Auton Winpoint concerns

VEX V5 General Discussion Technical Discussion
#1

Let me preface this by saying that im not trying to lay this out as absolute fact, rather just something I think everyone should consider. Ultimately I see this mostly as a warning for the GDC to consider when creating future games.

When I first heard about a winpoint being awarded in autonomous I was concerned, as a winpoint should represent winning a match overall and not completing a certain task in auton. I understand that the GDC is trying to push for more teams to dive into programming, as always, but I don’t think this specifically accomplishes what they think it does.

By allowing winpoints to be awarded in autonomous you are really just undercutting the value of a winpoint itself. A winpoint is only as valuable as the competitors think it is. If competitors don’t see getting a home row done in auton as valuable, beyond getting a wp from the task, they will still just pick the team with best match stats and forego the rankings all together.

Now I think the auton wp is structured pretty well in Change Up, as getting a home row in auton would have already been one of the most valuable autonomous routines. Now if there came to be a more valuable strategy for auton, like if ball locking was still a thing, then the auton wp would easily skew the rankings. I would much rather select a partner with a ball locking auton than I would a partner with a home row auton. While this isn’t a huge issue for Change Up at the moment, since getting a home row would have still been valuable with or without the wp, it could become an issue in future games.

Finally, why I don’t think the auton wp will change what the GDC, VEX, and the RECF wanted to change. Due to the factors above and what I will mention soon I don’t think we will see many more low tier teams running autonomous this season. Autonomous has always carried great weight, getting a few extra game objects scored at the beginning makes the match easier for driver control and if you win you get more points added to your score at the end. What stops teams from diving into programming an autonomous isn’t the value of it, instead it’s the difficulty of the task that stops them. Probably the hardest part of autonomous is accurate chassis movement. As far as I can tell there is a huge gap between the inconsistent and unreliable time based or “go-to” autons and Far more reliable motion profiling and odometry autons. This cannot be solved by artificially inflating the value of an autonomous. I don’t know a solution for this exact problem, but I don’t think the auton wp fixes it.

If the GDC is planning on implementing this in the future they will have to seriously consider how it is executed every time. Otherwise a single trip up in game design could severely hurt the tournament rankings and bracket.

To sum it up, the auton wp might change who gets to pick in alliance selection, but not who gets picked.

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Your Strategy Ideas - Change Up
#2

I think it could create a disparity in the strategy and gameplay of qualification matches and elimination matches.

2 Likes
#3

That’s just up to scouting to see if their auton is actually good or if it just does 3 balls. Vex rankings were always screwed up, last year not as much, but still this is not an issue it is just something solved with good scouting

4 Likes
#4

Personally I really like it. I really think that this helps good teams who have bad schedules, reduce the amount of damage that is caused and keeps lower tier teams from being at the top of the leader board. This has been an issue in VRC for a while now, and I think this is a good solution to it.

16 Likes
#5

So I personally really like it as well, but I’m also a former FRC competitor, where we’ve had features like this for years.

I think going forward, changing this from Win Point to Ranking Point would make much more sense in terms of clarification.

To sum it up, the auton wp might change who gets to pick in alliance selection, but not who gets picked.

That’s always been the case at Worlds. When you’re in picking position, you scout everyone for capabilities, not on who has the best rank. If you’re scouting effectively, you’ll be able to discern through match videos, statistics, etc. and find the best team that compliments your alliance.

20 Likes
#6

I like it as well, because it adds a little more skill and a little less luck into the rankings. if you go against the best robots the entire tournament and you’re partnered with the worst, it’s up to your skill to at least get that one win point. which is why I like skills so much, there is no luck involved.

13 Likes
#7

The more granularity in ranking the better. I think this will help good teams rank higher.

A team that just got lucky schedules might be 6-0 but won’t have done every autonomous wp. But good teams should always get all autonomous wp. This new rule is good for top tier teams.

24 Likes
#8

agreed. This will be good at properly sorting the teams at the very top I think.

4 Likes
#9

or another way to look at it, you can get better view of teams with fewer qualifying matches. In the past we would run 8-10 qualifying rounds and get pretty good ranking, while events that 5-6 qualifying rounds, there appeared more randomness in the ranking (not sure I would call it luck as much as too small of a data set). I think with this new system you might get good view of the teams at the event with 6 qualifying rounds.

Will see what it looks like. Interesting addition that seems to be good.

8 Likes
#10

Exactly! Should be better for the EP’s and the competitors.

#11

Sorry to bust your argument, but higher level teams will for-go rankings if a bot is a viable pick (929U to 62A ITZ). I personally think the WP is great because it doesn’t detract from the value of a WP since the weight they have on your rank isn’t changing, it just makes you value autonomous more. At best, what this does is incentivise those better teams to make better autos in order to rank higher at tournaments for judged awards or having a better pick position

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#12

Except, this lucky team may still get the auton wp every match; If they are paired with teams that get the wp for them.

Imo, there are three ways to have a lucky schedule.

  1. Get paired with good teams all the way through

  2. Get paired with decent teams, but be against the very worst every match

  3. Both 1 & 2; be paired with good teams and be against terrible teams.

If option 1 happens, then the lucky team will still get the auton wp most matches.

If option 2 happens, the lucky team won’t get the wp most matches.

If option 3 happens, the lucky team will get the wp most matches.

So from an objective standpoint, the win point will help good teams get higher ranked, but will not necessarily stop bad teams from getting carried.

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#13

While bad teams can get “carried”, the qualification rounds do a good job sorting teams and presenting those teams with enough information to pick good partners, at least at the top of the rankings.

Earlier in the year, I did a multi-year analysis of elimination rounds for Vex, while I’m only displaying In The Zone and Tower Taker Over, NBN and Turning Point exhibited the same win rate.

Round ITZRedWinRate TTORedWinRate
QF .76 .74
SF .71 .69
F .67 .63

Given the consistency of elimination round win rates, I think it is safe to conclude that the number of “carried” teams over the course of the year is negligible.

At this point, one can basically think that Vex has aligned towards the FRC style “Ranking Points” and just haven’t updated the term “Win Points” to catch up with what it actually represents.

12 Likes
#14

it is very rare that a team gets carried all the way to the top, and this will be even rarer now, because in order to rank high you not only need to win all your matches, but you also need to win all the auton wp’s, which a carried robot won’t have been able to do.

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#15

Not really, almost every year at worlds you’ll find a good few examples of teams who shouldn’t be ranked high, higher up on the leader board.
This is a good solution to this, I wish they had it when I was in VRC.

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#16

I mean like ranked number 1. I’ve only seen it a few times. but I doubt we’ll see that anymore, because bad teams aren’t going to be able to get those extra win points (unless they get carried so hard that their partners have home row autons the entire tournament, but that would be extremely rare)

2 Likes
#17

Yeah, and that’s why I like it so much. A good way of sorting teams out better.

2 Likes
#18

I think generally the 6 auton bonus points are more valuable this year than the past few. This is why i think the win point could help with rankings because you would want all high ranking competitors to be able to highly preform in auton. I also agree with how it could remedy bad teams getting carried.

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