That part of the sentence was 2158R_Arrash’s opinion. You were “saying that the new system screwed over a lot of top teams”, and 2158R_Arrash was saying that the teams should have prepared.
(Either way, I believe that while all teams should have prepared as much as they could, there were some things they couldn’t have prepared for.)
*Does not matter if it is a 55 point lead or not - it is one point or more advantage that wins. In TP, early season getting the autonomous advantage will be huge and maintain the lead will be important. Bigger margin better, but if you get that last shot in, you win (think Patriots in past Super Bowls - the last two minutes do matter).
*
So at the end of the day, does it really matter if it Bo1 or Bo3? Those are the parameters of the game. Just like in Soccer, Volleyball and many other sports, the rules of the game change. In the case of soccer, it is the IFAB that makes the rules and they consult a small subset of the global population (yes there are things bigger than VRC), publish their rules and move on.
me - 9791[a-z] middle school teams in Framingham Massachusetts
me - fullname - Pascal Chesnais
me - current profession - Middle School teacher, I think I got it right 
Starting this year, some regions will have a few other non-performance-related awards qualify for Worlds, although they all come after the normal qualifying awards, and IIRC, all of these awards are related to the robot.
You are correct that Skills Champion, tournament finalist, and semifinalist are all performance-based, although Skills Champion is not based on matches and the others are rare in many regions.
Now that there are two teams per alliance, I expect each of these awards (especially Skills) to qualify for Worlds more often (although a few regions may remove Skills to add finalists).
Sorry had a thorough response, but markup mania caused most of it to be lost … Will respond later tonight…
This is a very good point. Even if we don’t know which teams were submitting the fake scores, the US and China are statistically much more likely than Singapore and NZ. In fact, Singapore (and maybe NZ) record videos of their Skills runs, so I don’t think they were the guilty parties.
Besides fake scores, another possibility would be plate-switching, which happened in the US just last year.
I agree. Although there could be some people who speak out against Bo1 (or in favor of it) due to peer pressure or because it’s trendy, it is obvious that a huge number of people are strongly opposed to Bo1.
When I first heard of Bo1, I was in disbelief. If someone had suggested the current Bo1 system to me in February, I’m sure I would have been opposed to it (I still would’ve liked other aspects of the system, but they’d be outweighed by the fact that you only get one shot).
I would expect that there are some people out there who would still have lost under Bo3, and are using Bo1 as an excuse for their poor performance, but there are also many people who genuinely would have won if it hadn’t been for Bo1. For the latter group, blaming Bo1 is not merely an excuse, it is a genuine reason to dislike Bo1.
I believe that in most cases, putting more effort into the robot can prevent Bo1 from harming you, but even then, you can still easily face losses beyond your control, and even without that factor, I would still feel that Bo3 is a better judge of a team’s quality.
Edited to add: Although I do like that Bo1 encourages teams to be consistent in every match, I feel that the more matches a team has, the more accurate the data from those matches is, with the exception of factors that change over time (such as wear and tear on the robot).
+1
but - you really have to move on.
Life is too short to just continue blaming a system for losses or failures and not getting something you want.
My college friends lost their division finals match because of a mishap. Would they have loved a 2nd shot at it? Of course. But it didn’t happen. They didn’t dwell on or blame Bo1, and I can attest to the hours they put in, the 1AM or sometimes 3AM nights they left the workroom to get that bot working.
When I talked with them this season, they wanted to get right back to work, and they knew how much more effort they’d have to put in to reach their goals. 3 of those guys won a division title together, one of them won 2 division titles.
You learn to adapt to the new environment, and it may not be the best, but that doesn’t stop you from working your hardest.
I have no real opinion on Bo1. I can understand the changes the RECF made and can see the rationale. I think it’ll be bring good changes to VRC. I also think it’ll help raise the competitive level just that much more, which I love to see.
Definitely agree. As a team that lost in semifinals due to a connection mishap, sure, we may have gotten farther in a BO3 setup, but I will also not blame BO1. Part of this is due to the fact that I don’t see BO1 changing anytime soon. I agree with many of the above comments that BO3 is likely not coming back soon. We will have to get used to it, and I also agree that we should instead try to make BO1 as best as possible. I enjoyed the rush of BO1, but I also enjoy the consistency provided by BO3. I don’t have an opinion, but luckily a few other people have shown up to defend BO1.
Also, you may consider that some of the polls you’re referencing were skewed, probably unintentionally, to favor the old format. What if those polls had only asked 2-team alliance v. 3-team alliances instead of Bo1 v. Bo3? Maybe we would be arguing that lots of people prefer the new format? Personally, I so strongly prefer 2-team alliances than I’m quite willing to accept Bo1 instead of my preferred Bo3.
Meanwhile, I’ve competed to quite a high level in multiple sports and have coached others. In one sport I took very far it’s all Bo1. There can be technical problems totally outside your control that take you out of contention. Meanwhile there are other fairly random factors that can totally mess you up or make you do really well. I was also once DQ’d because a volunteer wasn’t doing their job, as I explicitly asked where a marker was, wasn’t told, and was disqualified by the same person for not rounding what I didn’t see and that person wouldn’t identify even though they were supposed to. But no one asked for re-dos and no one found the format unfair, even though the results may well have been different with some sort of Bo3 format. Bo3 really wouldn’t be feasibly implemented though. Meanwhile in other sports it’s been Bo5 and many other variants. In all varieties there have been complaints about officials and other stuff. But they all work in their own ways, and weak teams never make it far even when there are some upsets.
