So Chris Hibner’s thread got me thinking, what is the most important part of an FRC game? Please vote and share thoughts!
If there is already a thread like this that I missed in my search, please feel free to shut this mods
I think the most important aspect of any game is that it is both fun and challanging for teams. It needs to be complex enough to really push us to our creative limits to find an effective solution to the problem. It also needs to be interesting and spectator friendly.
the rules of course;)
I think a big mechanical challenge is very important. Looking back at 2007 and 2008, in 2007 picking up tubes seems like a trivial task in comparison to picking up and getting a 10 lb 40" ball over a 6’ or so over pass in 2008. However, teams took on the harder mechanical challenge (in my opinion) of 2008 and performed just as well. Teams that were ok at picking up tubes, built a robot that was ok at hurdling a ball the next year. I think that for the most part teams will step up to whatever the challenge is (obviously nothing too ridiculous), and in my opinion it is more fun to work hard on a difficult challenge and get a working robot than work hard on an easy challenge and get a working robot. I want to see a game with a mechanical challenge that really pushes the limits of what teams can do, but that also has a less difficult scoring option to give every team a chance to score.
I think it is important for the game to:
Require a good balance of skill and strategy, the best robots should win almost all the time, this year i felt there was a bit too much of a “luck” feel
Be spectator friendly, so that anyone can pick up quick
Several ways to score and several tasks to accomplish with different pluses and minuses to each, so all robot designs are unique
Allow for there to be some contact, not too many penalties, and some robot to robot contact
Most importantly, AWESOME!
It’s ability to create a real world environment is the most important aspect. The time limit, the “unreasonable” changes, and the necessity of good networking.
Those make for a great game.
The most important aspect of the game is to present a unique challenge to teams that can be solved in many distinct yet of equal engineering merit ways.
Everything else is just extras. The core idea of any game is to inspire teams to innovate.
I think the most important aspect of a game is allowing creativity of design as much as is possible. Have as few arbitrary rules about the dimensions of bots as you can, as few imposed restrictions as possible, and multiple and strange game pieces.
As a driver I’m inclined to say that a game should offer the maximum possibility for adaptive strategies. Talking to our drivers this year about the intricacies of driving this game (empty cell running, keeping the bot away from corners with super cells, etc) made me wish I was still in high school. 07 was similar, often required split second strategy changes (scoring on one side of the rack vs the other, coming back to ramp or not, etc). As Paul has posted here before, in 08 the coach essentially served the purpose of glorified cheerleaders; once the alliance gets into a groove, the only strategy elements are deciding when to place or knock of the opponent’s trackballs.
These are the two I know most about since these are the two I’ve driven, but in my opinion the pattern can be tracked back as well (many games are remembered for the ridiculous strategies that are discovered).
That being said, many people regard 06 as the “greatest game ever” and 03 (Stack Attack) as having the best autonomous ever, each because of their insane levels of excitement for the spectators. FIRST is, at its heart, an engineering experience for the students, and hopefully always will be. However, it is impossible to deny that in order for it to grow more into the public eye, the public has to be interested in the games going on. With the impending/apparent rollout of some sort of adapted FiM district structure nationwide (it will happen… eventually…) and the events lose some of their appeal as gigantic beautiful crazy events, the games themselves will be what is drawing the spectators. And honestly, I don’t need to ask what game is more exciting to the layman from the street who doesn’t know what FIRST is, Aim High or Lunacy…
Really, I think the most important game aspect is a game that allows for diversity in robot design. Sure this year you got some kind of different designs. Maybe a fan here and fan there. A shooter a dumper. When it all comes down to it, there were just a bunch of boxes on wheels. Example: I showed my mom, who has never paid attention to what we did, pictures of the field while in action. Her first reaction - well they all kind of look the same - like squares on wheels.
Sure there are intricate differences to every robot, but I think it makes the game boring when you have a lot of similarly shaped robots doing the exact same thing. This game came out to how you want to say the word tomatoes. I liked Rack N Roll and Overdrive from the perspective that you had totally different robots doing different things. Rack N Roll you had ramp bots, bots that could hang on the first tier only, defense bots, bots with giant arms, bots with forklifts, hybrids. It was fun and different with tons of different designs. Overdrive you had scissor lifts, shooters shooting 10lb balls, giant arms, and huge suction devices. What did we have this year - urethane belting and some PVC for the most part - the engineering challenge was more optimization than actual design, and I personally would rather have more of a design challenge than an optimization challenge.
