I think it is very unlikely that RECF/GDC will simply ignore small but powerful regions like Singapore, at this point. They aren’t THAT blind…I hope.
Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see their rationale for these rather sudden changes to qualification formatting. I pray that it will not be like the Bo1 response, because that will put them in some serious hot water with the international community. I just don’t get why they have to restrict the Skills portions so much…they basically show who the best robots, programmers, and drivers are in the world (with ambiguities and exceptions, as @Kent~929S said). They should be the ones they WANT at Worlds.
Yeah I wouldn’t attack this rule as harshly if it was for In The Zone, despite the effects it has on small states. This is because the win conditions in skills were not the win conditions in competition, so it would make sense that there will be teams at worlds that aren’t good at competition. I would defend this idea if that was actually the case, but alas.
Thanks for these kind words. It means a lot coming from another great and legendary team. Believe me, it does give me concerns too whenever I see 400x on the opposite side of the field
And really thanks a lot for all the support from so many of you.
I am just Glad that we have at least made an impact or a difference in your Vex journey.
like what @400x says - we will just wait and see at the moment. Though I doubt they will bend backward just for us.
And during the team debrief after worlds, I was just telling my team - let’s aim to put 3 teams into freedom hall next year. Guess not much chance of that happening next year.
Oh well… think I better start googling around (for something else) for a Plan B for the new season…
I have a huge amount of respect for 8059, and they have been amazing allies and friends both on and off the field. I have to emphasize that this change will negatively impact a huge number of teams and regions. Global skills spots have allowed small but very competitive regions to punch above their weight in qualification spots since they were introduced back in 2012(?). This has been a huge benefit to all competitive small regions, not just Singapore! While currently Singapore probably disproportionately benefits from them the most, having them in place is an excellent contingency plan for regions having a particularly strong year, and so is a huge benefit to the program and the quality of the world championship in my opinion.
From an external perspective, there seems to be a movement towards treating worlds as more like an expo/convention than a competition (ie. the purpose of the World Championship is not to find the best team(s)). This is fine if that’s the direction that Vex wants the “competition” to move, but don’t expect that teams, especially international ones, will keep paying thousands of dollars to compete and attend.
I expect the quality of matches at worlds will decrease fairly significantly with the combination of Bo1 eliminations at qualifying events as well as the removal of skills spots. One may argue that the level may be increased slightly due to no 3-team alliances, but these spots will likely just be replaced by winners of judged awards, so I’m not sure this will be a huge improvement.
The solution to allowing small regions to punch above their weight in qualification spots seems to be “Signature Events”. This is great if teams have enough money to fly to other countries to try their luck in a Bo1 elimination bracket. All I have to say about that is good luck.
I would also like to point out that the qualifying criteria has scheduled updates in August and January, which means the way in which teams qualify for worlds may arbitrarily change throughout the season. I expect there will be no major changes, but that’s what we thought before Bo1 last season too.
I’ve seen a few really dedicated young people leave the program because of this change already. The teammates will probably still compete, the parts will still get bought, I doubt anyone at Vex will notice. But the most dedicated young people, the ones who take the competition very seriously, the ones who live and breathe Vex Robotics, the ones who are being alienated by these changes which ruin the competitive integrity of the program, are the kind of people who I have consistently seen to go on and make robotics a career choice, with a vast global network of fellow roboteers behind them. I’m one of those people, and I can confidently say that if I came through the program a few years later than I did, today would’ve been the day I quit.
Our team had the privilege of have 8059A as our alliance partner in Engineering during the 2018 Worlds. Even though we had fought a difficult sceadule and did not rank as well as we hoped, they still saw the talent we could bring as an alliance partner.
The students of this program are truly astonishing. Their well planned strategy and consistency of their robot is truly amazing, as well as all of the other 8059 teams at worlds. @meng leads an amazing program that deserves multiple worlds titles. It is unfortunate that we may not be able to see them at worlds next year, as they are arguable the most generous, helpful, and talented people we have ever worked with.
