I’ve been thinking about this for a bit now. I’ve looked at the rules, and nothing but ethics is stopping it.
So imagine this scenario: you’re nearing the end of qual matches, and your alliance partner is looking like they might be a top seed, but your match is against very good teams, and if you both lose, you would both be in a worse position. Instead, you make an agreement with your alliance partner that they will pick you regardless of your record, and you start tipping your opponents stacks in their zones. This results in an automatic dq for you, but since you and your partner were the winning alliance, he still gets the wp. Both of you end up profiting.
Unfortunately, you have to be on the winning alliance for your alliance partner to get the wp, which is usually a given since it’s been near impossible to dq a losing alliance until this year.
If someone were to pull this off in a competition, would they get G1’d or something? Would people just get mad? Is it part of the game?
I remember VEX and/or the RECF once said that if you intentionally lose a match at Worlds and they find out, they will DQ you from Worlds, and do the same for any teams you were trying to help by losing that match.
I suppose they might not be quite as strict at local events, but I assume they would at least make you ineligible for alliance selection and judged awards (and they might even give you a season DQ).
Treat everyone with respect. All Teams are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful
and professional manner while competing in VEX Robotics Competition events. If a Team or any of
its members (Students or any adults associated with the Team) are disrespectful or uncivil to event
staff, volunteers, or fellow competitors, they may be Disqualified from a current or upcoming Match.
Team conduct pertaining to G1 may also impact a Team’s eligibility for judged awards. Repeated or
extreme violations of G1 could result in a Team being Disqualified from an entire event, depending on
the severity of the situation.
Robotics competitions often induce intense, high stress situations. These are good opportunities
to model and/or gain experience in handling these situations in a positive and productive manner. It
is important that we all exhibit maturity and class when dealing with any difficult situations that may
present themselves in both the VEX Robotics Competition and our lives in general.
This rule exists alongside the REC Foundation Code of Conduct. Violation of the Code of Conduct can
be considered a violation of G1 and can result in Disqualification from a current Match, an upcoming
Match, an entire event, or (in extreme cases) an entire competition season. The Code of Conduct can
be found at VEX Robotics Competition - REC Foundation .
This could be interinterpreted that in doing so it would be an extreme violation and could result in dqing
@vexvoltage I think the intent of that rule is to not complain and yell at your alliance partners when things don’t go as planned. I guess you could look up the definition of sportsmanship, but throwing matches has been a thing until turning point really. However, I think if a ref really didn’t like what they saw, they could stretch it into a G1 violation. Therefore, bad idea
One of the intents of the rule is to stop behavior you described of deliberately throwing matches at the detriment of alliance partners. Code of Conduct is there to remind all team members to behave ethically.
Probably a problem for anyone from Team 929. The forum has a long memory. As a matter of fact, I imagine that there are several screen shots/printouts taken of this post already.
Discussing the merit and coverage of rules in the game manual is perfectly valid discussion on the forum.
I don’t believe this could easily be construed to show that the OP was planning on throwing a match; rather, they are bringing up what they see as a potential issue in a purely hypothetical post, evidently because they are not sure about the how this scenario should be handled.
While there are cases of inappropriate conduct on the forums, please don’t try to scare people away from asking questions. That’s why the forum exists.
You didn’t read my scenario well enough. I’m DQing myself so that my alliance partner wins, and my partners win. I’m the only one receiving any punishment, and even then, my alliance partner is planning on picking me anyway.
Reminder to everyone. This is hypothetical. I literally already said this is probably a bad idea when responding to the post I deemed a solution of the thread. I don’t plan on doing this, I know it’s bad or unethical. I was just interested how it hasn’t been exactly addressed yet.
I was talking about when he said “One of the intents of the rule is to stop behavior you described of deliberately throwing matches at the detriment of alliance partners.”
A truism no matter how you interpret it - when the new WP for a team DQ during Qualifying Matches, it was to address the scenario in which a team DQs intentionally and it would detrimentally impact the partner in the QM alliance. Rules are put in place to slow down the types of scenarios you are coming up with, in which you conclude:
I do think it is good to discuss hypotheticals, but it may be good to have discussions about the ethics of those hypotheticals. It is the basis of teams with good standings with other teams in their regions.
“I don’t believe this could easily be construed to show that the OP was planning on throwing a match; rather, they are bringing up what they see as a potential issue in a purely hypothetical post, evidently because they are not sure about the how this scenario should be handled.”
In which case it will never be a problem. And I think he answered his own question in the first line when he said the only thing stopping it was ethics. G1 is first because it is most important, I think the problem is too many people (not @Kent_929S) look at G1 and ponder how low can you go when we should look at G1 and think how might we improve upon it and take it to the next level. And for the record the OP has clarified as much.
“Reminder to everyone. This is hypothetical. I literally already said this is probably a bad idea when responding to the post I deemed a solution of the thread. I don’t plan on doing this, I know it’s bad or unethical. I was just interested how it hasn’t been exactly addressed yet”
I still don’t think you get it. Literally everyone wins except for me. There is no detriment for my alliance partner, or the opposing alliance, they all get the 2 wp. Maybe I’m not getting something you’re saying, but I’m not trying to sabotage anyone. In fact, I’m doing the opposite.
I think the the point that Kent was making was in regards to what lacsap mentioned here.
The hypothetical situation would not be of “detriment of alliance partners” and where the code of conduct highlights “supporting your alliance partners” this scenario would also not go against this.
Exactly, so it’s a viable move. That’s the point. I just wanted to make sure lacsap understood I’m not sabotaging anyone directly. (You could argue I’m sabotaging everyone else by making someone win when they shouldn’t have but that’s a bit of a stretch.)
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the scenario you posed. I thought you would only do this if the other alliance was winning. Otherwise, it would make no sense to employ it. I think it goes like this, the other alliance is outscoring your alliance. You knock over the other alliance’s stacks in order to reduce their score and win the match. However, since you’re DQed, only your alliance partner gets the win and win points.
So in this scenario, you sabatoged the opposing alliance and taken a win from them that they earned.