WE WILL DESTROY ALL IN THE FLAMES!! THE GNOMES WILL TRYUMPH OVER ALL!!!
anyway on a more serious note; i think that after a few practice rounds scores are just gonna skyrocket above the 70’s, but we’ll see.
Why wouldn’t the hurdlers remove the two opposing balls and negate those 24 points? Especially given that this hypothetical alliance has 3 hurdlers, and at least one of which won’t have a trackball at any given portion of the match, I don’t see why they would invest their time without a trackball, to remove the opposing balls (especially towards the end of the match).
Week 1 prediction:
Average score will be around 50.
Good hurdlers will average under 2 hurdles per match.
At least 1 robot will tip over every other match.
Penalties will determine 40% of the matches.
Automomous will determine most matches unless penalties are excessive.
Defense will be attempted by many teams who have not perfected their manipulators. This will fail miserably as these teams will experience a surplus of penalties.
At the scrimmage in suffield, almost every team who attempted some sort of a defensive strategy experienced a penalty while doing so. It is very hard to do much on the defensive side of the game. The scrimmage saw countless impeding and wrong way penalties. Many of those caused from defensive attempts. Someone have a different opinion?
Week 1 will belong to the good hurdlers who have gotten their devices working properly. 2 good hurdles and a team is looking at running 10 laps just to OFFSET that difference in hurdles.
At the Suffield Shakedown, the scrimmage our team attended a few days before ship, we saw a lot of scores of around 50-80 later in the day and in the elimination matches. If this is before robots were completely built, I’m confident that week 1 scores will see this range.
I agree for Week 1 events, but as the game evolves, defensive strategies that don’t involve penalties when executed properly will emerge. In previous years, “conventional scoring” had obvious defensive methods, and the defensive teams dominated early regionals as the offensive team gained experience and methods to counter the defense. Unconventional methods were borderline impossible to stop during early regionals, but forms of defending them evolved over time as well.
Take for example the 2007 game. It was very difficult for offensive bots to place tubes early on, but as more scoring bots became effective and teams learned how to avoid defense, scoring increased. Ramps were next to impossible to stop early on, but by Championship several different methods had evolved (see 330 in SD and 177 on Einstein for two quick examples).
This year is just the same, but both hurdling and laps fall into the “unconventional” category given the rules in place this year. Methods exist to still play defense, but they involve much more sophistication, dedication, and patience than simply sitting in between the offensive robot and the goal or trying to push the offensive robot. It will be very difficult for the average “box-on-wheels” to play effective defense this year. Most defensive bots will have to incorporate aspects similar to scoring bots, if not be scoring bots themselves (who need a different role on their current alliance for whatever reason).
While I agree with A LOT of what you are saying sean, I felt the same way before our team went to the scrimmage.
Even though it was a scrimmage, you can get a pretty solid feel for what the game is going to be like. Defense is very very difficult. Will there be effective defense? of course…but just like you said, its going to be hard for the average “box on wheels” to do much of anything defensively besides rack up penalties for their alliance.
Week 1 Scoring Predictions:
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Avg of (34 + 8 + 850%) 24 pts from hybrid mode. 50% of the time your opponent will accidentally knock off your ball from their overpass and all robots will cross at least their own finish line
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Avg of 20 penalty points per alliance per match due to accidental contact
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Launcher bots will spend more time chasing down balls than running around with them in possession.
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No alliance will be successful at passing balls around the track while staying in zones (i.e. 1 launcher bot is “fed” the track balls while staying in the quadrant before the finish line)
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Balls will be placed on the overpass at the end only for would-be defenders to discover that they’re “removing” it the wrong way, effectively hurdling for their opponents and messing up all of our predicted statistics about hurdling.
Avg. Score: 52 after penalties.
Why is defense hard? in at least 75% of the field, opponents bots are fair game, and for the remaining 25% it only matters if they are about to hurdle. Which means you can hassle an opponent for at least 80-85% of the time. Just don’t go backwards or hit them outside the bumper zone (unless its gripper gripper contact) and you’re good. I think defense is always going to be big, you just need to know when to pull of. Also make sure you keep making laps. These traffic jams are a killer for everyone. There will be matches where you just can’t do anything because bots will be laying everywhere, or broken, or clotheslined, stuck together etc. I’ve noticed in the scrim videos everyone clumps around the balls too. Getting a ball out of that mess will be near impossible sometimes. Sometimes you’re going to have to play possum to get your opportunity at a ball and bring it to your homestretch. Not to mention fighting your own teamates for a ball. Those lap bots are going to be the quiet little winners we all forget about until their seeding in the top spots. I think the really strong grippers that can drive right up and on the ball will do well because they dont need space or time to do it.
