A few days ago, I had a poll about the best FRC game, and it seems so be 2013, 2014, and a lot of liking from 2005. But now its time to put up the worst FRC games. Im going to cut out 1992-2000 simply because not too many people can remember those times, or simply weren’t around. So now please vote. Oh, and let the arguing begin!
Edit:Also there is a one vote limit because it is suppose to be the game you hate the most, the game that really grinds your gears, that shorts your wires… a game thats bad.
Woops. I forgot which one 2001 was (easy to do, given the names)–and voted Coopertition FIRST. One vote there needs to go to Diabolical Dynamics.
Want to know why? 4v0, NO defense at all, just 4 teams against the clock. And you thought Recycle Rush was bad after the canburgling. Imagine trying to coordinate 4 teams to finish a task in a certain time…and if you mess up, you lose a multiplier. Literally, finishing in 16 seconds with 5 more points could be worse than finishing in 15 seconds without those points (depending on what they were)–I forget the exact breakdown, but that’s a possible scenario.
2015 had a technical challenge, and was OK but could have been better. 2009 had defense. 2003 had stuff breaking. For a lousy game, I’ll put 2001 in a heartbeat.
I doubt this poll was made as a hate fest against last years game. I think it being the most recent bad game, people remember it the best and of course younger members haven’t even experienced older games. The same thing is reflected in the other thread of course with 2013 and 2014 being the favorite games. It’s just normal distribution of data.
Was it challenging? Yes. But most of the designs were pretty derivative besides a couple outliers. The challenge of the game and lack of defense screwed rookie/inexperienced teams that would’ve at least had fun in any other game.
Edit: not saying lunacy wasn’t awful but at least the bottom 50% could participate.
Well I voted Recycle Rush. I didn’t chose it because I think that it is the worst game that FIRST has ever done, but I did it because I count the early years as times when FIRST was still trying to figure it out. As has been mentioned before, the 4v0 of Coopertition FIRST wasn’t good from the videos I’ve seen. And I’m assuming that I’ve only seen the best.
I think that the worst part about last year was the disappointment of seeing how great games had been, and then being let down from kickoff and only going downhill from there.
I voted for recycle rush, just because that’s the worst game I’ve participated in. However, from what I’ve seen and heard, it sounds like lunacy was pretty bad too.
I witnessed both. Lunacy had its flaws, but it was also a lot of fun to design for and if you didn’t have a traffic jam the matches were rather fun to watch.
This game? IRI eliminations were fun to watch, but only because the robots were capable of stacking so many more of the extra totes they set out that it became a legitimate challenge to fit them and get around them. 842’s tape measure canburglar at Championship was fun too, as were the cheesecaked ones of 1923 and 900. That’s a highlight reel that can almost fit into a Vine.
I wasn’t around for Diabolical Dynamics, but I can understand why the old-timers had such a strong dislike of it. But much like Lunacy, there was at least some variety to those robots and a few roles to play.
Several other games on that list also had fatal flaws (Breakaway, Rack 'N Roll, Triple Play), but none were quite the grind that this past season was. So yeah, I voted Recycle Rush.
Unpopular opinion: I voted for 2011. I didn’t mind that Recycle Rush had no defense; it allowed for some very interesting designs. For Lunacy, though I wasn’t on the team at the time, I heard that it was an interesting design challenge.
In 2011, from what I’ve heard and seen, the challenge was too hard. That means for lower level teams, they could only score a point or two. As a lower level team, I highly value that a game has tasks accomplishable by both the top teams and the lower level teams. Logomotion did not have this.
Had more defense been allowed in 2011 it would have been more in-line with other FRC games involving tubes and would have allowed lower level teams more opportunities to contribute.
I always though Lunacy got a bad rap for a few reasons: the floor made for a rather annoying design challenge for many teams, but there were also problems with static electricity building up on the robots (due to plastic wheels on plastic floor) and shorting out electronics (It was also the first year using the cRio so everything was a bit buggy to begin with).
I personally liked the gameplay style Lunacy provided, it reminds me a lot of Aim High (my personal favorite game of all time) but with a few interesting twists. I, for one, hope this years game does not restrict the number of game pieces that can be handled at a time by robots, IMO, such games usually tend to be the most interesting.
Maybe it was the event you were at, but compared to last year, robots were wildly diverse. There were many many variation of cappers and stackers with different lifting mechanisms, drivetrains, and can grabbers. There were factory bots which were pretty amazing to watch. There were robots that cam in two and three different parts. Sure there were some robots that looked similar. There always are, but in my 4 years of frc this one in my opinion has seen by far the most varied designs, and I loved it.
And if by screwing over rookie and inexperienced teams you mean forcing them to build something more than just a box on wheels, I’m not really opposed to that. Minimum participation this year meant getting boxes from one place to another.
Don’t get me wrong I had my own problems with Recycle Rush. I do not consider it to be a very good game, but for different reasons. Still it had it’s moments when it shined.
I’m not sure if I can answer objectively because I have only been around since 2008 Overdrive. I can choose probably out of those, but I’ve only seen videos and stories of previous years.
Sorry youngins, but Eric takes the cake here. For those who were around and remember the awe of the 710 match, you also remember the feeling of hopelessness of the mastery of FRC71 completely having the game figured out and there was NOTHING you could do to stop them.
I just remember that each member of the alliance had to hit their E-Stop for the timer to stop and the Emcee just yelling “and STOP”. The 710 matches were less than 60 seconds!
2015 is the worst game in the last decade but it was still way more exciting then what 2001 was.
Trust me. I’ve been doing FRC or hanging around it for a long time. I’ve been to Nationals (and to fend off Gregor, I do mean Nationals. I’ve also been to Championship.). Recycle Rush is not the worst game. It’s on the list, but the absolute best (worst?) it can do is 2–and that’s a stretch. The fact it’s been so long between total clunkers (ignoring '09 and '03, which were both decent games IMO–though not the best by a long shot) is a testament to the GDC’s collective institutional ability to design games. The fact there are total clunkers… that speaks to the GDC’s collective institutional “in-tune-ness” with teams, your choice whether that’s positive or negative.
Can’t speak for 2001 but RR was just too boring. Once on an alliance you did the same thing over and over. The average system was also stressful. In other games when paired up with less than ideal opponents who could basically out gun you, there were options. Strategies to pull off a farfetched win. This year however there was no such attempts. Can Wars decided your fate. No amount of strategy could change the results of an unfavorable matchup.
