My team and I don’t really understand the point of SP, maybe that’s why this year, SP is less important.
What is the point of not winning by way too much?
The point of sp is to help teams with a harder schedule. It assumes that a close match means you faced harder opponents, and a total blowout means you had an easy match.
Separation Points is the third tier of ranking after WP(Win Points) and AP(Autonomous Points). They are important because if you have a low SP, you will be lower in the rankings typically. The best teams are separated by SP, not AP or WP.
I personally do not like the ranking system, but that is how it is regarding VEX rules.
LOL. SP is not Separation Points but “Strength of Schedule Points” (page 17 of the game manual). Maybe Separation Points (difference between the scores) would be a better measure.
Haha ok. We have always said separation points because it is (1) easier to understand and (2) more fun to say.
Personally, SP seems like a stupid idea to me because it drags the best teams down and forces them to score for opposing teams on purpose just to have high SP.
But, the best teams should be winning a majority of their autonomous in matches, thus leaving them with a higher AP which will rank them higher than someone with the same record and more SP but less AP.
SP really helps in ranking for those tied with AP and WP because SP can have a wider range of values. Plus, SP gives some strategy to the matches that might not exist without it.
Actually, I think the AP’s and SP’ this season are well balanced. If you are unfamiliar with previous seasons, the ranking system was based off of Win Points (WP… I think) You get 2 WP’s for a win, 1 for a tie, and for a loss. This system usually splits the good teams from the weak teams, however, there are many chances for ties. The next level used to be SP’s, which as explained above is:
I think SP’s are actually very beneficial especially for teams that are not top notch but still perform relatively well. These really help when you go against a strong opponent. Also, when picking alliances and someone thinks your rank is low, you can use SP’s to justify that you had difficult matches. Again this is still subjective to your situation, but it always an option.
The new second tier ranking system is now AP’s. IMO this is a change that is very rewarding. Never before, were teams rewarded for creating a high scoring auton mode (which usually requires lots of effort). AP’s are something teams should aim to score, when teams are preparing for competitions because it can really help high ranking teams that would benefit from ranking higher and picking an alliance partner earlier.
I was kinda rushing while writing this post, but if you were confused or have more questions please feel free to ask.
The system is still based on Win Points (like hockey). A win is 2 Win Points for each team in the winning alliance, a tie is 1 Win Point for all 4 robots in the match and a loss is 0 Win Points for the each team in the losing alliance. Any ties in WPs at the end of Qualification are broken by Autonomous points where 4 Automomous Points are added to each robot in the alliance that wins Autonomous. If there is still ties, the Strength Points break that tie. It is rare, but possible that two teams have the same SPs. If that happens, the next tie breaker is the teams highest match score. The final tie breaker, if somehow there still is one, is a random assignment by the Tournament Manager software. I have never seen it get that far.
I like the addition of the Autonomous Points as a tie breaker as it does give an incentive to develop and autonomous. It fits in the same theme as having the Robot Skills being the combined Driver’ and Programming score. That makes running Programming Skills more important than in past years.
The problem is, unlike last year, scoring isn’t virtually unlimited this year. This means that you could have a great opponent and get only 10 SPs if you play well, but the team that wins the toss up between 4 crappy marginally-functional push bots will probably get more SPs. Yay!
There is another way. My son’s team in Clean Sweep decided that SPs were for wimps and set a goal of trying to Clean Sweep every match. They went on to Worlds (where they won their first match something like 172-2) and were Worlds Finalists. If you follow this strategy, though, you have to let other top teams know what you are doing so that they know to pick you. In Clean Sweep, they finished World qualifying out of the top 10, but were still the #1 pick of the top-qualified team in their division, at least in part because of their team marketing.
Definitely. I haven’t seeded above 5th yet this season (sucky autonomous and bad SPs) but I’ve won two tournaments.
SP earned in a match is the losing team’s score (correct?). This year SP is unique because as the match difficulty increases, the losing team’s score approaches 0 (or 12 if they high hang). For a team that ranks near the middle of the pack, low SP could mean that they played really tough opponents and/or easy to beat opponents. For those same teams, high SP could mean that they faced teams that were more evenly matched with.
As a match gets tougher, meaning the two alliances are fairly even in terms of performance, the losing team’s score approaches the winning team’s score. Thus, the SP earned from a match increases as the two alliances become evenly matched.