I’d like to make it clear that I don’t disagree that the scorched earth strategy is effective. If you’re in first place it would give you an advantage. I just don’t think that it benifits the competition.
In what way does it not benefit the competition? Things like that are what make it interesting. I do not think I would enjoy the competitions as much if I just went in already knowing exactly who I am going to be with. You got to plan for things to happen, plan for the randomness. In the real world you do not know that everything is going to happen according to plan.
To me, the excitement should happen during the competitions themselves. The playoff bracket should be the most exciting part of the day.
Take NCAA basketball and March madness for example. While the selection show is sorta a big deal, 99% of teams already know weather they are in or not, and roughly where they want to go. The real “madness” begins once the tournament starts.
I think many are missing the fundamental point of the tournament format, which is learning how to cope with situations outside your control. Take the word “luck” out of the conversation and instead focus how to engineer a solution or game strategy that helps with those situations that are outside your control. Others have rightfully pointed out if you want to benchmark your robot’s performance without those pesky details, such as other humans, then just do skills runs.
Think of it this way, when learning how to drive a car, you are complete control in a closed parking lot developing essential skills. Getting on active roadways, you are learning to handle many situations outside your control - other vehicles, animals, pedestrians, bicyclists, faulty signaling systems… When you get it wrong, accidents happen.
Fortunately, when you get it wrong at a tournament, you usually still have your robot intact, although your pride may be slightly bruised.
So, please look past the word “luck” and instead, accept the format has a lot of challenges that are outside your control. How you plan for it and deal with it when it happens makes a big difference.
Lets keep the thread focused on the discussion and not veer into misogyny. Unless it wasn’t misognynistic that is.
We have experienced this and it was a VERY STRESSFUL experience for us. Although we were actually able to win the tournament, I don’t think any of our team members would like to go through this ever again. Since that comp, we have been trying to push for more quals in our region but they have told us that it is not feasible. For many comps, just having more quals is not feasible so it would be great if the alliance selection system can be revised.
Removing T13 would remove a large part of the social aspect in vex. T13 encourages you to talk to other teams and not just alliance with your sister team every tournament.
I would disagree. I think that if t13 was removed, you would have to do more socializing. Without t13, both teams would have to agree on an alliance, as opposed to just picking the team right down the line from you.
Welcome to the forum by the way.
Do most teams you know just do this? I don’t, in our region we spend most of our tournament talking with teams and everyone is figuring out what is going to happen. We have a very complex social network of multiple organizations that would not be there without
Screenshots or it didn’t happen
I see that yall have removed my post. I do not appreciate being called a misogynist, and given the not so nice and false ad-hominem attack I thought getting a bit defensive might be appropriate.
anyway, I agree that we should keep this discussion about alliance selection and stay away from accusations about the people arguing for the other side.
search function my friend
In South Dakota, yes, it happens quite a bit, especially lower in the rankings. That being said I’ve only been to 1 competition out of state (worlds 2018), so I could be biased
A 12 alliance round robin would be only 66 matches. With 3 fields, that is perfectly feasible at a local event, especially if you can shrink the playoff down to 4 alliances (which you can if everyone is playing round robin).
By this do you mean pre-determined alliences playing a round robin? Or somehow getting everyone to play all possible matches?
pre-determined alliances, selected at time of registration (both teams would have to register together).
Pre-determined alliances just wouldn’t work for a couple of different reasons.
- At my most recent comp, there was a new team. 1043A who hasn’t competed yet and also doesn’t have a sister team, who do they alliance with?
- There is an odd amount of teams that want to go to a comp who gets left out, and is it fair that someone doesn’t get to compete because they can’t find partner?
- The example brought earlier about 123A wanting to alliance with 123B who wants to alliance with 123C who wants to alliance with 123A. This specific scenario might not be common, but something similar where maybe 123A and 123B want to alliance with 321A, but 321A wants to alliance with 123C who wants to alliance with their sister team, since everyone has the same bargaining power no one will be able to get what they want. That is why some teams are given more power by ranking higher and how the current alliance system is able work.
Not true. You need more fields, volunteers, etc, but very, very possible. But you can’t leave everything to the EP, everyone needs to help.
And your org can host as well. Do it better and show them how. There is no reason that they can’t have enough matches. If you can’t do enough matches then you need to reduce your capacity.
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Join discord or the forums or something and find someone to register with. 29560X is new in my region and they already have plenty of friends.
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Yes
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They can talk and figure it out. This is not a suoer common scenario anyway, since teams talk and for the most part, agreements are made long before alliance selection.