So we are 2 weeks into competition season, and I’m starting to wonder, is this year the year the low goal is FINALLY worth it? Every year people claim “this is the year people should score in the low port”. Usually right after the game is released. Then reality sets in and we learn that the harder goal is worth no points and the percent chance of bouncing out is minimal. However, this year with the ranking point, low accuracy on the high hub, and the longer return time of the cargo, I have noticed a few teams actually do it.
At our first event I saw the number 4 and 6 teams shoot low hub for qualification matches exclusively and then have a surprise switch to high hub in eliminations. My question to chief delphi is: Should more teams be doing this? Has it payed off for the teams already using this strategy or how many matches were lost because they scored 1/2 the cargo points vs how many extra RP did they earn? How does the average team figure out if they should adopt this strategy?
Scoring low is certainly the meta for enabling the Cargo RP and seeding high. However, I think it’s pretty well established at this point that a great high goal robot will outscore a great low goal robot in terms of Cargo points. I expect it to become a common practice for teams to utilize the Lower Hub for easily winnable matches in quals, while switching to the Upper Hub for playoffs and challenging quals matches.
My thoughts are largely the same as they were at kickoff; a low goal specialist that really tried to make the most out of it could do very well. Some observations:
Not a lot of low goal specialists out there
many teams that score low aren’t necessarily getting optimal ball cycles- eg they simply drop the ball into the goal rather than lightly shooting downward into it, not necessarily driving with agility and scoring as fast as possible, etc.
the teams that would be good at that sort of thing above tended to reach for the high goal anyway, with some good and some bad results
being average at the low goal was always going to be worse than being average at the high goal; it’s just that being elite at the low goal seemed extremely in-reach for a lot more teams
climbing isn’t incredibly difficult which dilutes things a lot
as an aside, scoring in the low goal isn’t a “meta”; there’s no metagaming related logic there; the word “metagame” doesn’t just mean “strategy”. An example of a metagaming tactic in the context of this game would be, eg, choosing to use a ball starvation strategy against an alliance that can’t climb
When the field miscounts and rounds up the cargo count to the next division of 10 for every cargo you score this low goal mega becomes way more valuable than you’d think…
The issue with this is as teams get better at scoring, the amount of matches that are ‘easily winnable’ scoring low becomes less common. Additionally, as teams get better at scoring, the cargo RP becomes more attainable and thus teams can afford a couple fewer cargo scored for the extra points for scoring high. The value of scoring low will only decrease as the season continues and may have already reached diminishing returns at some events.
A good high goal shooter will vastly outpreform a low goal shooter at getting the ranking point. With the low goal, you (usually) have to be at the fender to score which can be defended, and even when not, you are wasting time driving. With the high goal, you can shoot from anywhere on the field. This makes high goal cycles much faster than low cycles, not to mention the high goal is worth more points for the win.
I would challenge this thought process. Yes it does score more points, but driving back to the fender doesn’t take half of the cycle time since its a static location on the field, and high hub shots from farther away are less accurate. Will a high hub shooter outperform in points? With all else equal, yes. But will it score double the number of points? absolutely not because the cycles are not quite double the efficiency and the accuracy is not quite as good as low hub cycles.
Our shooter was more than 90% accurate last weekend and we aren’t even a high resource team. Accuracy isn’t really a problem unless the shooter was made poorly or if you are trying to shoot from the far wall.
Driving to the hub won’t double cycle time, but driving extra distance is worse than not driving extra distance. A good high goal shooter will score more than double the points of a good low goal bot because each cycle is worth twice as much and the driving distance is reduced. It is also significantly harder to defend a bot that can score from anywhere compared to a bot that can only score from the fender.
We had a year like that: 2016. That year, plenty of low goal robots took the top seed and won their events.
I don’t think the low goal this year is as valuable as 2016, since that year there were other ways of scoring that could allow low goal robots to compete score-wise with high goal robots. As others have said, it’s easy for a high goal robot to outscore a low goal robot in a qualification match, and 2-3 RP from winning is better than 1 RP from cargo and losing. 4481 at South Florida last week was able to take the top seed, but they are the exception, not the rule.
This does not surprise me at all. Because the ranking point is available in Quals and scoring in the low goal can potentially be a way to achieve that ranking point, it does not surprise me that there were teams scoring in the low goal during quals and also ranking high. In elims, the Ranking point goes away and the extra points available from shooting high would outweigh the higher rate of scoring in the low goal, so if they had a halfway decent high goal shot, I would absolutely expect them to switch over to shooting high.
