What changes to this year's game...?

FIRST General Forum
1

*Originally posted by Ben Mitchell *
**Well said, Mr. Beatty. I also loved the 2001 game, and I disliked both this years game, and last years game, because all you needed to do well was a fast or powerful drive train.

FIRST should put more emphasis on dexterity and BUILDING something, as opposed to power, and tearing things down.

The game was called “Stack Attack.”

Need I say more? **

I believe that FIRST was trying to put more emphasis on dexterity and BUILDING something this year. However the reality of the situation was that stacks were very hard to build quickly and hard to defend.

In other sports, they have years to fine tune the rules to balance the game. We don’t have that luxury because the game is different every year.

In hindsight, what change to this year’s game would have shifted the importance from speed and power to stacking, dexterity, and other skills? That information could be valuable to the game designers in helping to make next year’s game better.

2

–If there is no stack in your zone, you get no points for bins and maybe even KOH…

–your multiplier should be equal to the sum of all stacked bins instead of just your highest stack…

Just a couple of my ideas

3

Maybe if First ventured away from the 2 minute game, there would be more time for stacking.

Also, close games in the finals would not mean a deficit that was to big to make up. First should lose the opponents score rule.

Why not have the stack multiplier count for KOTH? This would get people to stack more.

Just my thoughts :slight_smile:

4

That gives me something of an idea… perhaps not right away, but down the road-

FIRST limits the matches to 2 minutes such that all teams compete a certain number of times within a restricted time period (e.g. 9:00 am to 5:00pm). One way to increase the amount of time per match would be increase the number of robots- rather than 4 bots in 2 minutes, try 6 bots (3v3) in 3 minutes. Logistically, it should work out to about the same amount of time, but all bots get to compete more.

Naturally though, this might require a bit larger playing field to accomodate the extra volume, but shouldn’t be too hard to tack on an extra 2 feet length and widthwise.

5

Another problem with more time per match would be the battery. I know by the end of about one minute for us this year we had a low battery, three minutes would be too much. I do like the idea of more bots per team though.

6

What i would change to this years game, well Nothing, its done, nothing can be changed about it, a wise man once said to me, What is done is done and it cant be changed. ehh this might tick people off, but this is the way i feel, come find me, AIM,Email,Yahoo,MSN :wink:

7

One change to scoring could have made ramp domination also a modifiable score (Maybe like 10 points + 5*stack height) or something.

8

*Originally posted by “Big Mike” *
**What i would change to this year’s game, well Nothing, its done, nothing can be changed about it, a wise man once said to me, What is done is done and it cant be changed. ehh this might tick people off, but this is the way i feel, come find me, AIM,Email,Yahoo,MSN :wink: **

You have a point. We can’t change this year’s game, so there is little point in complaining to FIRST about it.

(Also it seems like Team 25’s robot was pretty suited to this year’s game. If I was in your shoes, I might not be thinking about how to enhance this year’s game at this point either. And by the way, I would love to replay the Houston finals without any circuit breakers popping. I want to see what happens without breakers interferring. For that matter, I would like to replay the 2002 game without Team 64’s breaker popping.)

Anyway, the point of this thread is not to complain. Making a new game every year is tough, and as far as I am concerned, FIRST did an awesome job of coming up with Stack Attack. I am just greedy. I want a better game next year, and I think this thread might help that occur.

A philopher named George Santayana said,

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Anyway the point of this exercise is to see if with hindsight, there was a way to reward making stacks and other skills, so that those skills would have been valuable in the game, and therefore used more. I, for one, wish that teams like 365 were more rewarded for their efforts in designing great stackers. And I know there were a lot of other great stackers that I didn’t see. That is the point. They weren’t in the finals, even though they had this incredible ability.

Anyway, really we are just brainstorming for any ideas that would have improved this year’s game, with the viewpoint of using those ideas in the future. Probably that is part of what is going to occur at the team forums anyway, so this is a way to get a headstart on coming up with some ideas to present to FIRST before they design next year’s game.