I would much rather see creativity and fun, exciting designs… even if they don’t work out that well - it’s more fun in my opinion to see that at competitions than rolling fridges confined to a restrictive imaginary box.
-Greg
I would say that a most important game aspect, is something that is mechanically very difficult. But teams with the kitbot should still be able to manage.
The reason why this years game was so great is because it leveled the playing field for all teams. everyone had the potential to play well and robot performance had more to do with skill of the team rather than outside funding. The 2008 game overdrive and this years game Lunacy are two prime examples of this. Overdrive required robots to have many fabricated parts in order to be competitive, this is a major disadvantage for teams starting out who have little to no clue of how these games play out. While Lunacy had many ways and styles of play, you could dump, shoot, herd, pin, or a combination of all four. Plus there was a human aspect to the game which could help lower scoring teams contribute to the game. I may be biased because i am part of a team fairly new to FIRST, but a game that is accessable to everyone is more important than a spectator sport
I voted for audience appeal. I think we are at a time where, to increase visibility of existing teams and attract new teams and sponsors, we need to have an event that is watchable and easy to understand. Lunacy passed the understanding test - what could be simpler than scoring a ball in your opponents’ trailers? But I heard from a lot of people that it was just too disjointed to watch and keep track of who was ahead. There was stuff going on all over the field. Overdrive was simpler to watch; you got the idea of who was faster by watching who was passing.
Several of the other choices contribute to the audience appeal. For example, if the challenge is too hard to build and there are ineffectual robots out there, there is nothing fun to watch.
Of course a challenge has to be given to the teams. If the game is too easy, students won’t learn much. If they don’t learn, they won’t be as inspired. Let’s face it, drilling holes, filing and tightening bolts isn’t that all inspiring. There has to be something to the game, both mechanically and strategically.
I’ve heard lots of comments and complaints about design restrictions this year, that not exceeding the bumper perimeter and the explicit bumper rules limited the teams’ creativity. But that was part of the point of the game. Just like everyone had to figure out how to work with the provided wheels on the FRP surface, everyone had to figure out how to make their manipulators work inside this year’s confines.
Personally, I really like games where good defense is imperative. In Overdrive, you didn’t really have to play that much defense, all you had to do was score points.
This year, however, defense was very important. In the Michigan Championships defense was what determined who won the match, and that made the game very intense.
I hope next year will be a year where robots that just play defense have a very strong role in an alliance.
Everytime I ask the parents on my team what their favorite year was, it’s '06.
Without a doubt, Aim High was the -best- game (in recent years). It had everything. A good mix of defense. And easy to understand way to score (its like basketball). Something you have to do in the end to get bonus points. All of those things mixed together to make for an awesome game to drive, and an awesome game to watch.
However, from my side, as an operator for 2 years and driver for the next 2, Lunacy was my favorite game. Now, I don’t know if that’s because this has been our best robot yet, but I had fun being able to switch from offense, to defense, and the field surface was fun to drive on.
In the end though, I picked it has to be fun to watch. I think that’s the best way for FIRST to expand.
I also voted for audience appeal, and Gary explained why perfectly, so I won’t bother to repeat it. His entire post sums up exactly what I was going to write. I’ll admit that the strategy part is my personal favorite- that’s what makes games most exciting to me, but overall I think the audience-friendliness is most important and incorporates many other factors.
I voted for something else.
Triple Play is my favorite game because it had one, simple robot function, many different opportunities to score and the ability to de-score against opponents. The rows were important and it took a clever strategy to keep your opponents from having more rows.
The game was dynamic and I don’t feel it was difficult to explain it. 3 points per tetra on top of a goal, top tetra determines who owns the goal, if the alliance owns three goals in a row (think tic-tac-toe) then they get bonus points.
Very simple. The game piece was easy to manipulate and success relied more on driver skill than robot design.
The game has to be fun and challenging. Remove those two aspects, everything else disappears.
**Grandmothers. ** 
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The game should be visually intuitive, so your grandmother will immediately see what your robot is doing on the field.
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Successful game tactics and tournament strategies should require cleverness and skill, and the game should not reward destructive tactics or strategies based on deception – winning play should make your grandmother proud, not confused.
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Game rules should be simple and penalties few, so that your grandmother can spend her time in the stands watching with pride and cheering with excitement, not trying to explain what is going on to her friends.
Seconded, Awesomeness is always a plus.