I saw a post like this for over under, so now that high stakes is over, here’s a similar one. How would you rate this past season out of 10 overall and why, from the game itself to the robot designs?
What would have made this game better?
Totally unbiased but I think it was pretty good
Game was actually really fun, but meta did not change at all
V5RC High Stakes: 
/ 5
My high stakes experience was truly unique, unlike any other robotics season that I have participated in. The constant action, strategy, and intensity at many competitive competitions was special in its own way, a new level of communication and teamwork needed to be successful. Although High Stakes was a well designed game, my preferred style of the vex game is a simple yet advanced game that requires speed, precision, teamwork, and a good driver/coder (Such as VIQ Rapid Relay). My High Stakes season was also partly delayed due to our county’s robotics manager switching positions (it was chaos). We didn’t get our field until December. However, we still had a great season and quelled for states.
P.S. I’m looking forward to push back, it seems like an exciting game that requires speed and teamwork.
In my opinion High Stakes was the best game VEX has made in the V5 era.
Games (in my view) consist of 4 main things:
Mechanical - how complicated and/or consistent the robot needs to be to play the game
Autonomous - how important a consistent & high scoring auton is for the game
Driving - how important driving (and making risky moves) is for playing the game
Strategy - how complicated & dynamic the strategy is
Over under (imo) lacked autonomous importance, and the robots were relatively simple compared to other seasons. Spin up lacked strategy other than overall strategy (scoring disks, defense, rollers, expansion, basic game progression), and depending mostly on auton & driver & mechanical. Tipping point was very auton-heavy, and you would win the game if you grabbed more goals in auton (most of the time).
High stakes, on the other hand, required a really consistent robot (especially for T3), required good and consistent autons (most of the time you’d lose if you lost auton), required good driving for high-risk goal grabs and neutral stake scoring, and the strategy was really dynamic.
Basically, I think High Stakes was a good combination of all 4 factors, and that’s why I think it was the best game.
The only downside I see from this game was the convergence of design all the way back in October (other than T3).
On the whole, I’d say it was very okay. I liked the scoring approach, but the early meta that stayed fairly consistent throughout the year was not my favorite. In past seasons, there was a major difference between the meta bot in November and the meta in March, and I feel like we didn’t really see that as much this year.
I honestly enjoyed the strategy, especially once corners got protected for longer periods of time. Any parents who came to watch that I spoke to, though, found the game a little more confusing and less engaging for viewers than previous years (is it a huge thing? No, but if you’re watching your child compete for 8 hours, i think games with a little less corner-fighting are better).
My main issue though was that it was a pretty hard game for entry level teams. In Spin Up, you could score in the low goal, do the rollers, and earn some expansion points. In Over Under, pushbots could score. This year, if a team couldn’t score, they really couldn’t do much beyond corner camping, which I think made things harder for alliance partners and for new teams to get as much from the game. I do appreciate the need for more advanced teams to be challenged, but I think High Stakes went a little too far in that direction at the cost of newer and less-experienced teams.
Also, the constant failed attempts to incentivize hang got kind of frustuating. It just didn’t seem to work, and the way each manual update tried to fix that was funny but also dull.
However, I did think the lower-scoring aspect of the game was nice, because each point mattered more than it has in years past. The corners and the gameplay surrounding them was different and I liked that, but strategy did become a little redundant at the end of the season.
Even though I think it was just an okay game on the whole I really enjoyed this season (1st time I didn’t have to switch to a team in November because my organization added a new team, and our best season for notebooking by far). The rings were also my favorite game elements in recent history.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.