Every year after the real season tournaments, often prompted by the good folks that run IRI, ask for some off season rule changes and a few are implemented.
Most often these are based on things that annoyed people during the season.
Please ignore the fact that sometimes bad rules don’t or can’t get changed for whatever reason. For example, in 2018 I and many others thought the Auto Quest (three robots driving forward ~6 feet + own your switch) was ludicrously simple to achieve and should never have earned a ranking point. It was so expected, that by mid season, it became a effectively a penalty when it didn’t occur. So just one alliance partner not moving in one match in autonomous often resulted in a shuffling in the orders of the playoff captains. < rant off >
So back to the point, before the first real tournament, please post what would you like changed in the offseason DDS game?
Shouldn’t we wait for some actual matches to happen so we can develop balanced opinions based on practical evidence? The whole point of rule changes is to fix issues in the game as it developed.
and since they announced no bag day next year, I think that shouldn’t happen. bag day is a tradition and a great team bonding activity. and a right of passage for new members.
Still way too early, but if anything the RP bonuses should translate into point bonuses in Eliminations. Too early to determine what the actual points should be, but something nonetheless.
Since IRI will be much more competitive, raise the bar for the HAB RP from 15 to 21pts. Doing so requires at least one of each LV climb, or two LV3 climbs. I have a feeling that the LV3 climb will be fairly common in the season and thus every alliance at IRI will be able to achieve it, but doing two of them won’t be.
For a silly rule, remove the limit of 1 Cargo to a Hatch. This would change up the strategy, but could lead to Cargo intakes within the Frame Perimeter to be OP (removing opponent’s Cargo from Depot).
Allow teams to place Null Hatches on rockets. Currently I see the desire for starting Cargo much higher than Starting Hatches, and this may make the decision more interesting.
Allow teams to extend outside the frame perimeter on the opponent’s side of the match. I want to see some game pieces stolen.
My guess is G9 changes to only be a penalty if two robots have their bumpers completely beyond their opponents’ cargo ship line. (With possibly some qualifier on if two teams are both contacting opponents or something)
There are going to be a bunch of penalities for teams accidentally driving a little too far when there is already a defender on the other side of the field, even though it probably doesn’t effect the match.
Potentially adding onto this, or maybe just it’s own rule, but I think it would be interesting if the HAB RP needed 30 (or maybe 24?) points to achieve, but was based on the sum of Sandstorm HAB crossing points and ending HAB level. That way, teams will go for riskier starting spots, and endgame strategy becomes more dynamic based on how well your alliance did in sandstorm.
Hmm, that’s not so bad, doesn’t affect fms scoring, doesn’t dramatically change most robot designs (maybe someone would have built a robot to catch balls but unlikely), isn’t dramatically unsafe.
For what it’s worth, during a conversation with Frank at Week Zero, he mentioned to me that they disallowed starting on Level 3 since they were worried that teams flying off the Hab would end up damaging the venue floor (through the carpet!) based on their testing.
Though it might be fun for an offseason to try if they’re willing to take the risk of venue damage…
Interesting, I hadn’t even considered venue damage. I just assumed they thought it wouldn’t be inspiring to have teams crash and burn in the first 2 seconds of the match (and maybe take out a partner with them).
Yeah, that was probably also a reason. Keep in mind it was an offhand comment said to me as part of a conversation, not a detailed engineering or game design study.
rant off >