T8 - A Team, as the result of encouragement by a Team not on their ALLIANCE, may not play
beneath its ability. NOTE: This rule is not intended to prevent an ALLIANCE from planning and/
or executing its own strategy in a specific MATCH in which all the ALLIANCE members are
participants.
Seems hard to enforce.
The thing I am most worried about is the ranking points system. Allow all teams to capture and breach, and all of a sudden you have as many points as a win. Tie the score as well (0 points) and boom- three ranking points, just one less than the max.
Could I call myself out in order to get the match replayed? Or would I get a yellow/red card… which could work in my favor if my intent is to under-perform…
In order to capture and breach you need to score many points along the way. If an alliance is good enough to damage 4 defenses and score 8 boulders, why would they not just keep scoring and try for the win and more Ranking Points?
I like the fact that its no longer a moral gray area - you now must consciously break a rule if you decide to pursue such a strategy. Difficult to enforce? Absolutely. Will the sandbaggers probably still sandbag? Probably, but maybe a team or two will think twice about it before going forward.
Don’t really see how it hurts anything by clearly defining that its not in the intent or spirit of the game.
-Brando
I think the title of this thread is misleading and incorrect. T8 doesn’t say ‘sandbagging’ (or playing below ones ability) isn’t allowed or against the spirit of the rules. T8 is more directed at teams influencing other teams to ‘sandbag’.
The blue box is pretty clear what the intent is “FIRST considers the action of a Team influencing another Team to throw a MATCH, to deliberately miss Ranking Points, etc. incompatible with FIRST values and not a strategy any team should employ.”
The trick is you don’t try to get any cannonballs, or play defense on the breaching.
I don’t believe you need to score cannonballs to breach; did I miss something major?
EDIT: Boulders, not cannonballs
No you don’t need to score BOULDERS to breach, but you need to damage 4 defenses which is a minimum of 40 points.
You do not need to score boulders (please use the official term so searches can pull up these posts when other people are looking for the same answer) to breach, but you do need to score them to capture.
That’s my feeling about it as well. It provides conspicuous moral authority.
I don’t think it’s unenforceable—but that’s because enforcement isn’t just a job for the officials. The social norms associated with the aforementioned moral authority will keep most teams in line, even if the officials can’t really do anything about it from match to match.