What does being elite even mean if it’s not to win at the world stage? I think the teams that are willing to spend $500 on a remote tournament are the very teams that are putting blood, sweat and tears into this competition. So, just because a few powerhouse teams aren’t on the world’s team list (yet) does not mean the competition isn’t tough, and implying and generalizing that those 200 some odd teams aren’t elite is arrogant
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I would not classify 500 teams as a “few.” Even if as Pascal said, some orders are being held back, 300 is still not a “few.”
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States for South Florida finished this Sunday, so I assume there would be at least another week for Worlds registrations in the regions which had their championships this weekend.
I do agree that depending on how things turn out, there may be Showcase Events which are more competitive than Worlds, in addition to having the normal in-person style of play (e.g. accounting for defense) that LRT’s don’t include.
I agree, traveling is part of what makes Worlds so fun, and especially the ability to meet other teams from around the world once you’re there. My point was that there are also some benefits of not being required to travel.
I agree that for many teams, traveling is a positive aspect of Worlds, while for other teams it’s a negative and for most teams it’s probably a mixed bag (they like the fun of traveling but don’t like the more difficult aspects of it).
Traveling doesn’t affect your ability to demonstrate your team’s performance compared to other teams, but it is another positive aspect of Worlds, and helps make the experience worth it even if something disappointing happens on the field. (LRT does affect performance in some ways, but it’s a different set of objectives, and you can choose to optimize for LRT, Skills, or in-person 2v2 matches.)
Another thing I forgot to consider, which @jrp62 and @lacsap pointed out (as did my dad when I read my post to him), is that traveling often accounts for a large part of the expense of attending Worlds. This makes Live Remote Worlds more cost-effective with regards to the ability to compete against teams from around the world, although depending on the school, it may be harder to get funding for a $500 virtual competition than for an in-person competition (even if the in-person competition is more expensive). On the other hand, the money you spend on in-person Worlds also includes the ability to meet with other teams from around the world, which you don’t get with Live Remote Worlds.
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I misunderstood what you were saying. But, if that statistic is true, then you are right that worlds holistically isn’t as competitive as a tournament fully comprised of world-caliber teams. But, you can’t necessarily conclude that the best teams won’t inevitably rise to the top and end up competing against each other. Worlds has enough volume to create more high-level competition than an average-sized tournament. 30% of the roughly 200 registered teams that qualified legitimately is still way more than any in-person tournament you can attend (at minimum 60 high level teams).
As to how that will play out in practice, I’m not entirely sure. Assuming that statistic is true, you will have a higher likelihood of being paired with lower-level teams, but if you are as good as you say you are then you will inevitably end up competing at the higher end of the spectrum.
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200 Teams so far have qualified for worlds legitimately. Of them, about half have signed up for LRS, leaving 100 for LRT. Splitting further into the morning and afternoon divisions, we get 50 legitimate teams per division. These divisions are cut down into even further subdivisions, which may result in only 25-30 legitimate teams in each subdivision. You get more than that at pretty much every Showcase event
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I would still argue that if you aim to win it all, the competition will be significantly more rigorous than any other tournament you can attend just by the sheer volume of teams. I feel like you’re somewhat downplaying how hard it is to actually win worlds and if you are trying to compete at the highest level, then this is it. I think the question should be –– how can we improve the likelihood of high-quality matches at worlds instead of a blanket statement saying worlds isn’t competitive.
TL;DR I think worlds is competitive
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I suppose one potential issue is that some teams could end up with a much better match schedule than other teams, with one team mostly playing against other top-30% teams and allied with bottom-70% teams, while a better team gets the opposite.
Still, the top-30% teams would have good enough scouting to see who is the best regardless of their match schedule (and they could see how much each of those alliances scored, as long as VEX or someone else posts the results somewhere). I expect most alliances would probably have two top-30% teams (including the top alliances for each number of wins), a bottom-70% team plus a top-30% team they picked who didn’t decline, or a bottom-70% team who picks another bottom-70% team and gets eliminated early.
