I feel like this years game is not balanced. For example a cap on the tall post should be worth more than a cap on the lower post. Another thing is it takes less time to shot a ball than to put a cap on a post. One change vex could make is that if a cap is on a post it can only be flipped over ,not taken off.
I disagree with the anti-descoring rule. It’s too late in the season to screw teams who have strategists with that in mind. However, I do think that the posts should either be the same height or one should count for more. But that would have been changed in the game design if it were to be so.
Such dramatic rule changes this late would be a bit extreme. But, the GDC probably should have taken these points into account. And maybe they did.
I think if you think harder about it for a little bit, it makes sense why they made the decisions that they did.
Your also missing the challenge of building. It’s more challenging to build a consistent shooter that can reliably hit the small flags than to build a robot that can put caps on posts. VEX is rewarding the harder objective with a strategic advantage. In the grand scheme of things it is a pretty well balanced game, especially considering how coveted good cap bots are when alliance selection comes around.
Anyone can build a puncher from resources people put online. A lift is harder to design and rubber band.
I would disagree. “Good” can be very subjective. A few videos, while very informative and helpful for new teams is not enough. Creating an intake that is efficient is a big challenge.
But mainly tuning a shooter to perfection takes a lot of work. Maybe anybody can build a working puncher, but not everybody can build a good puncher.
I think it is very well balanced. there are no exploitations in the strategies that I’ve seen, and a really good cap bot has just as good a chance of winning a comp as a really good flag bot, especially seeing as how valuable a really good cap bot is to shooters.
Yes if you go with a dreadnought cascade or a DR4B. But a good basic 4-bar is far easier to build than a good puncher.
A lot of people had lifts in ITZ so it wouldn’t be very fair for new teams if teams from last season could easily convert their ITZ bots into high scoring cap bots, while new teams had to build lifts. Since caps aren’t as much of a focus as flags, most teams are making completely new robots. plus, what would the challenge be if you could use your robot from last season without extensively modifying it.
+1
really good point hadn’t even thought about that.
Not sure if you follow IQ, but the tall post last year was used about 3.5 times in the whole season… Just a little too tall, and there was too much other stuff to do. It’s really hard to properly balance a game before they release it into the wild. In my opinion, they always do a really good job. Read up on how long it took them to figure out the roles for football, baseball, etc. For football, at some point, they introduced the forward pass. Can you imagine if they had to stick with the original rules?
The best robots in the world will just flip the caps once they are scored. It’s coming. Stay tuned.
Building a robot that can shoot and have a consist lift is harder because the limit of size and limit of motors can be used (especially for V5 teams) than building a robot that can only shoot. This game has a flaw for the cap. VEX Should only allow de-scoring cap by flipping the cap from the pole or on the ground. If the cap is fallen onto the ground from the pole, it should be put back onto the pole. This will force many teams to build robot that can do both shooting and doing caps (on pole).
A shooter: punch, sling slot, catapult etc are easier to build than a good consistent and reliable lifter.
I believe many teams ignore the lift because of the way this game allows to de-score the cap. Also, with V5, you are limit to only 8 motors and many teams are struggling on how to built a robot that can do both shoot and lift. I have heard that it takes about 30 minutes to built a de-score and it takes a lot longer to build a lift.
I believe the more experienced teams will do both shoot and lift. The less experienced team will concentrate on either shoot (more likely) or lift.
uhhhh I would beg to differ. this seems like a matter of build style, some are better at launchers and some are better at lifts.
If you compare the easiest shooter to build and the easiest lift, the lift is far easier to build. Now @Xenon is right about build styles, but I don’t see how a four bar is harder to build than a puncher. Now I do agree that by the time Worlds comes around most of the higher end teams will be able to score both objects, you can see this with 929U and their cap scoring arm.