Anyway, for my topic 2cents, random high scores because good hurdlers are left alone due to unable opponents. Then finals will get interesting. But I think more than 1/2 the matches will be without hurdles, and lots of racing.
I think it’s gonna be 40 or 50 average
In my humble opinion, this is lunacy.
If there is a 200+ point match, I will buy yourself, and every team involved a case of Dew (or their favorite alternative soft drink).
There are going to be some amazing robots this year, and I’m prepared to have my mind blown. That being said, let’s put together a spectacular hypothetical alliance and do the math. (It’s all about the math, right?)
Take a fast lap bot like 148, and two beastly hurdlers. Let’s say that they can manage to knock down both balls in hybrid and cross twelve lines (roughly a lap each… odds are that one will go farther, and another will get hung up on another robot). They start driver control with 64 points. Despite the field congestion, 148 clocks a lap every ten seconds, netting them 24 points. The other two bots score a remarkable eleven hurdles and crosses… and they finish with 198 points. This would require an unbelievable alignment of the cosmos just to score that many points. On top of that, as these bots are hurtling around the field, they’d better hope they don’t rear-end somebody hurdling for the other alliance, or they’re out another ten points.
In any case, much like last year, the record score will not be set at IRI or at the championship… it will be set in qualifying at the regional level, with a heavily stacked alliance against a group of absent or broken bots. 190+ is feasible, once. 200+? I’ll eat my hat.
You will see at least one 0-0 tie after penalties are assesed at a week one regional.
At least one regional will be decided by a “questionable” penalty call.
The end of match placing bonus will important for teams that understand how to use it properly which will become more apparant as the season progresses.
Defense is hard to pull off without getting a penalty…period.
You cannot get in front of a team and slow down…thats impeding.
You cannot pin a team against the side of the field…thats impeding.
If a team is attempting to gather a ball and you cross a line completely, and then try to push them around and accidentally cross(edit*** touch) the line again…thats a wrong way.
I am not saying defense is not going to be around, because it always will be, but this game does not have that “get in the way” defense built in like usual games have done.
The scrimmage opened my eyes quite wide to how hard it is to pull off defense in this game. Honestly, teams that want to hurdle are going to eventually hurdle. I just think a better use of time will be to try and score for your own team. If you happen to cross paths with a team, give em a nudge, or knock their ball away, but keep on scoring or you are not going to win matches.
If a team is attempting to gather a ball and you cross a line completely, and then try to push them around and accidentally touch the line again…thats a wrong way.
Fixed the wording. Small nuance penalties like this will be match-breakers.
Thank you… yes they will be
So long as the offensive team was smart enough with their bumper placement, that’s not true at all. Moving laterally or slowing down in front of an approaching bot is impeding. Using virtually any field element to the defenders advantage is pinning/impeding. You can’t force them into penalties by pushing them across lines. When you cross a line, you can’t return to defend previous areas.
So long as they have acceptable bumper configurations to “Signal to Pass”, best you can do it push them laterally while they move forward, try and turn the while they acquire the ball, or try and delay them for six seconds. Granted, six seconds is not a negligible amount of time (in fact, some top-tier lap bots clock their open-field laps to be approximately six seconds), it not likely to take away more than one hurdle from a hurdler, even if you’re doing it every lap.
More effective defense would seem to be possible on the game pieces themselves, but their massive size and unwieldiness, your inability to possess opposing game-pieces, as well as the limited direction of play, makes it very difficult to keep them away from the opponent without incurring penalties…especially for a “box-on-wheels”.
I think much of the scoring outcomes will rely on how people end up playing the game. If we play the game as it was designed (almost no defense) then scores should be very high in the beginning, but as trends show, people tend to get very defensive and in this game defensive tends to = penalties. That being said, I’m sure there are going to be numerous inventive ways to be defensive on the field without breaking any rules, and those will probably develop in the last two weeks of competition.
I’m definetly interested to see the trends from week to week at the regionals as well as the outcomes at championships…its going to be a very strategic year…
I’m surprised we haven’t heard any arguing between Paul and Ken over two fingers and a thumb 
I’m predicting, offense will reign supreme this year. The only effective defense happening will be 148 style from last year (An offensive robot spotting an opportunity to spend 2-3 seconds to interfere with the other team [knocking a ball perhaps] then going right back to scoring).
Got your point, i’ve exagarted.
let’s say 3 150+ scores and 1 190+. Seems more likely?