The same strategies that help you do well at local tournaments might also help you at Worlds (other than the differences between Live Remote vs. in-person matches), since they’d both tend to involve a smaller number of top-tier teams playing against a larger number of lower-tier teams.
I’m hoping there will be as many qualification matches as possible to minimize the effects of match schedules, and that the results are posted live to Robot Events and VEX Via, or if not, that they’re made available (and searchable) from another source.
(The top 30% and bottom 70% are including both of the LRT divisions plus LRS.)
as true as that is, it is indisputable fact that many of those teams absolute best will not be on par with the teams that qualified.
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put a decent snailbot in a competition with a million pushbots and the snailbot will come out on top. sheer volume means nothing when the legit teams are so much better than the skills qual teams. especially with how limited everything is, some reigons have very few teams to fill their spots. Texas Region 4 only had 7 teams show up to regionals.
Lol… and i didnt even bother about the cost at all.
Not that i have deep pockets, but like what @jrp62 mentioned - whatever the registration fee, it will be cheaper than my air ticket to US.
So no question ask… and my kids are so happy that they can have some matches with overseas teams 
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Some things are worth getting hung up over. Just sayin!
My husband and I have been saying for years: no one has kid to get rich!
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This is just wrong. I know for a fact that it is a most 518 teams as my does not want to go even though we qualified. I am not sure we would attend even if it was free. With certain things like LRT OR LRS, the way that LRT and an actual tournament are very different, we have a showcase event the week before, and the lack of interaction with other teams. I am sure I am not alone when it comes to teams not wanting to attend worlds.
Of the teams who qualified for worlds and don’t plan on attending, do you want to go and just aren’t able for reason stated above by @lacsap?
- Yes
- No
0
voters
This is so so so so so so so so true. At showcase events, even the teams that didn’t make worlds are still going to be very good. There are also going to be top teen terms there. The showcase event in Nebraska currently has teams form 5 states attending. I am looking forward to getting to meet them and learn more about their robots. Something I won’t be able to do at Virtual Worlds.
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Bit extreme. But how would we have in person worlds even with Covid? That’s the issue. They still want to offer a worlds experience to teams who qualified but without risking covid. Yes it’s 500 dollars but you can still play matches virtually, do skills, win and have fun. Showcase events are a good solution for virtual worlds but some events are struggling to find teams. Some aren’t though. So if you don’t want virtual worlds then do showcase. But holy cow bud you need to understand their point of view.
You try to do it then. Try to make a world event. I don’t think you understand that they are trying to make one that’s almost like worlds or at least the experience of worlds.
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If you want to do worlds, go do worlds. if you don’t then dont. everyone here has made their positions abundantly clear, and it’s just going in circles at this point lol
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I am not saying we should have in person worlds. I understand the the REC foundation and vex have put a lot of work into this event. I’d think they should offer teams the chance to do both skill and LRT. I also think the LRT is broken due to reasons in this thread Ideal Robots For LRT - #6 by 9MotorGang. I am also a sophomore so I am not trying to win. I just want to learn and I am really worried a lot of that learning isn’t going to happen this year.
I hope that virtual worlds is worth it and all the teams attending think that it was worth their time and money, but I don’t think they will be. I hope I am proven wrong here, you will have to let me know after worlds.
As @Ethan5956F said, this is kind of starting to go in circles. This thread (and the others) should probably die off or be locked.
I think lacsap meant the 213 teams who did sign up (and just put the wrong number), and/or that there are 519 teams (or maybe slightly less due to last-minute decisions) who will be invited (some only through the waitlist), want to be there, and will do their best.
[Edit: And their best performance will not be as good as the best performance of the teams who qualified normally, but either way, they will still be doing their own best, and will be teams who are interested enough in VEX that they’re willing to pay the $500 registration fee for a virtual event, so I expect many of them will be better than the average non-Worlds-qualifier.]
