why I don't like this year's game

FIRST General Forum
#1

ok this is sort of a griping forum (read if you want- but if you are going to be insulted, please don’t read further) for a variety of reasons this game can go wrong.

  1. the “no defense” rule: how are you supposed to stop an opponent from scoring??? you let them?! i don’t think so! this is going to be such a high scoring game! you think the judges wasted alot of time making decisions last year?! just wait.
    2:you cannot lift your boom above 6 feet in the opponents area… how are you supposed to knock sown opponents balls at the end?! you might as well not bother trying to knock them off cuz you’ll get penalized!!!
    3: counterclockwise?? one direction?? what is this nonsense?! what happened to strategy?! they don’t let us do anything now. its like communism we have to conform or die!! our drivers are gonna get dizzy just thinkin about it!!

“the game is only half stupid not fully stupid”

#2

Remember: bumping and extension-extension contact are allowed, and if you can’t figure out how to play defense now, you’re not thinking hard enough. Besides, this is supposed to be an offensive game. Last year was very, very low scoring, in my opinion.

2:you cannot lift your boom above 6 feet in the opponents area… how are you supposed to knock sown opponents balls at the end?! you might as well not bother trying to knock them off cuz you’ll get penalized!!!

Psst… FIRST update…

3: counterclockwise?? one direction?? what is this nonsense?! what happened to strategy?! they don’t let us do anything now. its like communism we have to conform or die!! our drivers are gonna get dizzy just thinkin about it!!

“the game is only half stupid not fully stupid”

Umm… are you being sarcastic? Either way, this is supposed to be, essentially, a race. The whole point is to do laps, in one direction. If robots were going in the opposite direction, this year would be even lower scoring than last year, it’d ruin the whole flow of the game, and there’d be too many collisions to boot.

#3

1: How about descoring from the overpass, how about herding/bulldozing opponents trackballs, it is a long ways around the track if a trackball goes into the quad behind you or in front of you

2: No longer applies, see update #1

3: It is only counter-clockwise quad to quad for the robots, not the trackballs, nor for the robots within a quad

So, don’t be too down on this years game, look more for the things/strategies you can do instead of the ones you can not.

Good Luck!

#4

A good defensive strategy might be playing “keep-away” with your opponent’s trackballs, especially against alliances with good hurdlers. Per <G29>, herding an opponent’s trackball is allowed.

Limited driving in the opposite direction will occur (gathering trackballs, getting away from walls and corners), so don’t design a robot that only drives straught and turns left!!

This will be a great game…

#5

The removal of <G36> from consideration means that there are now some additional options available for defense.

It may now be a viable strategy to remain just beyond your opponent’s finish line and erect a backboard that prevents them getting their trackball to the other side of the overpass. If the rest of the track remains clear, the alliance can’t justify “bumping to pass” and will be forced to maneuver around to score in a different location. A swerve drive on your machine means you could sweep back and forth and be very, very effective and preventing much scoring from taking place.

#6

Hey Copperhead-

Remember its a game. The rules people come up with something to challenge us, make our brains hurt, get us to work together as alliances, and we figure out how to play. Take up the challenge. Use your creativity to think up something that will make the game exciting for your team and your alliance.

Of course there’s things that make the game odd. We might have ideas on how to make it better or more spectator-friendly. Post away, maybe the GDC can use some of 'em. But to just complain about it isn’t fun.

I think this is a pretty interesting change from past game concepts. Who knows, maybe it’ll be half-boring. But I’m looking forward to seeing some lap times. And I’m not talkin’ about Daytona in February…

Ken

#7

I could not agree with copperhead more.

A “passing bump” give me a break! We should reuqire the drivers to wear monicals and tap one another on the should and say,
Driver1- Pardon me chap but may I pass by you?
Driver2 - No pardon me, I will certainly clear a path for you, just one moment please.
Driver1 - Certainly, no hurry.
(not trying to make fun of british people but using a 1800’s era gentlemanly conversation to ilustrate my point)

Since when is a race a game? FRC is not supposed to be nascar it’s supposed to a real game with a field not a track! (not dissing nascar or racing but this is not what FIRST robotics games should be in my opinion)

this is supposed to be an offensive game. Last year was very, very low scoring, in my opinion.

Yes many of the matches last year were very low scoring because there was a lot of defense played and many teams were not effective at scoring against the defense.

But in order to have an exciting game in my opinion you need that struggle between the defence and the offence. One team trying desperately to score and another trying euqally to stop them from scoring or to score more than them.

Don’t get me wrong we will make one kick butt robot.

Anyway that is my two cents.

#8

As far as I can tell - not a single match has been played yet.
Just a little too early for me to form as strong opinion as this person.

I like change - nothing wrong with mixing things up. Forcing folks to think a bit out of the box and shaking things up is fine with me.

I have no pre-concieved notions about what makes a game good or bad - particularly this years game. I’m sure that will be alot more obvious as we move through the season.

And … regardless of which way it does come out - everyone may not be as enthused as others will.

So be it - life wouldn’t be as interesting, if we were all of the same opinion.

Mike

#9
  1. the “no defense” rule: how are you supposed to stop an opponent from scoring??? you let them?! i don’t think so! this is going to be such a high scoring game! you think the judges wasted alot of time making decisions last year?! just wait.

I found it quite disheartening last year when well designed, offensive robots, were prevented from performing their designed task by defensive robots. (no offense to defensive robots from last year) This year, there are several ways to hinder offensive robots, such as trapping a ball in a corner and descoring, but no clear way to outright shut them down. If you want to get a higher score, than come up with a way to score more effectivly.

