What have you learned from watching Week 0 matches?

Brayden4388 · February 15, 2020, 7:42pm

Title says it all
What have you learned strategy-wise, field-wise, etc. about this years game and how it will be played?

Jared_Russell · February 15, 2020, 7:42pm

Everybody built short robots that can’t climb (at least not yet).

Ian_H · February 15, 2020, 7:51pm

Here are some of the matches if you haven’t seen them yet:

F1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/552324981/?t=06h14m14s
F2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/552324981/?t=06h33m25s
F3?: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/552324981/?t=06h33m25s

Cyberphil · February 15, 2020, 7:52pm

Successful climbs will have a huge impact in matches, especially in early events. I imagine they may be the majority of points at many early events.

Nearly every match I saw would have swung the opposite way if the other alliance had a climb or balanced climb.

iwilcove · February 15, 2020, 7:54pm

Trench capability doesn’t matter as much as many thought it would. There are almost always stray balls on the field to pick up instead.

gusdoggett · February 15, 2020, 8:32pm

Defense is viable if you’re against a robot that shoots from the sector
long shots are useful even if missed, since they give balls to closer shooters/low goal robots
everybot is extremely valuable if executed well

cable_n · February 15, 2020, 8:43pm

Agreed! Zoning along the initiation line is actually pretty effective against close shooters.

A strategy that we wanted to do is to have a robot hang out by the power port to catch our missed long shots, but those balls bounce really far, sometimes to the other side of the field where we could (maybe) collect them back? A bunch of balls seemed to end up in the rendezvous point, where it was definitely more difficult to intake due to the bars.

I think defense against the long shot robots would be effective, especially because G11 is a lot more lenient when it comes to trench. Zoning the trench would be pretty effective in my opinion but we’ll have to see how it works out in real matches.

wjordan · February 15, 2020, 8:50pm

That people are forgetting that there are two more weeks of build season left?

Rainclaw · February 15, 2020, 8:58pm

Lots of protected zone calls, with fouls piling up relatively quickly. It can be difficult to determine what’s happening in endgame if everyone is trying to climb, which can lead to penalties.

Aaron_Li · February 15, 2020, 9:14pm

Shooting from control panel could actually be beneficial

TristanB · February 15, 2020, 9:53pm

I’m certain you’ll be seeing some short bot climbs week 1!

ThaddeusMaximus · February 15, 2020, 11:01pm

From playing week 0:

Shooting full court without PID control or vision (or a camera even) turned out to be much easier/viable than expected. We’ll still have those come week one (vision was a couple days from being integrated on main bot), but we were going to be esctatic if we got one or two goals, let alone started making 40%… and then 50%… and then 60% of our shots.

Confirmed that maneuvering around in the shield generator is hard.
Confirmed most matches could be won with hangs and auto…

I expected more full court shots. Maybe we’ll see them later.

I feel like the defense situation at the events was really not accurate so I’m not sure we learned anything with regards to how to defend and where to be to not get defended, aside from “oh yeah pushing your defender into the trench is way more viable than expected”

Our shooter makes a very distinct thuddy sound and we’re not sure why but we love it.

sk2983 · February 15, 2020, 11:02pm

we do not compete week one but Week 2

jaredhk · February 15, 2020, 11:10pm

A singular camera can be use to show all end game action. So there is NO NEED to switch views during the endgame.

I’m sure someone will still try to justify it (to maximize inspiration, of course) but at least we know it is possible to watch it all with a single view.

Garebear · February 15, 2020, 11:24pm

plenty of matches were won and lost due to zone tech fouls. Pretty easy this early in Comps to make a mistake and lose 15 points…

SPang · February 15, 2020, 11:33pm

The rendezvous zones get very cramped during endgame - alliances should coordinate their positioning ahead of time to ensure climbs go smoothly and no tech fouls are drawn. Tall robots in particular can get trapped outside of their rendezvous point.

Aaron_Li · February 16, 2020, 12:07am

Keep trench runner running in trenches but make sure to not also block their access if shooting from control panel

Seems like the most obvious strategy but probably also the easiest to Murphy in the middle of the match.

5962_CJ · February 16, 2020, 1:49am

The one biggest thing that stood out to me is the importance of hanging. Numerous matches were decided by which alliance had done so successfully.

My impression from Week 0 is that, if a robot is to have one singular task that it can perform consistently, hanging should be it.

MikLast · February 16, 2020, 2:09am

Ill argue it (though I dont think this is explicitly what you mean):

The current view with FIRST’s W0 was a pain in the butt to see who was climbing far back. More than once we were thinking teams were incorrectly climbing only to realize that theyre just farther back than expected and they were grabbing a totally different bar.

Aaron_Li · February 16, 2020, 2:12am

A split screen view of both alliances climbing would be nice. But that would be a sacrifice of endgame power port action.