I remember Friday @ UTC…I saw things I have never seen @ FIRST competitions. People were sleeping…it was quiet enough for them to actually sleep @ a FIRST compeition…this blew my mind. Then I saw people with Palm Pilots playing games because they were so bored. Having attended 7 years worth of FIRST competitons I had never seen that kind of blatant disinterst in the game occuring in front of them. I was used to an arena that it was so loud in you could hardly hear yourself think…that is a FIRST competition.
One thing that most people will fight me on but I think hurt the game tremendously and added to boredom was the time multiplier and the ability to clock out. I personally felt that the matches in which the power came on, the robots booked for the end zone, and the power went off were very very boring. Some of the more exciting matches were when teams stayed in all two minutes and kept trying to balance even though they knew it wouldn’t matter. Far to many teams however would just clock out once the time multiplier ran down becuase it wouldn’t matter whether they balanced anyways. Somehow I’m not sure giving up is what FIRST intened to teach with it’s game either.
There was another major problem with this years game as well. Egos…to many teams I think were trodded on by some of the bigger teams. Lots of times a team would get in a round w/4 four teams…and there would be a big team that would just take charge of the alliance. That team would promise the others that they could balance, and then 3 rounds later in the finals they still couldn’t balance and cost the other teams a shot @ the championship. An even greater tragedy might be that one of those other teams maybe could have balanced but was never given the chance. I think that this bullying is a tremendous shame, and unfortunately has become a reality of FIRST. However I think this year’s competition demonstrated that 4v0 is not the way to eliminate that. Truthfully I am not sure there is one. We all want to win, it is fun. Some teams have sponsorship hanging on the line and need a win. It is human nature to be competive. But just because there is a litle rivalry, a little pushing, maybe a part or two left on the field…that doesn’t mean that we have to be like that off the field. I realize perhaps that I am the wrong persont to be preaching things but.
I favor a 2 on 2 style game. Because I think it is the best of both worlds. I has the coperation and it also has the excitement and defense of a more sports like competition. I felt that the 2000 game was probably one of the better I have seen. While I sometimes claim that I would like to see things go back to “ever robot for themselves” I surely wouldn’t…for the following reason. Back in those days when there were no alliances…you couldn’t talk to other teams…heck you barely looked them in the eye. Alliances have opened the FIRST community lots of ppl have lots of friends on other teams…which wasn’t even thought of back then. I think that this is the edge that Dean wanted to eliminate. I really think 2on2 did that. To take away the rest leaves us with…well I’m not quite sure what.
Lastly, as I have said before I think that 4v0 takes a lot of the engineering out of these machines. I think it takes a little something more to make your robot battle ready, verstile, and good looking. I don’t know…maybe that is just the side of me who would rather have the Jeep Wrangler than the BMW speaking.
By now this post is so long no one will read it…but for those of you who did I hope you got something out of it. I would like to see a return to something close to the 2000 style of competition. I thought the the field that year with the bar also added a lot of excitement.
Looking forward to BattleCry…and wishing ever rookie could be there…
*Originally posted by David Kelly *
**Matt, I agree with you 100%. We always planned for the perfect match, but it rarely happened. As a driver, you had to be prepared to fill in for someone it they had mechanical failure or just plain screwed up. I can see how the spectators may think that it was all planned out. But it was far from it. **
yes you would have to go to plan b…but plan be was always the same: get over to the endzone and hit the buzzer…FAST…
*Originally posted by colleen-t190 *
** Cause honestly… it’s a much more exciting game and a much better way to make and keep friends and teams as ‘off-stage alliances’ and such… **
There is one thing that everyone who is discussing this issue is missing (or maybe I haven’t read it yet). I’ll be blunt:
This game was mean.
I personally did not enjoy telling another team that our robot was better at balancing than theirs was. If they didn’t know it, I had to convince them that it was true. It was not something I enjoyed doing, and I often regretted it.
At our first regional in Grand Rapids, we were balancing pretty well, but we only did it 3 times out of 9 qualification matches. The other 6 matches, we were a role player, assisting other balancers who didn’t do it as well as we did. Another coach (good friend of mine) on another team pulled me aside and pretty much chewed me out. He said that if I don’t take charge and push for our robot to balance the goals 90% of the time, then I was doing my team a disservice.
From then on, I did my best to have us balance… unless we were paired with a better balancer. There were even times when I would not budge on letting someone else balance, knowing that they could not do the job as well as we did.
The real tragedy of this game was the numerous teams who were not able to use their robot as it was designed due to the fact that they were not quite as good as another team’s robot.
I’ve kept to the sidelines on this issue, but I’ll start speaking up about it. 4 on 0 was not as nice as it seemed to be. I agree with the rest of you who say that 2 on 2 is the way to go… at least teams know where they stand and they get a chance to do the job that their robot was designed to do.
Great point, Andy (and boy, are you up early this morning!).
I’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t make many friends this year. Our robot was pretty unique (only a few others like it) so the strategy to use our robot properly is different than the way most of the teams play the game (not extremely different, but different enough). This caused us to have to be pretty forceful at times when strategizing before matches. I really didn’t like this part of the game. Every Friday at the competitions I remember feeling like I couldn’t wait for the day to get over. I was dreading going to the matches because I really don’t like being a jerk, but my company put in a lot of money and my teammates put in a lot of time, and myself and Kevin owe it to them to produce the best results possible.
It seems that the intent of this game is to give everyone this warm and fuzzy feeling that we’re all friends working together. A lot of the people that I talked to mentioned that this was amongst the worst games thus far in terms of accomplishing these intentions. It seems that more often that a warm fuzzy feeling, people left feeling that they were let down by other teams, other teams broke promises, there were hard feelings in strategy discussions, and some teams are just plain overbearing and dictatorial. In summary, this game was hardly the love fest that it was intended to be. I think the most spoken words in FIRST this year were, “we’re sorry”, and I don’t want a game to be that way.
Chris, you’ve got some good points. I don’t have as much experience coaching & negotiating as you & Andy, because my first try was at IRI. But even there, where the atmosphere was much more relaxed, I ran into teams who would not budge on strategies. As most people know, we could facilitate balancing 2 goals w/o a robot on the bridge quite easily and quickly. However, in the negotiations, some teams insisted that they balance alone & on the bridge. They wouldn’t accept any help with a wedge or ramp. I think egos took over and they wanted to show everyone they could balance and hopefully get picked for the elims. The particular match I’m refering to ended up going poorly, and afterwords I tried to talk to them, but they turned a cold shoulder, just because the negotiations weren’t very friendly.
I know our teams didn’t become friends Chris, but at IRI I gained respect for your team and your courage to go for broke in the elims. Too bad you guys peaked a little too late, or maybe fortunately because we met you in the Archimedes elims.