I’m not sure if this is the correct place for this poll but I want to see the results it turns up… so here goes:
What do you think the average score of a 2007 Rack ‘n’ Roll game will be?
For that matter, do you think I should change the range of the poll?
Not at liberty to say what we think the “average” will be, but I can say that some will have less than 15 total points, and a few will break 350+ points 
Agreed, I think defense is huge here. If played effectively the ringer scores will be held to 10 and under. If both teams go offense unabated they will again break up each others patterns and you’ll see less than 30 on each team. If you have 1 strong offensive team and 1 weak offensive team you’ll see a high score on one side.
otherwise it’s all about the end game and whos got what. Some people are thinking of taking the penalty to stop the 60 point lift. Which is valid if the defensive team couldn’t get a pattern going. However if they’re 2 ringers away from 6 in a row its going to get interesting…
From our testing and experiences so far, defense is easy and necessary. I personally think this game is going to degrade into a brawl and then an end game race.
If alliances have great defensive bots then there will be scores less than 20 and if there is just pure offense then scores will be well in excess of 250. The pattern of eight in a row will need just the right conditions and will probably occur during highly offensive matches, 0-3 times per regional and about 5 times in Atlanta.
I don’t agree. You will only get the right combo of teams to do this during eliminations, and they will be playing against other good teams. A row of eight might happen once or twice this year, but I dont think it will be anything big.
It will be a dream, in my opinion, if there is an alliance out there that can break 100. The teams that can break 100 can easily do 150 or even 200, and those will be few and far in between. Lifting the tubes is not such a big problem, but its trusting and being able to get it onto the rack that I think will be the biggest challenge; not to boot, there will be the usual annoying defensive robots no matter where you go (annoying in the sense that they will limit scoring).
And there will be those robots that can’t do anything at all that you are either going to have to help throughout the regional get their mechanical problem straight, build/drive their robots, or just score enough to help them out in the standings.
When you have two offensive titans facing off, don’t expect a row of 8. If they are smart they’ll score a leg on each level to prevent the other alliance from getting a row of 8 (or minimally, block the row as they seem it forming). Rows of 8 will be a 1 or 2 times per week type of thing at best, as they will require (probably) at least 2 offensive powerhouses mismatched against a much less powerful alliance.
So… we have polls like this every year, but does anyone actually calculate what the average was at events to see who was a good predictor at the end of the season??
Just a thought. lol
A row of 8 this year will occur as often as 8 or 9 capped goals belonging to the same alliance during Triple Play; e.g. you’ll see it happen once or twice per competition, and this will almost always occur during the qualification rounds. (Although at the 2005 UTC Alliance, the 195/228/236 alliance was able to cap 8 of the 9 goals during during QF2.1.)
I’m going to differ, and say that it will be less often. In 2005, it was whoever scored last on a goal to own it, and the limit on each alliances game pieces was far less stringent. This year (for all effective purposes) the leg belongs to whoever scores first. Because of that, it will be much more difficult to get 8 in a row before an opposing bot can place a single one on that spider height. I think, for almost every single row of 8, it will occur when a level cannot be scored on by any member of the opposing alliance.