Open Letter to the GDC Regarding the new Eliminations Format at Vex Worlds 2018

[technik3k]

@Ryan M

Regarding increasing the number of teams in eliminations, while the new system will allow eight additional teams to enter eliminations, these teams will be at a severe disadvantage and most likely lose in the first round as a team ranked 16th or likely higher will almost certainly have a significantly lower performing robot than a first or second seeded team. As a result, although more teams are allowed to enter eliminations, their experiences in it will be brief and filled with sadness at a fast, decisive loss.

Not only that, but it will add tremendous psychological pressure on everybody playing in eliminations.

Since @VEX GDC stands for Game Design Committee I would assume (based on Paul’s quote) that they follow best Design Process practices, including doing Risk-Benefits Analysis based on multiple criteria.

@Paul Copioli

I want to respond to the “Why Worlds” question now and let more community members chime in before I answer more of the other questions and claims. First, I will say that we use data and history to make our decisions. While many of us on the GDC are passionate, we do not make decisions like these lightly. Again, I will go into details after more people have a chance to post but I felt this is important for me to say to you. This was a well discussed subject that we did not take lightly.

If there was a data driven decision made to change elimination bracket format, I have hard time imagining what it was that outweighed the risk of everyone having more stress on the field and feeling there is no second chances playing in VRC.