More skills and bo1 discussion- keep it civil!

[anon50541363]

This post was ghostwritten by:

• Rolanda Tyson
• Serita Alves
• Bulah Applegate
• Willette Carrasco
• Jillian Julian
• Wanita Minnick
• Joane Bunting
• Lorie Proctor
• Dennis Hearn
• Lashanda Osteen
• Yelena Villasenor
• Treva Embry
• Meda Bisson
• Fransisca Herbert
• Evon Unger
• Tijuana Colbert
• Janessa Hendrick
• Isadora Spring
• Joshua Brand
• Anton Milton
• Tamiko Flagg
• Lizbeth Colson
• Kindra Horne
• Else Pringle
• Tora Bartels

On the topic of Bo1, we do not like the name. We feel that “knockout” would better suit the style of play.

Thank you for reading our comment.

This post was ghostwritten by:

• Rolanda Tyson
• Serita Alves
• Bulah Applegate
• Willette Carrasco
• Jillian Julian
• Wanita Minnick
• Joane Bunting
• Lorie Proctor
• Dennis Hearn
• Lashanda Osteen
• Yelena Villasenor
• Treva Embry
• Meda Bisson
• Fransisca Herbert
• Evon Unger
• Tijuana Colbert
• Janessa Hendrick
• Isadora Spring
• Joshua Brand
• Anton Milton
• Tamiko Flagg
• Lizbeth Colson
• Kindra Horne
• Else Pringle
• Tora Bartels

[The_One_and_Only_Sal]

This post was ghostwritten by:

• Rolanda Tyson
• Serita Alves
• Bulah Applegate
• Willette Carrasco
• Jillian Julian
• Wanita Minnick
• Joane Bunting
• Lorie Proctor
• Dennis Hearn
• Lashanda Osteen
• Yelena Villasenor
• Treva Embry
• Meda Bisson
• Fransisca Herbert
• Evon Unger
• Tijuana Colbert
• Janessa Hendrick
• Isadora Spring
• Joshua Brand
• Anton Milton
• Tamiko Flagg
• Lizbeth Colson
• Kindra Horne
• Else Pringle
• Tora Bartels

On the topic of Bo1, we do not like the name. We feel that “knockout” would better suit the style of play.

Thank you for reading our comment.

This post was ghostwritten by:

• Rolanda Tyson
• Serita Alves
• Bulah Applegate
• Willette Carrasco
• Jillian Julian
• Wanita Minnick
• Joane Bunting
• Lorie Proctor
• Dennis Hearn
• Lashanda Osteen
• Yelena Villasenor
• Treva Embry
• Meda Bisson
• Fransisca Herbert
• Evon Unger
• Tijuana Colbert
• Janessa Hendrick
• Isadora Spring
• Joshua Brand
• Anton Milton
• Tamiko Flagg
• Lizbeth Colson
• Kindra Horne
• Else Pringle
• Tora Bartels

[bobthebuilder2]

@Jess Abbot

Agreed. If Paul had some actual logic to support his viewpoints, I think everybody would be more calm. (And maybe the VEX competition would continue to live on). Until he shares valid data/arguments, competitors are going to be very frustrated.

If VEX tried to improve the competitor experience, it failed. But, the GDC + RECF aren’t going to do anything about it.

Because GirlPowered is all they care about. Unfortunate.

[Kent_929S]

@The_One_and_Only_Sal
This is practically spam at this point man
But ya know what, if you keep doing it, put in celebrities into the list.

[B-Kinney]

In my opinion, best-of-one could be greatly improved if there were rules listing certain conditions under which a match (A) could be replayed at the referee’s discretion, or (B) must be replayed:

1. If a team loses a best-of-one match due to an unintentional match-affecting violation by their opponent. This would include the incident that eliminated 127X and 8675A from Worlds (as shown in @Jess Abbot’s video).

2. If a team is disqualified from a best-of-one match due to a call that could have gone either way.

3. If a team loses a best-of-one match due to an obvious VEXnet disconnection, and this disconnection cannot be proven to have been the team’s fault.