9

I whole heartedly agree with you, my team if you look at its prior years robots, have always tried to find away to look out side the box, unfourtuantly, we looked outside the wrong box, we thought alot of teams would build moe like stacking robots, and that there would not be many “stack Destroyers” . so we designed a machine that moves quickly and has a strong drive train, another thing, that wall, allot of teams took into consideration when designing their robots, that there was going to be 4 robots hitting that wall at reletivly the same time. that makes for some nice accidents. thuse a strong robot with some pushing powers, now honestly my robot knowledge isnt all that great, but once you put everything you would need to make it so that it is fast stong and can durablly hit that wall, unless its integrated into the stacking system, then that lives little weight, and if some people noticed, 1:45 isnot alot of time to do anything. Team 25 had a stacker we used it ONCE and the only reason we used it, was because both our oppenents were disabled, and we had 1:30 to kill. and it took us majority of that time to make a 3 stack. i think someone said earlier that FIRST needed to venture away from its 2 minute rounds, they are correct, unfourtunatly that would make for week + long competitions

Doug: we were just a strong robot with an awsome driver, i belive that your word could be better said to team taht unfortunatly didnot do well, teams like 71,234 and the other flailers, they had a unique strategey and uniques robots, and teams like 357, and 365 and those other stackers whos robots tried and tried again to do somthing that was outside the box this year, and to teams and also teams like 111, using a unique desgin to control the ramp each and everytime with minimal effort, i wonder what FIRST would have been like w/o teams that went with this unique strategy

again(directed toward everyone) this is the way i feel, come find me, AIM,Email,Yahoo,MSN if you wish to discuss anything i have said that might have offended you

10

I’m with Big Mike, i think this tread seems a bit redundant. There are threads that discuss the past few years’ comps. (all except that ugly 2001 comp, 4 vs. 0). I understand that you have to learn from your mistakes, when mistakes are made. We all wanted a fun competition this year. And this years’ competition was fun. The bar was raised & lowered a bit this year & not too many people really took notice. The 1 thing that really separated the good teams from the great this year was the auto mode. Who had the most control of their robot during auto mode…111, they also had a great bot but, they took the autonomous mode 1 step further. StangPS, there’s a thread & a link, check it out. This years’ comp was fine. Lets see what we can do for next year. Let’s see what we can do for FIRST.

11

a good idea to lessen the totality of winning ad KOTH is to limit the amount of time one could spend on the top. Also, a thing i would like to see if future competitions is active obstacles on the field. just to make the game a bit more interesting./:smiley:

12

We drain fully charged batteries in 2 minutes and don’t even run a compressor. 2 minutes is good - please let it stay.

13

Okay, here is a shot at an idea for changing this year’s game to improve it.

I think the game’s designers did intend for stacking to be useful.

Problem:
When a robot made a stack, it was too easy for the opponents to knock it down. Why bother if it takes 90 seconds to build a stack and 10 seconds to destroy it.

Solutions:
a) Stacks that wound up outside the scoring zone on your side would still count. A robot could then put a stack in a corner and it would count, and be easier to protect.

b)There could be a couple of alcoves a little wider than a bin with walls on 3 sides, so a robot can stack in them. They would stick out beyond the field boundaries . A robot, but not a human, would be allowed to build a stack in there and it would count.

Advantages:
It would be harder for opponents to knock down stacks in corners and in the alcoves, so stacking would then be more viable, which would then provide for more variety in the ways to win the game. More variety = More interesting because the outcome is not as easy to predict. (How many people would watch a movie if they knew exactly what was going to happen?)

14

My only change- go back to the best of 3 eliminations. I know 2 rounds in FIRST’s eyes is better than 3 and that the format this year assured that the eliminations were the same as the seeding game. But it was real disappointment to battle back from a first round loss, win the second round and then have everyone sit there waiting for the judges to tally the scores, do the math and decide then who won. It worked both ways for us at various time this year but I think it really detracted from the game. It should be win the round or lose the round.

As for the favoritism expressed towards stackers in the thread above- well the name of the game WAS stack ATTACK. It wasn’t “see how big a stack you can make in 2 minutes”. We tried a game like that in 2001 and everybody or or less panned it. Obviously the stack building didn’t work well for most and robots that could attack or defend stacks did.

