For the Vex Pushback goals, descoring on them is extremely easy, for the center goals, ramming into them will cause all the blocks to fly out, for the large goals, ramming with an arm will cause around half the blocks to fly out.
I feel like this is a huge design flaw as it makes scoring on the center goals very risky, as a robot can descore that in seconds, while forces camping on the end of the large goals to prevent someone from descoring your blocks.
Additionally with the rules are currently structured(no goal locking, like how corners locked last year) encourages camping goals over parking.
Is there any good realistic rule changes/game modifications that can fix this?
See SG10: Don’t reach inside enclosed sections of Goals. Robots are not permitted to directly affect the positions of Blocks that are within enclosed sections of Goals, but may add or remove Blocks from open sections of Goals at any time during a Match.
You can’t just shove a c-channel into the goal and push all the blocks out. It has to be through adding more blocks.
I think rapid descoring and extreme swings in scores are intended behaviors for GDC right now. Read the introduction to the game manual, they want games to be offense heavy with lots of scoring back and forth from all 4 robots occurring
Our Intent - How We Want the Game Played
The Game Design Committee (GDC) carefully designs each VEX Robotics Competition game with a clear vision of how we believe it should be played. The GDC envisions Push Back as a fast-paced game driven by constant back-and-forth action, where Teams must balance strategies to maintain control of Goals around the Field. Teams are encouraged to actively manipulate both their own and their opponents’ game pieces, creating dynamic shifts in scoring opportunities throughout the Match. Due to this continuous interaction, offensive strategies should naturally be more effective than purely defensive ones. At all times, there should be an open lane for a Robot to score into a Goal, ensuring that gameplay remains fluid and engaging.
Well… some dude on the VEX discord servers found out you can ram the first octoball in the lower goal with a flat part of your robot and all the scored octoballs would fly out. (I can’t find the video right now, 9motorgang might be able to)
SG10 refers only to the control bonus’s area(that’s fully enclosed)
And yes I think they intended to descoring to be easy but not this easy, and I think this will go against there intentions of a “fast paced game” as I see the meta with the current stage of the game score on large goals and camp to protect from being descored, center goal can just be descore by a robot simply driving into it so probably not viable to spend effort scoring on it.
SG10 explicitly states that while robots cannot move blocks within enclosed sections of goals, robots are allowed to add or remove blocks from open sections of goals. You can add or remove blocks however you please, you just can’t touch the control zone directly.
No team will consistently be doing this as this could cause a lot of wear and tear on their robot.
The difference between positive corners locking last year and the proposition of locking goals this year is that locking corners still allowed for normal gameplay outside of sitting in the corners. Locking goals is literally preventing the only way to score. Not to mention this means that parks will be a lot easier and more calculated, which I think takes away from this year’s endgame.