In addition, if there was a way to allow video replays to be used under certain circumstances (with strict limits on how much time could be spent on reviewing them), this would improve best-of-one, and might alleviate some of the problems that led to Skills Only events being discontinued.

I would even be okay with student videos being used for this, as long as the students know they have to stay within the time limit, and that they should never waste time on videos that don’t show the problem.

[B-Kinney]

As for the changes to Skills:

I believe that even though Worlds qualification through the World Skills Rankings was originally intended to be temporary, it has since become an extremely valuable tool. The World Top 35/15 affects far more than the 50 teams who automatically qualify for Worlds through it.

Like someone said in another thread, the possibility of qualifying for Worlds through the top 35 or 15 is like a dangling carrot that encourages teams to improve, and gives all teams a way to qualify for Worlds based solely on their own efforts, regardless of the size of their region or the outcome of their State/National Championship.

However, I assume that when the RECF introduced the World Skills Rankings, they did not intend for this system to limit their ability to create new ways to qualify for Worlds in the future (such as Signature Events), and they still wanted the ability to remove this system if it wound up being abused.

[B-Kinney]

Even though the World Skills Rankings were apparently supposed to be temporary, I don’t remember hearing about this until last month. If I did hear about it, it was probably from a post from before I became involved in VEX.

Why didn’t anyone mention this until now? My guess is that the RECF was fine with the World Top 35/15 up until last year, but removed it this year for three reasons:

1. The RECF felt the system was being abused by teams who had the resources to design a robot just for Skills and another just for match play, and to attend Skills Only events where they received a double-digit number of Skills runs. (It is true that the very best teams in Skills used the same robot for both Skills and match play, but unless I’m mistaken, a lot of teams still got their highest scores using specialized Skills robots, and qualified for Worlds and States/Nationals this way.)

2. Some teams might have fudged the numbers on some of their Skills scores, or were suspected of doing this, and some events may have entered incorrect Skills scores by mistake, without anyone noticing or objecting.

3. The RECF wanted to introduce Signature Events, and needed room to add Worlds spots for them. This, plus the existing problems with the World Skills Rankings, led them to take these spots away from the World Top 35/15.

[Mark_Finley]

@B-Kinney

As for the changes to Skills:

I believe that even though Worlds qualification through the World Skills Rankings was originally intended to be temporary, it has since become an extremely valuable tool. The World Top 35/15 affects far more than the 50 teams who automatically qualify for Worlds through it.

Like someone said in another thread, the possibility of qualifying for Worlds through the top 35 or 15 is like a dangling carrot that encourages teams to improve, and gives all teams a way to qualify for Worlds based solely on their own efforts, regardless of the size of their region or the outcome of their State/National Championship.

However, I assume that when the RECF introduced the World Skills Rankings, they did not intend for this system to limit their ability to create new ways to qualify for Worlds in the future (such as Signature Events), and they still wanted the ability to remove this system if it wound up being abused.

I agree with this. I believe that Skills places emphases on robot consistency since you have a limited amount of attempts, especially for autonomous. You can build a robot that is great for driver control but it could have flaws that are easy for a person to correct for, but if put in an autonomous situation it would not fair so well. Skills forces consistency in all aspects of your robot.

[B-Kinney]

I want to remind everyone that this thread should be for civil discussion.

I would recommend that no one say anything that could possibly be insulting to someone, even if what you are saying is true.

You can disagree with people’s opinions all you’d like, but I would recommend that no one say that anyone is being illogical, or is lying, or even that someone is ignoring people. Even when it’s true, it may be considered a personal attack.

Edited to add: I was not involved in the creation of the thread, of course, so my suggestions are just suggestions, except where they match what is said the VEX Forum rules.

[Mark_Finley]

I also think that once the old, more unreliable, vex net system is completely phased out then a Bo1 system could work better. Assuming that V5 is more consistent in performance than vex net.

ps I deleted some stuff I posted because I messed up the quote function and it didn’t work and it was easier to just make a new reply.

[B-Kinney]

@Mark Finley

I agree with this. I believe that Skills places emphases on robot consistency since you have a limited amount of attempts, especially for autonomous. You can build a robot that is great for driver control but it could have flaws that are easy for a person to correct for, but if put in an autonomous situation it would not fair so well. Skills forces consistency in all aspects of your robot.

