Hi,
I have some concerns about the Q and A for the 2022-2023 season. This season, the Q and A was a mess to say the least. It was also not at all in accordance with the GDC’s own Q and A guidelines which read:
- We know that your question is important to you, and you want the answer as soon as possible. Most questions submitted by Wednesday evening will be answered on or before Friday of the same week. Most questions that are submitted on Thursday or Friday will be answered on or before Friday of the following week.
I don’t know if a single Q and A was answered within a week of its posting. In fact, most questions took 1-3 weeks to be answered.
- However, some questions may take additional time to review internally, and responses may take longer during high-volume times of year. In order to ensure the consistent quality of all answers, there are no guarantees that questions will be answered before a given date. Therefore, if you need an answer before your competition, we would advise posting it 1-2 weeks in advance, not the night before, to ensure a higher likelihood of a response.
Most of the more complicated questions take 3-4 weeks to answer. The issue with this is that most of these more complicated questions can have major ramifications on how the game is played. Let me give a couple examples.
This Q and A decided what would and wouldn’t score at the end of the autonomous period.
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/817
It remained unanswered for multiple weeks and lead to confusion and inconsistently at at least one tournament. It was so important that 2 more identical questions were asked.
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/830
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/833
Another issue that came up was whether or not you could force an opponent into an SG3 penalty.
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/968
In the weeks that they spent coming up with an answer, it didn’t even give a clear answer.
Under the strictest interpretation of SG3-b, yes, this would be considered a violation. However, we would caution the offensive Team in question to be mindful of other rules such as G12, S1, G1, etc.
This answer didn’t provide a clear answer for referees to enforce. This resulted in further questions being asked (which would in turn take weeks to answer).
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1026
And then this infamous question.
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1017
The GDC spent weeks coming up with “No.”.
And finally, there were 7 Q and As that never got answered.
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1089
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1092
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1093
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1094
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1095
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1096
https://www.robotevents.com/VRC/2021-2022/QA/1099
These questions were there for over month before the Tipping Point season ended.
I ask for the GDC to please talk about reforming the Q and A for next season. If they would actually adhere to their guidelines, I feel like it would have a helpful effect on reducing confusion. I am hopeful they will do this, because the Spin Up manual was far more clear and concise.
I understand that the being on the GDC is not a full time job, and these people are busy. I also know that the GDC wants to make sure the answers are able to be enforced. I still hope that the GDC will consider making some changes to the Q and A.