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Separately, I should say that I essentially ignore comments that the better team didn’t win. Were they really better at that moment? Perhaps not. Believing such comments relies on rating the judgement call of the person saying which team is better over the results of the competition. Why should I trust that person’s judgement call more than the results? (I’m not saying refs don’t make mistakes sometimes, but I doubt any are trying to.) And I’m certainly not alone in being able to see this. So don’t expect arguments like that to sway those who disagree. They’re not really good arguments; they’re rallying calls for others who already agree.
I agree that you need to adapt to your environment, and not dwell on the past, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to change your new environment, especially if there are many other people who the new format has affected the same way.
Either way, I plan on adapting to my new environment, and I’m hoping that the students in my region will continue their involvement in VEX despite the changes (although I would understand if some choose to leave).
Like you, I can understand why the GDC and RECF made the changes, and even though I generally prefer Bo3, I can also see several positive aspects to Bo1.
I am looking forward to seeing how teams adapt to Bo1 by becoming more consistent, and seeing which teams get their first chance to be in the elimination rounds as a result of there being 8 more teams.
I think everyone would benefit from discussing how to “master” Bo1. This is a much more friendly and constructive topic to discuss. Anyway, if you are prepared for Bo1, then you are more than prepared for Bo3 (If it hypothetically came back).
So what are some ways to master Bo1?
-Murphy’s Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong [especially in the finals match]"If you notice something go wrong when you are practicing, you should take note of it and make sure that it does not happen again. If you want to go a step further, you can look at how other robots might fail, and modify your robot so that it does not make the same mistake.
-Strong communication between your team and your alliance partner. In some of 5225A’s matches you can see their driving coach advising their partner what to do. That is key to having an alliance rather than just two teams scoring the same color.
-Adapt to your opponents: every alliance is going to be different. Time should be taken to “learn” your opponent and develop a strategy accordingly.
Please feel free to add more to my list
Next, On the note of strong/poor judging:
I think that teams should take advantage of the QNA and post precedents of scenarios that happened at regional or state tournaments so that the GDC can give an official ruling. I am pretty sure that the incident with 127X was not the first time a robot tipped another robot over during autonomous of a regional or state tournament. Maybe if it was asked on the QNA then there would be a definite response before worlds and people would not argue about the ref’s ruling. This relieves some of the stress on the ref too.
I think that it was a bold attempt to go for that third cone, but to be completely honest, I have seen so many robots collide when they go for the same cone. I would have avoided this cone all together, and opted to go for the autoloader instead. Notice how points 1 and 3 from above perfectly apply to this situation. I think that this serves as a learning experience, and want to congratulate you for making it that far at Worlds.
One thing I would add is to do a full systems check before every match. This helps mitigate anything they could go wrong due to loose screws or faulty hardware.
This definitely would help. In the BO3 format at my regional event, my team won the first match with relative ease but lost the next two. In Finals 2, our partner tipped, but in Finals 3, our gyroscope had gotten unplugged. Had it not been, we would have won auton, the match, and the championship. I quite regret not having done a check before that…
Yes! Totally forgot that. NASA uses checklists and it takes them to the moon.
I am pretty sure many of the better teams had a program to go for the 3rd cone as well.
Going for the 3rd cone is not the problem. And as you said, even colliding is not an issue itself (i.e many robots collide, but they didnt get entangled).
I didn’t get to see @Aponthis other matches… but I am pretty sure it was not the 1st time he attempted (successfully) for the 3rd cone.
The situation is an example of something that it is almost impossible to predict.
Let’s see what it takes for that to happen…
127x tipped = (both robots from opposing alliances decided to go for 3rd cone) + (both robots arrived at that particular spot at almost the same time) + (both robots have their intakes extended out) + (one robot’s intake’s design is just right to entangle with the other robot’s intake’s design)
And if I split up “both” into Robot A and Robot B, then it will be x2 the conditions.
Another thing I would note on mitigating bo1 losses is that driver practice will be key. Most bell curves aren’t due to the robot (after all it’s the same robot every time) it’s due to drivers. Not to say that iq and vrc are completely comparable but I’ve beaten robots with three to four times higher efficiency than me just by having a well tuned claw it and a well tuned routine to go with it. (Not that I necessarily recommend this strategy, but my pint remains)
Don’t think it is fair to just go by who is going for the EP summit.
It is obvious that the attendance will be skewed towards US-based EPs.
If the EP summit is ever shifted to Auckland, I am sure NZ EPs will be much better represented.
That is very true, and its not an outcome that he could have changed in the moment. Going forward, in a bo1 format, I would try to avoid contesting another robot during autonomous. (Might not apply this season because you cannot cross sides during auto)
All of these things are true. And we had realignment code in our autonomous routine so that we could correct if thrown off. (I guess I forgot the antigravity machine, though). I didn’t see any reason to go for fewer than 3 cones unless we were trying to dodge a block, for which we only stacked one cone a couple of times. I’m unconvinced by the argument that I should not run a fairly standard and necessary to be competitive autonomous routine because it bears the risk that is really minimal, as @meng laid out. Also worth noting that this only gives a 50% chance that my robot is the one that tips, if we have no real way of knowing. Chaos theory and all that.
Excellent point.
Hopefully, the points of view of Singapore, NZ, and other small countries far away from other teams will be fairly represented at the EP summit.