I guess I didn’t make this clear in my post, but I’m not suggesting teams should score low in eliminations if they have the ability to score high. I’m asking if, how, and when would it be beneficial to score low in quals for the ranking point. How much prep/drive practice does it take to pull off that strategy, and is there any data from teams that are winning events or doing very well because they used this strategy.
Ranking points are valuable. you get 2 ranking points for a win and one ranking point for the cargo bonus. If you are safely going to win or you have no chance to win, then you should try for the cargo bonus ranking point. If you are able to score more cargo balls in the low goal than in the high goal, then your chance of getting the cargo bonus is better by scoring in the low goal. However, if you have a chance to win by scoring high, but would lose by scoring low, then you would be better off scoring high to get the 2 ranking points for the win over the single ranking point for the cargo bonus.
I have seen several top teams (27, 179, etc.) switch to low goal scoring near the end of the match to get in the final cargo needed for the ranking point. It looks like they are able to drive up to the fender and quickly dump in the 2 balls. This is particularly true if there is defense being played against you - it is easier to get the two low goal shots in quickly than it is to try to find a hole in the defense big enough to shoot high.
I would say that the drive practice to dump balls in the low goal is minimal. But you would want to have a shooter setting pre-programmed for this. The shooter speed can be quite low and the turret (if you have one) will be pointed in a fixed direction (off the side of the robot that is going to be up against the fender). Program in a simple, single button to activate that setting and then you just pull the trigger to discharge the balls as soon as the robot drives into position.
I think it is a really good strategy at earlier competitions to go for the low goal instead of the high due to it being easier and more reliable for getting the cargo RP. At earlier comps, the drive team tends to have less practice, maybe vision tracking isn’t working, maybe the shooter isn’t working quite as well, just due to less time to work on those things.
But as the weeks go on, I think the meta will shift back towards the high goal. It is worth more points and teams will be better at doing it, so that RP will be easier to get. I do expect to see teams shooting both high and low. Switching to low goal when the alliance is a couple cargo away from the RP wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure you get it. I don’t think low goal is as valuable in elims, unless the team is really good at dumping a ton of cargo into the low compared to the high goal bots available.
And shooting out in the open can’t be defended against?
At our week 1 event, we found that getting around defenders at the hub was not all that difficult, as the defenders often got hung up on the chutes and we could slide over to the next fender.
My team built a low goal dumper. While I am worried about the increases in accuracy in high goal shooters over time, for us it was a matter of thinking if we will
A) have greater than 50% accuracy shooting
B) maintain that if we are shooting from anything other than a fixed location.
For us shooting wasn’t really as much of an option.
That said, something I have really been pushing for when our team goes to try playing defense is the ball starvation technique. Though I am not certain they fully understand what I mean and instead chose to hit robots as they were trying to line up for shots.
We were in week 1 and have our next in week 3. I guess we will see how it works out for us.
7461, a fender high goal shooter, outranked you at gpk
How much counts as “vastly?” 2930, a low goal only both, was within 2 total ranking points of 4089. some quick counting also had them as only 2 off (7 for 4089, 5 for 2930) for the cargo RP. 2980 and 4131, other top low goal shooters, also got 5 cargo RP’s during quals of GPK.
We had power issues on day 1 due to the 6awg wire being done incorrectly that killed our ranking on day 1. Had we not had the power issues we would’ve been up at least 3rp because the bot was barely function in several matches that should’ve been an easy cargo rp. Also, 7461 a much better schedule.
Ignoring that, it was pretty hard to stop us from getting the cargo ranking point because shots could be popped off anywhere. You don’t need to go out of your way to fire shots which makes pathing much faster. While in quals fender-only bots could be shut-down by preventing access to the fender.
Its much harder to defend a bot that can shoot anywhere than than a bot that can only score on the fender. You only need about half a second to get the shots off which isn’t too hard especially if the defence isn’t very well coordinated. Even if the defense is, the field peri, launch pads and even the fender still remain the option.
Usually it is longer than half a second, if you try to shoot them too fast you risk accuracy. Plus you don’t need half a second to hit a robot. A single hit can restart the entire process, a decent defense bot can cut even the most effective shooters points in half.
If the PIDs are tuned correctly it shouldn’t take much longer than half a second and how fast you are moving before you start aiming to target has almost no effect on accuracy. If the defender does manage to stay on you, there’s the fender and field wall and launch pads in which shots can be made fairly safely and the shooter bot has the advantage of forcing the defender to react to where they are going.
Compare that to a lowgoal bot and the same decent defense bot can cut their score even more by blocking access to fender and the low goal bot has no choice but to push through the defense to gain access to the fender.