Opinions on Push Back 0.1 Manual

VEX V5 General Discussion
1

What’s your opinion on the push back manual?

  • It’s perfect.
  • It’s ok.
  • Some stuff needs to fixed.
  • It’s kinda bad.
  • It’s really bad!
  • Other (post a comment)
0 voters
2 Likes
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I want to clarify my vote of very bad is only because of the fact that, at least from what I can see, this game manual was either written in a really big rush or there was some issue with the checks and balances system that I assume was used on previous game manuals.

For example, I don’t think any checks were put in place regarding the new 22 inch rule, as it actually creates a more, not less restrictive size limitation than just 18x18 with no expansion allowed at all.

Additionally, there is a video floating around on discord of Tyler interviewing a person in Vex IQ, and when that person commented about the polycarb rules, Tyler said that he was not aware of it, and had woken up to tons of drama regarding it.

I don’t know the Vex policy on keeping the game secret, but I am honestley shocked that not even the master of ceremonies, in charge of presenting the new game to the entire vex community for the first time, had never read the manual.

I think that the GDC has made some decisions that can be rescinded, with the correct actions taken, however it would require humility and understanding on the part of the GDC. As we’ve seen, the community feels very strongly about this, but everyone is still hopefull for change.

18 Likes
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I don’t think it’s a bad game, but I think some things were missed.
Mainly the fact that you can descore so so easily. It takes maybe 2-3 seconds to fully descore centre goals, and about the same time to almost fully descore long goals.
I’m still in a bit of disbelief that this was not caught, considering the active efforts against descoring like that in the last two years.

I get that the aim was to create a game with big swings and big plays, but I feel like the GDC have just shot themselves in the foot and made parking completely irrelevant if you can lose over 30 points while trying to park.

4 Likes
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They can always increase the points for parking, maybe it will be +50 points

6 Likes
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I agree completely.

I really hope the GDC does have humility and understanding because some of the new rules would make the game boring or uninteresting. (Mostly because of wording of course)

3 Likes
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I frankly don’t think there’s anything they can do without making it harder to descore somehow. Double parking would have to be worth so much that you can afford to give up every goal pretty much which would ruin the game.
The only thing I could see working is making it much harder to descore giving time to park in the endgame

1 Like
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Thoughts to clarify my vote

First off is it looks super un prepared. Someone ran part of it in ZeroGPT and it came back like 96% AI. That’s very concerning. Also rules like expansion make me wonder who proof reads these. Also the rule on moving plates. I just feel like they dropped the ball on this one. Hopefully the next update is better.

Secondly is the robot rules are, well, not good. Obviously everyone’s up in arms over r25. I feel like the rules hurt everyone. It raises the cost drops the ceiling and makes inspection longer. The only thing is good for is keeping a very minor level of cheating out. IMO it’s not worth the hassle to start this rule over having a tiny bit of extra plastic. I don’t care as much as the rules on plates this year. Those plates in the demos are the most obvious r6f violation ever, yet the printed plates with no issues aren’t allowed.

Also with the rules on auto if my auto scores too many into a tube they will roll to the opponents side and I will instantly lose auto and awp.

4 Likes
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You say this yet perhaps parking is just a points option for less advanced teams or those wanting to show off even more, either way not all scoring mechanisms have to be and can be meta due to the nature of VEX V5 games and until summer games and the manual updates, I don’t think we can confidently say the GDC has shot themselves in the foot just because the game style is very different/dynamic

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AI detectors are just more guessing, there is no reliable way to prove if someone is writing with AI.

That said, a rulebook with this level or formatting and details was definitely not 96% written in AI. If they did just put the manual in a detector, it probably was noticing weird, stilted sentence structures, repeated phrases, and lots of specific words and definitions, which would be weird for a general student essay but this is a highly technical rules manual. Additionally many of the sections are carried over with small changes year to year other than the new game rules. Saying the game manual is sloppy from AI is just not serious. It’s just a first draft with multiple revisions planned.

To your point about auto scoring interfering with the other side, that is a good point for the Q&As to address this year.

7 Likes
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During the game unveil, they did mention that they wanted a really face paced, back and forth game. I do agree it takes an unusually short time to descore goals, but it is still within the nature of the game.

5 Likes
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I personally like the fast paced game, but some of the rules make the game less fun. Because it is so easy to descore, I bet lots of games will be stalling the goals like worlds this year. I don’t like the limited customization rules, but other than that, it is good.

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With 4 goals and 8 sides it’s going to be tough to stall usefully. The game manual even says they choose that many goals and balls so teams could always be on the offensive scoring. We’ll have to see how well that works.

2 Likes
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i don’t like vex game manual, in almost every game i attend
vex game manual are too complicated, they are over-defined a lot of thing (expansion rule this year or climbing in high stake)
i prefer ftc game manual, as they don’t put a lot of rule to over-defined other thing
however, this year game would see a lot interesting strat since you can’t camp at the goal more, and unlimited possesion would make team recover goal faster when been descored

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They kinda have to be. Think of the manual as something legalistic - it has to be absolutely watertight to prevent weird loopholes from being exploited.

Climbing for example. Some teams want to prevent others from hanging, so they want to push them off the ladder. Hence, the GDC implements climbing protections, saying a team can’t touch another team touching the ladder. However, then teams will take advantage of this by touching the ladder with no intention of hanging simply to DQ the opposing alliance. So now the GDC has to revise that decision

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Please do not post same question is two threads. I’ve answered your topic.

3 Likes
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You asked this on another thread. Go reference that one.

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Of course there are flaws in the first version of the manual. There is a reason it is V0.1. (The effect of expansion limiting the starting size of the robot is a big one.)

This may not be the game you think you want, but I also think most people are not thinking through enough aspects thoroughly.

  • There are 4 goals, and each has 2 sides. If a team guards one, punish them at another.
  • Looking over the field CAD, I don’t see how an entire goal can be completely cleared in a few seconds without placing a stockpile of your color blocks (that’s the idea of the game). There is not enough expansion to do it. I can think of a couple of other creative methods that might work, but developing those (and countering them) is part of the challenge.
  • As always, minor tweaks to gameplay will be coming throughout the year. Maybe they change point values or protect one or more of the goals for the final few seconds.

I don’t look at the custom plate and plastics rules as negatives.

  • The plates will simplify things on the administrative end. There are other ways teams can express their creativity.
  • Teams will now have to make critical design choices about how they want to prioritize their plastic usage. I love this.

Hopefully, people will eventually be done venting about rule changes they don’t like and accept them as the challenge they are.

7 Likes
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People have successfully descored entire goals just by ramming into them with high stakes robots. If the video evidence is fake, its pretty darn well done.

5 Likes
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The Limit on Poly is something thatr needs to be fixed, as most team use more than 12 pieces of it

1 Like
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What makes it bad? I wanna know