Is it a better strategy to play for RP or score as best as you can with the goal of winning an event?
My team is a mid-high level team (top 15% EPA in 2023) from California and we want to go to the championship. We don’t have enough depth yet to go for an award, so we are aiming to do this competitively. Obviously, districts are different (I’m pretty sure they would increase my team’s chances significantly), but for us, a finals appearance is basically necessary to have a shot and the only way to guarantee a qualification is a win.
As I have drive coached the past two years, I’ve come to the question before multiple matches if we should focus on rank or showing off our capabilities. How I see it currently is that landing on a top 4 alliance by rank is harder than being picked on to one. I think most teams with a chance of ending up in those spots have good scouting and most of the teams that would get picked ahead of us will end up in those spots anyway. I’m intrigued to know what other people think since I’ve only really thought about this, not discussed it. Thanks!
Full disclosure, I have never been on a team that has won an event.
But I personally never have found it important to decide between RP and Points. You want RP to win qualifications, but if you can do all the RP challenges by yourself (or almost). You will likely be in the top percentage of bots.
Winning an event comes down to some luck and a lot of strategy. Every event will have some random variance of robot ability. If you had any choice in the robots on your Playoffs Alliance then you need to have a good subsection of the goals of the game.
It felt a little less common this year but Alliance 8 can still win an entire event. Why that happens is up for debate. But in my opinion this happens because of luck of alliances in the qualification matches so one team could be sling shot to the top of the rankings (when they may not be the best robot there). It also happens because of the better team work their alliance has. Having 3 bots that are amazing at shooting fuel in 2017 would not make a great alliance just for an example.
Depends on the event, I know that is an unfortunately unsatisfying answer.
Once the schedule comes out all you really can about is the best two robots (that hopefully includes you) getting together. One needs to seed first, simple as that.
At some point you may transition to EPA from rank once another bot that you are happy with has first seed on lockdown and you want to make dang sure you are standout.
Things become complicated if a different team builds an RP machine and they aren’t the best scoring bot there. Lot more going on to make that work.
I don’t think these are mutually exclusive, if you are getting 3 or 4 RP a match, your rank is most likely close to the top, you will have a high EPA and OPR, and teams will be noticing you. Most teams in picking position scout thoroughly, so they most likely know what you are capable of.
If you can’t make the 1-4th best robot at the event, your best chance at winning is probably making an RP bot and hoping to seed 1st for a scorch. Having 4414/3476/4481 at your event definitely make it hard to be a top-level bot at your event.
With just 4 more RPs you would have ranked 4th, easier said than done but the key takeaway is the 3rd and 4th best robot at the event are in 13th and 17th and cannot say no to your pick(in practice). I would wager that there will be great robots not in the top 8 that you could choose from at Ventura in 2024.
Scorching can be extremely effective and if you are confident teams would say no its generally the right idea to scorch as much as you can. But sometimes people say yes!
Fortunately for all of us, most RPs in most games are aligned with winning matches and performing well offensively. I think if your team was to work strongly with each partner in qualifications to A. Win the Match and then B. Get the RPs, your robots value would make itself apparent to other teams while applying upward picking pressure.
Looks like 4414 and 1388 are going to the same events. Feels free to come talk to us anytime. I could talk about RPs and event strategy all day!
There is definitely a lot of overlap between EPA and RP, but I think there is enough of a difference in most games where there is a decision to make. For example, the last two years scoring high vs low. The link and cargo RP in the last two years has made a case for us to go low. In 2022 we had lots of bounce outs up top and in 2023 we had to decide if we wanted ot finish links with our partners down low. There is less of an argument for 2023 since finishing a link is more points than a solo game piece up top, but going low still sacrifices us showing off and improving our high cycle time. I do like your approach and reasoning though.
Great point, I didn’t think to look at raw RP in the past. As far as scorching goes, I’m all for it. And I like your A B plan as well with the key being to know how big your margin for winning should be before putting resources into RP. Excited to see the tide coming to Vegas this year, I doubt the dryness will make it any weaker .
Ya the margin of victory thing is interesting. We sometimes get too far down that rabbit hole and scare ourselves into, for example, scoring all high row and missing the grid RP and winning the match by a wide margin(when we should have just done our normal RP strategy).
Side note on scouting: As an example 4414s scouting barley looks at EPA at all. I cant speak for other top teams but imo EPA is not everything
You’re not in an enviable position… I’d prioritize competing outside of CA if at all possible. Your odds of qualfiying for champs goes way up at non CA events.
