EDIT: I had not realized that this discussion had already taken place many years ago when I originally posted this thread. Given the flame-warish nature of the previous discussion I’d like to respectfully ask the moderators to close this thread, and that we let this thread die without another unnecessary controversy.
Please forgive me.
-Chris
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When it gets to Finals, most of the top teams have very similar win/loss records, it really comes down to those Qualification Points, which are derived from the opponent’s score. The higher scoring the game, the better the team’s QP.
What were to happen if a team made an agreement with the opposing alliance like so… “We’ll let you have the middle row for 256 points, we’ll take the top row for 256 points, no spoiling those rows, though you can try to block us from scoring. All competition will be on that lower row.”
If both teams honored the agreement, they’d have considerably higher QP than other teams.
I’m not advocating for this, but it does merit discussion. Is it in the FIRST spirit of Gracious Professionalism and co-operation? Or does it go too far and compromise the integrity of the game? What do you think?
To be honest, my first reaction is don’t agree to that top row. If you’re in the middle, you’ll get a bunch of collumns of 2!
But seriously, I won’t touch the ethics or gp point of the question, though it does leave a bad taste in my mouth. All I can say is that it’s a bad idea. If you make deals to win rankings, you’ll never win or have a fun game against those who don’t.
Sounds like a good plan and a small fue may try it but i don’t really think it will work. during a match things tend to go aray and that would take some of the sport out of the game.
cool idea though
As much as this may be a real world situation, these sorts of agreements aren’t honorable within the realm of FIRST’s ideology. While it may offer teams a considerable advantage, it is not something I would indulge in. There’s something enjoyable about working for your goals, about challenging yourself to play better and harder each time you set the robot on the field.
In the end, its a personal decision, one that reflects upon what you are seeking to achieve through FIRST.
It’s not a new concept–you could agree to any sort of this-for-that in any recent FRC game.
But I don’t think it’s gonna be that popular–too many ways for things to go wrong for me to take that route. And I would strongly protest any such agreement on my end.
Collusion has happened before. It has generally been frowned upon, but it is technically legal. If you don’t like collusion, don’t agree to collude, and don’t join a finals alliance with someone who has previously asked you to collude. There are enough principled people in FIRST to keep teams from actually doing this.
In any case, I suspect that it’s not going to be a huge issue, because it’s sort of a prisoner’s dilemma. Collusion is not in your best interest if it looks like you’re going to lose the match. Spoil one in their row at the last second, and you regain the advantage that you lost fighting over the neutral row. Nobody is going to accept a loss to help the other team get their QP. In this game, asking for collusion begets backstabbing.
It would only need to happen once for an incredible difference in QP. I would guess it would happen towards the end of finals, when teams aren’t so much as concerned with their WL record as their QP points. Really what would be interesting would be seeing if the other alliance honored the agreement. If they didn’t, they’d probably gain enough of an advantage to win, but that “backstab” would not help them win any friends in later matches. But if an alliance honored every agreement that they made, even if it made them lose, would they gain respect for that?
It’s a very interesting thing to think about.
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Edit: Who changed the Thread Title? Is this a normal thing?
I agree with M.O.R.T. The way I see it, this just ain’t kosher. The game is played to win. Winning is not only outscoring your opponent, but outscoring them by as much as possible. I think that such match fixing is definitely wrong. Not only you leave too big of a door for cheating and disrespecting each other, I personally would also lose all respect to a team that did this in order to improve their qualifying situation.
Honestly, just the thought of it sounds very sketchy. Not only are there so many possibilities for things to go wrong, it seems just downright dirty to me. To make some kind of underhanded agreement in order to benefit yourselves and drive up your QP doesn’t sound very GP like to me. This goes back to the whole idea of scoring for your opponent in order to boost your QP (which obviously cannot be done in this game, but has been done by teams on a number of occasions in previous years).
GP: acting in a way that would make your grandmother proud.
making an agreement such as the one described in the first post is practically cheating. it takes the fun out of the match. sure you might gain a lot of QP, but are you really that good? making a deal which increases your QP is the cheap, dirty way of making it into the elimination rounds, and should not be done. its not GP, and if its not GP its not the way of FIRST
I can tell you that the majority of teams out there will just drop a spoiler onto your row with a couple of seconds left, losing you atleast 128 points and effectively garunteeing themselves a win. Any team that is sly enough to try to cut a deal is definitly capable of going back on it to get the win. 128 qp mean nothing compared to the 2 rp you get for the win.
Alright I think this topic is just plain bad to bring up. FIRST will never condone it, it will never be looked up in a good way and it’s already been viciously beat to death, and for once I think it’d be nice to go a season without controversy. (Load bearing surfaces anyone?). I say we lock this thread up and let it go, and let’s focus on finding a way to improve things, not screw em up more.
On top of this, it’s not like you’d be surprised by the spoiler. You’d probably be able to see their human team grabbing it, placing it in the slot, and waiting for the robot to come pick it up. Plenty of time to drop whatever you’re doing and prep your own.
Well, I think most of us are again missing the point of first. It is not about the robot or the game. It is about learning new things that you wouldn’t be able to learn normally. I would prefer to see my robot win a match on its own merit than work with the opposing team to win. Winning is one thing, accomplishment is another. The competition is there for you to test what you have done in the environment you have designed it for. This sort of action is NOT what you should be designing for thus defeating the purpose.
I am strongly against this, but there is nothing that can be done to stop it. It does require that all 6 teams agree and looking at this thread, most people wouldn’t agree to it. It only takes one ringer to screw it up, and that one ringer can also ruin possible friendships.
I see that many are opposed to teams making an agreement during competition that is something like “you take the top row, we’ll take the bottom row - no spoilers and we’ll compete over the middle row.”
Is this substantially different from teams making an agreement during the building season that says “You design and fabricate a drive system and we’ll design and fabricate a scoring arm and we’ll put 'em together then compete at events allowing the best team to win”?
I’m inclined to say yes, there is a difference. Things can be learned by collaborating with another team, particularly a team not near you as with Division by Chickens or the various 254 collaborations (which I never quite realized were spaced that far apart–when you’re three thousand miles away, everything is close), or when you have to get three teams all to agree to a general direction or apply a tweak one’s discovered to all three. I’d love to see what can be learned by these sorts of deals.
