Thoughts on 30 second positive protection? (High Stakes)

What the title says IG, what does everyone think of the new 30 second positive protection? Also the extra points for the high stake on the ladder?

was that just changed?

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Rules update on Jan 28th.

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I think it would benefit the teams who have goals in the positive corner. Instead of sitting in the corner until the last 15 seconds, they can now get out of corner at 30 seconds and play wall stakes, climb or anything they want.

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It is an unfortunate change, but I believe it is a fair change. My bot is very defensive, and we don’t get a lot of time outside of defending the goal that we have in the positive corner. Just barely enough to hang. This change allows us to get more done, but really only when we’re playing heavy defense. When we’re on offense, it’s a major hindrance.

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My early interpretation is that the new 30-second protected status will be a good thing moving into the end of the season as teams get more experience. I spent the previous weekend at Kalahari watching high-performing teams compete with the 15-second tule. This past weekend, we hosted a tournament with the new 30-second rule in a rural area where VEX is still developing and many teams were at their first or second tournament of the year.

At Kalahari, much of the scoring was completed early and there was a lot of corner camping until the final 15. It reminded me of what I didn’t like about Tipping Point (turtling). I would have loved to have seen the 30-second rule there.

At the smaller event with less experienced teams, I saw quite a few more violations (minor and major) for messing with protected +corners. than I did while at similar tournaments with the 15-second rule. It wasn’t because teams were unaware of the change as…

  • the change was clearly discussed at the drivers meeting
  • audible 30-second warnings
  • referees verbally announcing 30 seconds
  • referees warning to be careful when able

Most of the violations I saw were drivers getting in their own way. Maybe 10-15% of robots could score on the neutral stakes. About the same percentage had an elevation. That meant most teams didn’t have much to do for the final 30 seconds once +corners were protected and teams had claimed -corners or there were no available mobile goals. Too many teams caused problems for themselves just trying to “do something.” This will improve as teams continue on and improve, but it definitely affected some.

Also… protected +corners definitely affected the outcome of the tournament as the tournament champions were potentially outscored in both the semi-finals and finals… but their opponents couldn’t leave the protected corners alone.

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It was an unfortunate rule change, but it was a good one so that some of the more defensive bots like my team’s will get more time to be annoying.

This is gonna be weird. But as the only team with good walls stakes at my last tournament it is a nice addition.

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yes, we have hook lady brown and are looking forward to being able to hit more wall stakes in the endgame.

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If nothing else it will decrease time spent camping corner which will make the game more fun and less of a waiting game.

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This is exactly my thoughts

Not a bad change, adds a bit of spice to the game.