I agree. In Skills, what counts is your highest score at the event, so the fewer attempts you get, the more important it is to be consistent. (This is the opposite of best-of-X elimination matches, where consistency becomes more important when you have more matches.)

@Mark Finley

I also think that once the old, more unreliable, vex net system is completely phased out then a Bo1 system could work better. Assuming that V5 is more consistent in performance than vex net.

I agree. This will likely even happen at this year’s Worlds (and maybe some State/National Championships), since teams with V5 will likely have an advantage over teams without V5.

[RougeScaless]

Hi, do I vote here?? If so, 2979E dislikes BO1…

[B-Kinney]

@Jess Abbot

Honestly with all these replays and technical scenarios that referees would have to keep looking up in the rulebook, why not just do bo3? It’s clearer cut, it’s more familiar, it doesn’t force refs to make potentially bad decisions…

Further, the same two robots on the same field won’t score exactly the same number of points each time, they’ll score within a range that should look something like a bell curve. If two weaker teams score at the top of their range and two stronger teams score at the bottom of their range, the weaker teams could win. (See the 4 different engineering r16 matches that were all decided by a single cone.) With bo3, teams are much more likely to score basically in the middle of their range, giving the best team a win.

I agree. I like Bo3 way more than Bo1. No matter how good the refereeing is, there will always be matches where two excellent teams are outperformed by two much-weaker teams.

@Jess Abbot

For example, take a look at the last reverse sweep you personally were involved in. Chances are one alliance just played perfectly for whatever reason in match 1, and the other alliance played perfectly in matches 2 and 3. It’s not a matter of consistency, every team in existence has these ranges. No team will score exactly 28 cones in every match no matter what.

In that particular case, the first match had our opponents get disqualified, although I don’t remember whether who’d won the match before that. (It definitely showed that every team has this variance, though, since one of our partners was one of the eventual state champions, and one of our opponents was in the middle of a 3-tournament winning streak, including the region’s other Worlds qualifier.)

I did experience quite a few normal reverse sweeps in previous years, though, both as a coach and as a student.

[AlexM_4478X]

@B-Kinney

In my opinion, best-of-one could be greatly improved if there were rules listing certain conditions under which a match (A) could be replayed at the referee’s discretion, or (B) must be replayed:

1. If a team loses a best-of-one match due to an unintentional match-affecting violation by their opponent. This would include the incident that eliminated 127X and 8675A from Worlds (as shown in @Jess Abbot’s video).

2. If a team is disqualified from a best-of-one match due to a call that could have gone either way.

3. If a team loses a best-of-one match due to an obvious VEXnet disconnection, and this disconnection cannot be proven to have been the team’s fault.

In addition, if there was a way to allow video replays to be used under certain circumstances (with strict limits on how much time could be spent on reviewing them), this would improve best-of-one, and might alleviate some of the problems that led to Skills Only events being discontinued.

I would even be okay with student videos being used for this, as long as the students know they have to stay within the time limit, and that they should never waste time on videos that don’t show the problem.

Some parts of this post are somewhat misinformed, others I would like to make personal comments on:

1. There was ruled to be no violation in this match. I was waiting for a decision to be made before my team could play their match, so I saw the whole process. It was initially ruled a DQ, then eventually reversed so that specifically is not a problem that can be solved by your suggestion

2. This gives a strong level of opinion that should not be present in refereeing. Where is the cut off in how close the call should have been?

3. V5 just made its debut, as everyone complains about the vulnerability of the old system. Rather smart (albeit aggressive) marketing for the new system, yes?

I agree VAR could be useful, however, students should not be involved in major ways with this. I am sure some students would likely abuse the right to call a VAR review if given in an unlimited sense.