And like he also said:
I would also add that for some of them the “other interests” may be other VEX events, or having time off from the pressure of competitions, and that some of them will not go due to other funding-related decisions.
Edited to add:
I do agree with all of this. There are many teams who will choose not to attend Worlds, especially the ones who chose to attend Showcase Events, which are more expensive and provide the benefits of in-person Worlds and a smaller subset of the teams there, and are optimized for the same types of robots and the same types of defense as other in-person competitions, and without any of the other negative aspects exclusive to LRT/LRS.
I agree with this. There’s a lot you get to do in person that you can’t do at a virtual event, and although I’m hoping VEX might be able to do some things to replicate that experience a little better at LRT Worlds, I don’t think there’s much they can do. (Some of it could be replicated by teams sharing videos/photos/information online about their robots, or hosting Q&A sessions, but a lot of that happens already.)
Each Showcase Event only includes a few of the regions that would normally compete at Worlds, but Live Remote Worlds also sounds like it will include a much smaller subset of teams than I expected (still including regions from around the world, but missing a significant percentage of the teams within many of those regions).
Showcase Events are also the same gameplay as in-person events, which most teams either attended or hoped to attend, while Worlds is based on Live Remote Tournaments, which have different scoring rules, don’t involve defense, and which many teams didn’t attend until after they qualified for Worlds (or aren’t attending at all).
When I made my initial post, I thought there would be a much larger percentage of World-qualifying teams who sign up for Worlds, and I underestimated the differences between Live Remote Tournaments and in-person tournaments (such as the lack of defense). I also forgot to think about Showcase Events, since I hadn’t heard of any Florida teams attending them, other than 1-2 who haven’t made it official yet. (The one in South Carolina still has 7 spots open, though, so maybe some could sign up for that one.)
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I agree that ideally teams would be able to do both, and this would make each division significantly more competitive (and encourage more teams who qualified to attend).
I understand why VEX might not be able to do it that way, though, since LRT and LRS would both take time for volunteers during the same days (and also the same teams in many cases), and restricting each team to one division of Worlds increases the number of teams who get to be part of Worlds, without requiring any more volunteer effort. Even if they got more volunteers, they’d probably prefer to have more teams participate in total rather than having the existing competitors compete in more activities.
I would also prefer if teams were able to submit pre-recorded Skills runs up until the last day of Worlds, either as part of Worlds or as a separate process, although I understand why this might not be possible (since it would require more volunteers and more effort in other ways).
I understand your concerns, and I’m hoping that everyone will be satisfied with their decisions about whether or not to attend Worlds (and if they aren’t, that they’ll use it as a learning experience).
I expect that most teams will be satisfied with their decision, as long as they don’t set their expectations unrealistically high about the things they don’t know yet, and don’t let their disappointment at not getting their ideal choice prevent them from having the best experience possible, whether at Worlds or Showcase Events, or with the other things they do instead.
If you go to Live Remote Worlds because you feel it’s worth the time, money, and effort just for the parts of Worlds that Live Remote Worlds provides, then you’ll be satisfied when you get those things, and you’ll be happy with your experience as long as your expectations were met. If you skip Live Remote Worlds because you know what Live Remote Worlds provides and you don’t think it’s worth it for your team, then you’ll be satisfied with that decision as long as you don’t find out Live Remote Worlds was better than you expected. If you later change your mind about what you want, then you might regret your decision, but in that case now you know what you want and can use that information for next time.
If you qualified for Worlds (a huge accomplishment) and you’re deciding whether to go to Live Remote Worlds now that you’ve qualified (and whether to go to a Showcase Event), then you’re probably going to end up making an informed decision, as long as you’re aware of the pros and cons of both options, which I’m sure all the active forum members are, and as long as you’re not blinded by disappointment or by unrealistic expectations (or by being desperate to do the closest thing to Worlds when that might not be the best thing to do with your time and money).
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