The ATTACK and KOH part of the game is what made the game exciting to watch this year. I’d say we need more of that, not less. Testing the mettle of one robot against another seems to be what the public and most teams want. That’s why we are told each year to “build robust robots”.

WC:cool:

15

If you want to make a game where lots of people design stackers and stack defenders…

  1. Don’t allow human players on the field to make stacks.

  2. Disallow any other scoring strategy (remove the 25 points for KOTH).

This would make for an intensely boring game this year, since quick stacking is too hard in the first design iteration.

You would have perhaps 10 out of 800 robots that could do it effectively this year under the above scoring rules.

16

this year’s game was horribly unbalanced.

  1. rush to the top before the other team.
  2. push out all the boxes in your opponent’s zone.
  3. fight for the top.

it was rediculous half the game took place in autonomous mode. there was little to no stacking in the games i saw, i think i saw 1, maybe 2 teams try stacking . there were little to no comeback wins, and even then, it was terribly low scoring! next year’s game better be balanced as far as comebacks and what goes on. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

17

*Originally posted by Wayne C. *
**My only change- go back to the best of 3 eliminations. I know 2 rounds in FIRST’s eyes is better than 3 and that the format this year assured that the eliminations were the same as the seeding game. But it was real disappointment to battle back from a first round loss, win the second round and then have everyone sit there waiting for the judges to tally the scores, do the math and decide then who won. It worked both ways for us at various time this year but I think it really detracted from the game. It should be win the round or lose the round.
**

I agree. In fact, I have heard that a number of the post-season competitions are planning on changing the elimination rounds to best 2 out of 3.

Personally I would have to add getting rid of the system of getting your score + 2 x opponent’s. I saw the game go down hill due to “opponent agreements”, (boring matches, “highest scores” made through agreements, …) and I know they would not occur if the scoring didn’t favor them. I think we do need to keep qualifying points so that a dominant robot doesn’t just get a comfortable lead after 10 seconds and then have no reason to compete for the rest of the match. However to get rid of “collusion” forever, I once again propose that Qualifying Points be equal to the gap in the scores. Yes, that will favor beating your opponent by as much as possible. Fine, so go back to work on the FIRST gear boxes to enhance them and add some features to the game that favor rookies like the midfield bar. Then just play the game. When was the last time you saw the Chicago Bulls trying to increase their opponent’s score? We didn’t have nets to catch tipping robots. Let’s not worry about falling scores. (The losing team would get a negative score equal to the gap. All teams start with 10000 points.)

*Originally posted by Wayne C. *As for the favoritism expressed towards stackers in the thread above- well the name of the game WAS stack ATTACK. It wasn’t “see how big a stack you can make in 2 minutes”. We tried a game like that in 2001 and everybody or or less panned it. Obviously the stack building didn’t work well for most and robots that could attack or defend stacks did.

Hey I want to keep the stack attack. However here is a quote from the kickoff animation:

All the time, the teams will be trying to strike a balance between the number of scoring containers and the height of the maximum stack which we use as a multiplier for their overall score.

That didn’t occur despite the best efforts of a lot of teams. It was supposed to occur. So what went wrong?

*Originally posted by Wayne C. *
The ATTACK and KOH part of the game is what made the game exciting to watch this year. I’d say we need more of that, not less. Testing the mettle of one robot against another seems to be what the public and most teams want. That’s why we are told each year to “build robust robots”.
WC:cool:

True, those were key elements to the game, and I am not suggesting they be reduced. But imagine if a stacker was over trying to put the 5th bin up on their stack in an alcove while all the other robots were on the top of the ramp. What if that bin might make the difference between a win or a loss. The stacker has 5 seconds to get the bin in place. Will he make it? Will he have enough points to win?

I think there was room in the game for stackers as well as attackers, and I think the game would have been even more exciting with some big stacks being built. After all, that would have meant more stacks to attack. The opponents on the ramp would have to decide: stay on the ramp or charge the five stack at the last second. Trying to figure out who was ahead might even have improved all our math skills.