@Jess Abbot

Honestly with all these replays and technical scenarios that referees would have to keep looking up in the rulebook, why not just do bo3? It’s clearer cut, it’s more familiar, it doesn’t force refs to make potentially bad decisions…

Further, the same two robots on the same field won’t score exactly the same number of points each time, they’ll score within a range that should look something like a bell curve. If two weaker teams score at the top of their range and two stronger teams score at the bottom of their range, the weaker teams could win. (See the 4 different engineering r16 matches that were all decided by a single cone.) With bo3, teams are much more likely to score basically in the middle of their range, giving the best team a win. For example, take a look at the last reverse sweep you personally were involved in. Chances are one alliance just played perfectly for whatever reason in match 1, and the other alliance played perfectly in matches 2 and 3. It’s not a matter of consistency, every team in existence has these ranges. No team will score exactly 28 cones in every match no matter what.

I agree with the idea of “bell curve scoring” but that also goes with DRow’s explanation of the BO1 change, which focused on consistency. Consistency is not just “make sure your robot always works” but from a numerical standpoint, it becomes a robot’s ability to make its own bell curve as thin as possible so that most possibilites end in its middle/higher score range.

@B-Kinney

I agree. I like Bo3 way more than Bo1. No matter how good the refereeing is, there will always be matches where two excellent teams are outperformed by two much-weaker teams.

Not necesarily. Given a match with two top tier consistent robots, it will only be beaten by two robots that at least approach that level. For example, in the video provided above, 8675A nearly beat 2 robots on its own, because those robots approached their level. Keep in mind that 2S and 1010N were actually pretty good robots, so the fact that one robot at a higher level was nearly able to beat these two together proves my point.

[B-Kinney]

@AlexM_4478X

Some parts of this post are somewhat misinformed, others I would like to make personal comments on:

1. There was ruled to be no violation in this match. I was waiting for a decision to be made before my team could play their match, so I saw the whole process. It was initially ruled a DQ, then eventually reversed so that specifically is not a problem that can be solved by your suggestion

You’re right. If the referee ruled it wasn’t a violation, I agree. (At worst, it would be an unintentional violation, which still shouldn’t be punished.)

What I meant was that a robot got entangled, which affected the results of the match, but because it was not intentional, it was not a DQ, and would fall under my rule if it was implemented. (I haven’t watched the video yet, but I plan to watch it soon.)

@AlexM_4478X

2. This gives a strong level of opinion that should not be present in refereeing. Where is the cut off in how close the call should have been?

This is a good point. Now, if this system was implemented, one idea for a cutoff could be cases where the referee could almost flip a coin between one decision and another, or cases like your match where the decision was reversed. (Did the referees reverse the decision on their own, or did members of one of the alliances talk to them in between?) Even then, though, I’m not sure how they would determine what counted as a near-coin-flip.

I suppose another idea would be to just let the referee decide which matches were close enough a decision to warrant a replay, although even then, this might be too subjective.

@AlexM_4478X

3. V5 just made its debut, as everyone complains about the vulnerability of the old system. Rather smart (albeit aggressive) marketing for the new system, yes?

Yes.

[B-Kinney]

@AlexM_4478X

I agree VAR could be useful, however, students should not be involved in major ways with this. I am sure some students would likely abuse the right to call a VAR review if given in an unlimited sense.

Excellent points. I agree that allowing unlimited replays could be a disaster, and even with limits, there could still be cases where a student gets upset with the referee over a disagreement about whether their video shows an error.

Now, if VAR was allowed but the students were not involved (or at least not present), that might be a good idea, so long as it didn’t give an unfair advantage to regions with access to VAR equipment.

@AlexM_4478X

I agree with the idea of “bell curve scoring” but that also goes with DRow’s explanation of the BO1 change, which focused on consistency. Consistency is not just “make sure your robot always works” but from a numerical standpoint, it becomes a robot’s ability to make its own bell curve as thin as possible so that most possibilites end in its middle/higher score range.

That’s a very good point. The very best teams should try to be as consistent as possible, for their own sake and for their qualification partners’ sake. (Plus, you never know when your alliance might have two fluke accidents in a row, or one fluke and one bell curve mismatch. I’ve seen that prevent teams from going to Worlds.)