The REFC and VEX Robotics should alter their policy in order to reflect the true meaning of worlds. As they said multiple times throughout the competition and in Freedom Hall, “Worlds is for the best of the best”. 8059 has one of the best programs and groups of teams in VEX, and with VEX new qualification format, they are limiting the “best of the best” teams in order to favor teams that may win judged awards.
I just thought I should speak my piece. I hope that this can all work out and we can have Singapore be truly represented at worlds, as they are truly deserving of a worlds title. I hope that we can have the privilege of working with 8059 again, as well as teams from all over the world who are “the best of the best”.
If these new are going to impact Singapore like @meng says, I think that it will have a disastrous effect to the competition at VEX Worlds. As has been previously said, Singapore’s teams are some of the best in the world, and it is a very competitive region every year at the World Championships. It will devastating to the competition at VEX Worlds if teams like @meng’s will not be competing. I really hope something is put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen during this season.
And I was just beginning to get people around me to believe it when I told them that Skills Only events were the greatest part of Vex and we should do more of them. The kids are much less stressed out at Skills Only events. They talk to each other a lot more. They share ideas. They even try out new things. Even when the odds are greatly stacked against them, I’ll see them try in hopes of making it to Worlds through skills. But… yeah, amateur hour at HQ these days… and V5… not holding my breath on that one either… So… Okay, I’ll just shut up now before I get kicked off the forum.
The document is official. Just that they reserved the rights to make changes to it even in Jan 2019.
I have not scrutinised the document in detail, but looks like all events will need to be logged into robotevents by oct 2018?
If that’s the case, then the obvious question will be - should EPs organised any skills-only events for jan and feb 2019?
The way i see it, currently there is no incentive to organise any skills-only events. I am not even sure is there any incentive for teams to practice hard for skills challenge (since the global ranking is just a practice (lol)).
So let’s assume that recf decided to change the qualifications criteria and reinstate qualifications by global ranking in Jan 2019, it will be way past the Oct 2018 deadline for any EPs to organise any skills-only events.
It is not just about Singapore, I am still not convince that this is the way forward for any of the smaller regions.
I totally agree with @Telemascope , skills challenge will benefit all smaller regions.
Do we know if they have allotted the spots that each region will get next year? Perhaps they will expand the number of spots for the small regions following that change.
I am very disappointed in these changes. It seems to me that most of them are just a response a game flaw last season. Last season a large amount of the teams which qualified to worlds through skills (either top 35 or additional spots in there region) did so with a skills bot at a skills only event. At these events a team’s skills score was not at all a good indicator of how good of a match robot they had. As a result of this there were teams who qualified for worlds without being able to score cones while other much better game bots did not qualify as a result. I believe that the changes to this year’s qualification document are a response to last year. It seems that its main purpose is to prevent teams from making skills bots and qualifying to worlds with them. The new system makes skills essentially worthless (max of one skill spot per region, no top 35) and eliminates skills only events meaning that no one will build a skills bot. This is the only semi-logical explanation I can think of as a reason for these changes.
The problem is that the qualification system was not at fault last year, it was a mistake by the GDC in the game itself. If they had made a rule that you could only score for the color you start at, I believe that there wouldn’t have been any problem at all last year. The many skills bots going to worlds was only a symptom of a problem with the game. What do they do? They make skills essentially worthless (hurting many regions particularly Singapore) to address the symptom of a problem from last years game, something that I don’t think would have even been a problem this year.
I believe that these changes will decrease the overall quality of teams at worlds. The top 35 provides a way for small regions like Singapore to be extremely competitive at worlds. Also I find it very unlikely that the amaze award winner is going to be more deserving of going to worlds than the second best skills team in a region. I really hope the RECF reverses these changes particularly reinstating top 35 and using skills score to fill extra worlds spots instead of awards like Amaze, Think, etc. I’m beginning to be glad that this is my final year in vex.
I’m disappointed in the direction skills is headed. I felt like we were working hard towards emphasizing the skills portion of the VEX program. With these changes it appears to undercut all that work and swiftly de-emphasizes skills for the vast majority of teams.
Late skills only events added a second season for our teams, and sometimes it was the first time some students (and some teams) REALLY got into programming for the season.