3: counterclockwise?? one direction?? what is this nonsense?! what happened to strategy?! they don’t let us do anything now. its like communism we have to conform or die!! our drivers are gonna get dizzy just thinkin about it!!

There is a LOT more to stategy than where you drive your robot during the match. What your robot does is strategy. How your alliance partners will work together is strategy. How to get the most out of hybrid mode is strategy. Did Aim High not have strategy because you had to score on a specific side of the field? Of course not. Just because you have to be moving in a set general direction dosen’t take away strategy, it adds to it, as you must creativly work around this limitation.

And also, EVERY first game improves as the season goes along. Especially after week 1, nearly everyone on these forums disliked Rack n Roll. But now, although some may not love it, no one coniders it a failure, or anything of that sort. The GDC has never failed us. Just give the game time to play out.

#10

where can i find these updates that you speak of??

#11

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/FRC/FRC_Documents_and_Updates/2008_Assets/Team_Updates/Team%20Update%201.pdf

#12

It is beneficial to make the FIRST website one of the tools you use during build season. A lot of information is there and is available to help teams.

#13

At first I was a little disappointed with the game; mainly because it sounds kind of easy. But the more I think about it and learn more and understand more about the game I have found that this will be a challenging, interesting, and exciting game. It takes a lot of thought trying finding a way to pick up that big of a ball. There will be many interesting bumps, and a lot of cool spots. an almost impossible example of this is that if robot A drops a track ball onto the field, then robot B comes along and juggles the trackball around the track, then scores a hurdle. How awesome would that be? Now I know that is not likely, but it is still cool to think of.

And I think we should have to talk in British accents, in a gentlemanly way. I mean that is just so awesome

#14

Alright!

48 hours in and already people complaining. Not looking forward to the next six weeks?

While I’ll admit I am not wild about the game, I am still pumped for another year with gear worth more than my car.(98 jeep wrangler, piece of trash)

The point is, when life gives you lemons, make powdered lemon flavored drink. Make the best of the situation, complaining will only make you feel worse and worse about it.

Don’t like the game? Try joining the marketing team or spirit; anything that doesn’t directly work with the robot.

It’s gonna be interesting to see how people play the game this year with the drastic changes though.

Chris McKenzie
2186

#15

This years game is a race. Defense isn’t needed IMO. You’re essentially racing your opponent to score more than them in the time period. There are no expendable pieces this year, they can be scored over and over.

It’s much different than most of the previous games without a doubt. But it’s not bad, certainly a change though.

#16

Personally I beleive this game is much more than a race. If you just look at the bigger picture than you will see that the hurdling aspect of the game makes it much different. Do I like it? no. But will I play it? yes.

#17

Ya know…its gotta be tough being a member of the Game Design Committee. Each year, they must create a game which challenges teams in design and strategy. In order to do this, they have to throw in a major monkey wrench EVERY YEAR. That is not an easy task to accomplish. To just change up a game piece and a goal each year would be quite boring. In order to get the fresh twists each year, sometimes the GDC has to do things that not everyone will like. (Look at the 01 game) Sometimes the game will be played out, and it will be a hit. Sometimes, it will be a miss…other times, right in the middle. The true beauty is, no matter what the game (Yes, even 2001), we spend these 6 weeks going crazy with design strategy, and trying to figure out a way to work the plot twists that the GDC throws at us…and its a blast.

My point…enjoy the time you have now. Reguardless of what takes place on the field come March, this is the true beauty of FIRST. Live it, breathe it, enjoy it…because we all know, in a matter of a couple of weeks you’ll be sleeping it.

Will the game be as exciting as alot of people think? That remains to be seen. However, kudos to the Game Design Committee for throwing out yet another difficult twist.

#18

My first reaction to this year’s game is not appropriate for CD. My second reaction was that it will be one of the most boring things I have ever seen; to pass time, I often watch matches on SOAP/TBA in the off-season and I felt that I wouldn’t be able to do that this summer (too dull…). After a while I pretty much have stabilized my opinions to this:

  • The early regionals will be boring
  • There will be a lot of boxbots
  • There will be a lot of broken arms
  • Many teams will gear their robots too fast and damage them
  • There will be a wide variety of poorly thought out omnidirectional systems
  • There will be a bunch of slow, boring arms on slow, boring robots
  • Trackballs will destroy ( or heavily damage) at least one robot per event
  • The Championship will be very exciting, especially Einstein

So, I still have reservations (no defense strikes me as rather lame… I liked the cat-and-mouse game of good defense), but the game is growing on me somewhat. I think FIRST has produced multiple games that are better (2000, 2006, 2004, etc), but this isn’t an awful game by any means.

#19

Why does it always come down to complaining? It’s a game. It’s a challenge. Face it like a man, build a robot to play the game and get over it.

Last year when 2007 game was released, a lot of people have said that it was going to be boring, or you won’t see that many tubes capped. It’s never an exciting game until you see quality robots playing the game.

You can do a LOT with the game given this year. Think, design and create a quality machine that won’t make the game boring rather than wasting you time sitting here on the forum complaining about how boring it is.

I am sorry if my post offended anyone, but there seemed to be too much complaining since last season. I have said this before and I am going to say it again. You CAN’T make everyone happy. It’s not a perfect world. Deal with the rules and play the game.

#20

I agree with what Einstein has posted above.

Yes, that is my new nickname for Arefin. :slight_smile:

Andy B.