In regards to playing for RP vs playing to show your capabilities… that calculus changes throughout the course of the event. Going into the event you should always play for RP’s. When you get your match schedule, that can help to inform your decision… if your schedule has you playing against 4414, 3476, and 4481, but never with any of them, your hopes of seeding high go way down. This can incentivize “playing for stats”. Statbotics is a useful tool for quickly identifying schedule difficulties and your odds for seeding high.
The default should always be to play the RP game for as long as you reasonably can until it’s no longer viable.
Most of the time it doesn’t matter. The top teams will scout well and will know the capabilities of your robot either way.
I can say that most good teams absolutely maximize RP. if you choose to place showing off your robot ahead of getting rank points most good teams WILL notice and you may end up lowering your chances, especially if you hurt other teams RPs doing it.
@Andrew_L continuing to do what he does best. For those tired of fabworks, the following messages will be regarding the kitbot and a stunning vendor called West Coast Products.
Well, I’m not sure if it’s comforting or discomforting, but your central coast neighbors are always asking those same questions! And we are the 13th and 17th ranked teams Kenny was talking about earlier. (paging @Nick.kremer. Agree?) We were both very fortunate to be first picks of the 2nd and 3rd alliance that day.
So yeah, I will say that if you have that “top 15%” level performance in place, you really need to laser focus on the RP game. That next level of performance is being the one picking from the top 3 or 4, instead of the ones being picked.
I think performing a wider range of tasks just to show off skills to potential alliance partners is risky and may not be noticed by scouts. Unless a top rank team comes and asks about something specific the morning of day 2, then yeah, try to fit it in!
I would said rank, at our first regional this year we didn’t have as many partners who could score high so we had to sacrifice scoring high to score mostly down in the hybrid nodes during quals so that way we could get the activation RP, and unless we had a partner who could reliably balance we were the ones running the balance auto.
However with that being said usually a few times during the competition you get a match with partners who can reliably score more than others and during that time is when you should try to score as many points as possible.
This is a very difficult and complex decision with a lot of factors you need to consider, but I think for your specific team there is a clear choice. If you want to go to worlds, you need to focus on ranking above all else. I’m going to be blunt here and say that you are not in a position to win either of your regionals outside of some insane luck. These are both very powerful regionals with some very powerful teams, and in those types of situations I would recommend expecting a loss, and looking for a way to qualify without winning if possible. I think that your best option is to try and get a wildcard slot as the captain of the finalist alliance at Las Vegas. Both 4414 and 987 have already qualified for worlds, and so if either the EI winner, Impact winner, winning second pick, or rookie all star winner has already qualified (or if the winning second pick wins either of the 3 awards previously mentioned) the finalist alliance captain will get a wildcard slot and go to worlds. A lot of ifs there, but it’s your most realistic shot at qualification this year. You are going to need to be a captain for this to work, so you should focus your efforts on ranking as high as possible, and I would recommend declining any team who attempts to pick you (unless that team has already qualified, which will pass the wildcard slot to you as first pick) in order to retain your shot at qualifying.
(also, an unrelated note about the title of your post. Please don’t use EPA as a way to rank or compare teams, or to measure an individual team’s performance. While it is correlated enough with team performance to accurately predict most matches, when used at an individual level there is so much variance that it does more harm than good. Especially considering that a lot of low-complexity-needed, heavily specialized strategies (the kind that often struggle with ranking points) are often heavily underestimated by EPA. (Extreme examples include 1011 being ranked at 200 in 2017 and 1561 being ranked at 366 in 2023. I would say 1011 in 2017 was a top 10 or even top 5 team, and 1561 2023 was top 20) )
There are four ways to win an event:
1 Captain
2 First pick
3 Second pick
4 Backup
If you want to be 1, good for you. You’re a team that consistently creates quality and robust robots. The way to become a high-ranking captain is to have the most RPs. Full stop.
RPs that come via wins are fleeting and up to the whims of RNGeezus. So you’ll want to focus your strategy on grabbing as many in-game RPs as possible. This often includes an emphasis on the autonomous and/or end game play.
2 is generally the team that is really, really good at playing the teleoperated portion of the game. Focus on quick cycle times, speedy catch-and-release mechanisms, and huge amounts of driver practice.
3 is a scary proposition, but it’s also the lowest risk-highest reward during build season. Similar to 1, focus on one or two aspects of the game, particularly ones that take more time or put you in a position in which you can’t score otherwise (usually in the endgame). You’re putting a lot of trust in other teams’ scouts, and there’s the possibility of not getting picked. But if you can manage to be the 21st-24th best robot at the event, it’s magical.
4 is not really a target many teams for which the majority of teams ought to strive, but it does exist. A BLT with an impeccable record of never losing connection, either with the field or with your own bumpers, is the archetype here.
Good luck with the strategy that best fits your team and its resources!
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