Looking Back: Week 3

[smurfgirl]

@ICanCountTo19

But if you have a decent robot shouldn’t you be guaranteed something. When ranking is up to luck of the draw, and how difficult your opponents are (qualifying points), not how good you are, it is really frustrating to get second seed because of .4 ranking points, when there is no way to add to your opponents score as their has been in the past, and therefore no possible way to get first seed. Yes the randomness does hurt teams who have mentors do all the work and teams with more resources available, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it also is incredibly discouraging to a team of students who build an incredible robot and are quite competitive but get bad alliances, teams they can’t work well with, and (dare I say it) teams that can’t do anything (we all know they’re out there). That’s my frustration with this game, but like you I am biased because of the .4 ranking points we lost by.

Though you may not be able to add to your opponents’ score, you can let them score more by not playing defense on them. It seemed to us that that’s how team 175 kept their 1st place position for a while, when both our teams were undefeated.

[waialua359]

@Uberbots

sadly, this ‘luck of the draw’ thing has existed in a lot of FIRST games for a long time. Grading teams based on rank is, well, stupid considering all the variables that go into that one number. a team could be seeded highly because they rode on the backs of good alliance parners, or seeded lowly because they had tough matches and incompatible alliance partners. This is nothing new.

good scouters will usually counteract the seeding system. We chose 716, a team who was not seeded so well, because we saw them as a powerful partner who would complete our alliance.

this is the truth and well said! I see too many teams who keep watching the scoreboard, placing too much emphasis on QS and RS scores. I would instead keep watching matches to see what teams can do.
Again, its a no brainer ranking the top 10-12 teams on the scoreboard. The real skill is finding the team that is outstanding but had hard luck in random match pairings and/or other issues during seeding matches.
Its even harder to do when you attend some new regional for the first time and you start your event where everyone else is just a number at first.
Scouting is important, big time, especially for regionals with 60+ teams.

[Mike_Schreiber]

@smurfgirl

Though you may not be able to add to your opponents’ score, you can let them score more by not playing defense on them. It seemed to us that that’s how team 175 kept their 1st place position for a while, when both our teams were undefeated.

Not playing defense won’t help A LOT of teams that I’ve seen out there. When you’re paired up against 3 teams that can’t hurdle or outright can’t move, how can letting them score get you qualification points. Sure it’s great that you get a win, but it’s not so great when you get 8th because robots that were not as good got slightly harder competition who could do a lap or 2.

Yes I am exaggerating and most teams who get first seed deserve it and teams that can’t move aren’t very common, but you get my point.

[Uberbots]

@ICanCountTo19

Not playing defense won’t help A LOT of teams that I’ve seen out there. When you’re paired up against 3 teams that can’t hurdle or outright can’t move, how can letting them score get you qualification points. Sure it’s great that you get a win, but it’s not so great when you get 8th because robots that were not as good got slightly harder competition who could do a lap or 2.

Yes I am exaggerating and most teams who get first seed deserve it and teams that can’t move aren’t very common, but you get my point.

All you are doing is further pushing the point that the qualification system has the potential to overlook otherwise excellent teams. It seems as though we are all in agreement on that point, so why argue?