While LRT is not perfect, what are the general thoughts about it for future, non-quarantine, seasons? In the abstract, is this a format that Competitors, EPs, and Coaches would want for future seasons?
My personal opinion is that given the effort RECF has put into the format, this will carry forward in future years to amortize those costs. Given an unknown game for 2021-2022, what would you change about LRT? What, if anything, would you retain?
personally I would never chose to go to a LRT over an in person one once we’re in a post-covid era, it just doesn’t compare with the enjoyability of an in person comp.
at most I can see it being a mildly fun way to practice with other teams that may or may not be in the same region as you, but I don’t see there being much of a demand for widespread LRT events after covid is no longer a concern. Just my 2 cents though, perhaps there will be a demand for it.
I can see live remote skills comps going on into future seasons, but I cannot see any demand for LRTs after a majority of the US is vaccinated.
I could see doing that for some special event. Delmarva Clawbot Invitational or Delmarva Girl Power Invitational and have people from around the world come. I’d love to play with Meng’s teams, not going to happen unless I hit Powerball and can fly us over. (or he hits Powerball 
)
Roboteers like to play and we all like playing with different teams. And it’s unlikely that I’d meet teams with @Xenon27 or @Sylvie, but remotely could be fun.
2022 Delmarva Top VEX Forum Posters “Put up or shut up” Invitational
I would say that there would be a way to design the game so that an LRT makes more sense. They may try and work it into the mix for future years. This will work well especially if they want to start teams in new regions.
This meaning what? You’re being kind of unclear.
Sorry. You are cordially invited to the 2022 Delmarva Top Posters LRT. This invitation is sent to you because you are one of the top 50 posters on the VEX forum about your robot. Here is a chance for you to “Put up or Shut Up” about how cool your robot is.
Did that help?
i feel like LRTs will still happen after all the COVID hopefully ends, But I don’t think it will be as popular as In-person tourneys. Like Xenon said, Competing or just playing against other teams that you don’t see is a good way to connect across the globe. You can virtually meet new people as well. If the LRT format really works well with future games, I bet it will stay alot longer. But it really depends on the game imo. If TT was this years game I think LRTS would work really well.
Remote Skills are sort of in the same boat but I think it can be more flexible with each game.
@Sylvie / @Xenon27 I agree that the in-person competitions are much better than remote. But there could be ways to avoid a choice between an in-person and a remote event. Scheduling LRTs on Mondays (Monday Night LRT!) which have a much higher frequency of “no school” than any other weekday, could preserve in-person events on the weekends.
I think the group of students who formed their own LRT (forgot their name - but a tip of my hat to them!) are onto something with their 1v1 format. I think that solves several LRT problems, and takes the forum’s most popular crutch, “my partner was a potato”, away.
I’m in that group . I’m the lead developer for our custom Event Console software.
Their name is ORCAH.
Yes it does. We’ve also solved several other problems with the LRT format.
Our first tournament is this sunday from 8am PST to 2:30pm PST and will be streamed to YouTube for anyone that wants to watch.
I love this. Sign us up!
I wouldn’t want remote skills events after the pandemic is over. Imo using a team’s own field for skills is kind of cheating because the program is more likely to work and the driver is more likely to perform well when using one’s own field. During turning point, I had a program consistently get 24 points on my own field but never worked at states.
Moreover, talking to other teams and seeing other team’s robot in person is what makes a tournament fun.
I talked to someone at the REC Foundation and they think that LRT will have a smaller but important role in VEX Robotics competitions in future seasons. 
No one at the RECF feels that LRT replaces the experience from attending in person events and we plan to support as many in person events as possible when the pandemic is behind us. But we do think LRT is a good tool to reach rural and underserved areas. One example I like to give is the small Hawaiian islands or the remote areas in the US Plains. There are VEX teams in these locations, but these teams often do not compete because of the long travel distances to events. Or sometimes they only compete once at their State or Regional Championship. So we think LRT will allow teams that have more of a challenge to travel (and that’s not only rural teams) the opportunity to compete more often. And as others have said, LRT will allow teams that never get to compete with / against each other to have the opportunity to do so.
And yes, GDC will make sure future games are better optimized for LRT.
Dan
Thank you, but personally, I do not believe that the GDC should go out of their way to accommodate LRT in their game design. That could likely diminish the amount of cooperation required betwixt alliance members and make it more of a solo game. There is nothing wrong with modifying a game if need be, but starting it off as 2 solo teams greatly reduces the strategy and fun in my opinion.
I don’t think they really need to go out of their way at all to make games that work well for LRT.
pretty much take any of the past 3 games before change up (tower takeover, turning point, in the zone) and they’d all work well with the lrt format, not because they don’t rely on teamwork, but because they are a challenge that no robot can completely max out in 2 minutes. The reason change up is so bad for LRT is because the challenge was so easy that it relied on having an active opponent to even be playable for 2 minute matches.
I think that as long as the gdc goes back to making games where the challenge is as difficult as it had been before change up, that LRT will work just fine.
Turning Point could have definitely been maxed out in 2 minutes lol
oh wait yeah definetely. not nearly as easily as change up but still for sure would have been a problem.
maybe swing games in general should just be avoided in the future (or made difficult enough without an opponent)
I agree that using your own field gives you an advantage. This is why I support live remote skills. It gives the unfair advantage to the team who hosts states. By allowing all teams to do this evens the field.
Does this mean there will be no more swing games??
That doesn’t necessarily imply that (remember that the GDC designs games 2 years in advance). It just means that newer games will be designed with LRT (somewhat) in minds.