Should the alliance selection system be changed

Chit-Chat / Rumor Mill
1

Should the alliance selection system be changed?

By this, I mean rule < T13> which states that if you have been picked by someone and deny that pick, then you cannot be picked by anyone else above you.

A lot of people I’ve talked to at tournaments agree that this is silly. consider these scenarios…

Senario #1

Rankings:

#1: Team 1234a
#2: Team 5678a
#3: Team 910a

Team 1234a has a bad robot and got a very lucky and easy schedule to finish in 1st. Teams 5678a and 910a both know that they are better than 1234a and plan to alliance. At selections, 1234a picks 910a.

What should 910a do? If they accept, they get stuck with a bad robot. If they decline, they can’t be picked by 5678a, and still get stuck with a team they don’t like. 1234a just ruined an allience.

Senario #2

Rankings:

#12: Team 1234a
…
#17: Team 5678a
#18: Team 5678b

During alliance selection, team 1234a picks team 5678a. But 5678a really wants to ally with their sister team, 5678b. What should 5678a do?

They could decline 1234a’s offer, knowing they can still pick 5678b as their partner. But then what happens if a team ranked 13-16 picks 5678b? Then 5678a can’t pick 5678b.

Now consider if there were only 18 teams in the tournament, then they would have to accept 1234a’s request. If they decline, they knock themselves and 5678b out of the tournament.

Senario #3

Rankings:

#23: Team 1234a
#24: Team 5678a
#25: Team 910a
#26: Team 1112a

*There are only 26 teams at this tournament.

Team 1234a picks 1112a as their partner. They don’t know the rules, so they decline. 1234a decides to pick 5678a instead.

Now, not only has 1112a knocked themselves out of the tournament, they knocked 910a out of the tournament, because 910a can’t pick 1112a.

910a never did anything, but 1112a’s actions knocked them out of the tournament.

(This happened at SD states a few years back)

These hypotheticals seem kind of unfair to me. I’m curious to see if anyone else feels the same way.

Should rule < T13> be abandoned??

  • Yes, abolish < T13>
  • No, keep < T13>
0 voters

People who say no, why?
Feel free to discuss.

2

If T13 is still going to be a thing in the future, there should be tasks for robots to perform to grant extra WP. This year’s Home Row bonus was a good addition, and I think there should be similar tasks like it in the future, maybe even having multiple tasks in the game to grant more WPs. This way, bad teams with lucky schedules have less of a chance of making an alliance selection.

3

if abolished, then the first seat doesn’t have ability to choose who they want, because if they want to pick the third seat, but the third wants the second, then the first seat is stuck with fourth and below. the first seat won qualifying, they should be able to get the proper advantage from their victory.

4

It also gives an advantage to the newer teams, or those who just got bad partners for qualifications, but are still good, evening the field some.

5

Scout and communicated better. Luck has little to do with who picks you if you have scouted and communicated well.

6

How so??

If you are a lower rank but have a good robot is it not up to the higher seeded team to do their scouting homework.

If that team is picked by someone above them who is good, they will accept. If they are picked by someone who is bad and ranked higher than their skill level, they either are stuck with them, or are forced to pick someone below them.

7

There’s always the option to negotiate with higher ranked teams about alliances. But on the other hand I have seen a high ranked team purposefully destroy the ranking system by requesting to ally with a team that they know would say no.

8

I feel like this rule allows for some diversity in alliance selection. If this rule didn’t exist, all of the sister teams would just band together. This also allows for unpredictability, which just makes the tournaments more fun.

Also, the chance of a bad team being carried to first place due to having an easy scehdule is highly unlikely.

Finally, this really tests your knowledge of the rules. It is fair to be knocked out of the tourney if you don’t know the rules. If it takes out another team with the team that got knocked out, that’s unfair. I should note that most emcees tell the teams that they have to accept or they would be knocked out of the tourney.

9

This rule exists for a simple reason: So two teams can’t guarantee an alliance with each other. Think about it. If this rule didn’t exist, seed #5 and seed #9 could pick each other if they wanted to, and everything that happens above them in the rankings could not matter any less.

The two best teams could throw all of their qual matches, be ranked dead last, pick each other, and make the tournament unfun for everyone.

<T13> serves a vital role in VRC competition, and should absolutely not be done-away with.

10

Why would anyone do this? So they could be the last seed in the tournament? What good does that do them?

Is this necessarily a bad thing?

11

The whole WP/AP/SP system needs to be abolished in favor of a more fair system that uses a more accurate metric such as CCWM, Trueskill, or ELO to determine rankings. As it stands, dumb luck is enough to rank at the top and as long as thats possible playoffs will not be fair.

12

That’s not the point. The point is that if you can decline someone and still be picked, qualifications and rankings become pointless.

13

The problem with doing away with t13 is that ranking would no longer matter. It no longer rewards teams for ranking high in qualifications, which is a major part of the event.

I will agree with @DrewWHOOP though that the ranking system could certainly be improved, but that’s a different issue to alliance selection.

14

they do have a point though: seeding

in my opinion, alliance selection should happen when teams sign up for the tournament, so they can work more closely together and the rankings should rank pairs, not individual teams. Randomized alliances in quals are the least fair thing in Vex

15

Yes, actually. Let’s say seed #9 is the obvious best team, but they just got unlucky in quals. Seed #5 is their sister team. Everyone wants to pick seed #9, because they’re the best team, and every other team’s scouting knows that. Without <T13>, seed #9 can decline every pick up until their sister team picks them. See how this might be an issue?

16

nononononononono. This would once again make all of qualifications meaningless.

17

but why would they throw? a high ranking is still important for the “most important” award, Excellence

18

No. I don’t

If they are the best team why shouldn’t they be able to pick who they wasn’t to be with?

19

not necessarily. the playoff doesnt have to include every alliance.

20

The point isn’t that anyone would, the point is that someone could.