@AlexM_4478X

Not necesarily. Given a match with two top tier consistent robots, it will only be beaten by two robots that at least approach that level. For example, in the video provided above, 8675A nearly beat 2 robots on its own, because those robots approached their level. Keep in mind that 2S and 1010N were actually pretty good robots, so the fact that one robot at a higher level was nearly able to beat these two together proves my point.

You’re right. I would expect the very best robots (especially now that Bo1 is official) to have extremely consistent performance, enough that they couldn’t be defeated by a “much-worse” alliance unless they ran into a severe problem during the match. A great alliance could still lose to a slightly-worse alliance, but it would need to be really close.

[sankeydd]

I also think there’s an argument behind doing best of one because that gives weaker teams a chance to win. As they say, that’s why we play the game. If this is a game where a slightly weeker alliance can potentially win then does that have a possibility of make it a better game?

[Gear_Geeks]

@sankeydd

I also think there’s an argument behind doing best of one because that gives weaker teams a chance to win. As they say, that’s why we play the game. If this is a game where a slightly weeker alliance can potentially win then does that have a possibility of make it a better game?

This is what I’ve been thinking as well: “That’s why you play the game!”

Otherwise, If it were so straightforward and everyone agrees on who should win, why not just mail it in for Worlds! We go to Lousiville to see who is the best at the point in time. Everyone’s season ends at some point during Worlds.

[AlexM_4478X]

@Jess Abbot

Thank you for pointing this out. It turns out the referees probably made the incorrect decision as per the way the rules are written which ends up just being an argument for bo3. The rule in question, G12, states “If the tipping, Entanglement, or damage is ruled to be intentional or egregious, the offending Team may be disqualified from that Match,” and egregious is defined as match affecting. Since the phrase “or” is used, tipping that changes the winner and loser of the match, regardless of intent, may result in a DQ. There was definitely tipping, and the tipping definitely changed the outcome of the match, thus the blue alliance in this match should have been disqualified regardless of intent.

+1! And this is an issue bo1 has and bo3 doesn’t, so this really should be another argument for bo3.

I didn’t notice that, but that’s super true! Although apparently the old system has way over 99.5% consistency so…

Very true! But I don’t know of any ways students could abuse bo3, whatever that means. This again is an argument for bo3.

This sounds amazing on paper until you look at some data. Sadly, it appears vex hasn’t bothered to do so at any point, so I’ll do it now. Looking at the RR teams’ highest scores, lowest scores, and ranges in eliminations - and putting aside all matches teams played against 62A since they had a defensive robot:

5225A and 8825S: 150, 95, 55
929U and 62A: 124, 54, 70
81Y and 48180S: 143, 93, 50
1010X and 6627A: 146, 85, 61
666X and 7884D: 133, 72, 61
169E and 8059X: 130, 45, 85

All 12 teams in round robin had a range of above 50 points. 50 points is a difference of autonomous, all 4 highest stack bonuses, and 10 cones. The largest range, 85, is a difference of autonomous, all 3 highest stack bonuses, all 4 mobile goals, and 5 cones. Obviously even the teams that do well in a bo1 format have an extremely wide bell curve, thus the idea that bo1 reinforces consistency is simply fictitious.

Respectfully, a lot of things almost happened. Germany almost won WWII. What actually happened is that the stronger alliance fell to the weaker alliance because of bo1.

Bring bo3 back.

I think that, although we may disagree, the correct decision was made. It took nearly 30 minutes to make the decision (including the DQ and subsequent reversal) so I have to think that some upper authority in the GDC was contacted for a final say.

That’s not really an issue for either, referees don’t have much room for opinions in either setup. The solution offered by @B-Kinney would be significantly more opinionated than the current setup.

Everyone seems to doubt the 99.5% but I think it’s true. It actually adds up to many more disconnects than you might expect, but the new system should not have this problem because of its Bluetooth communication system.

I wasn’t claiming students abuse BO3, I was stating that students would likely abuse the availability of an unlimited VAR system.

That data is very interesting… I haven’t ever seen that but that is very strong data to prove your point. It is very compelling and I have no real way to refute it.

P.S. I am not for BO1 or BO3 (still split on which I prefer) but I support BO1 here as a Devil’s Advocate (for lack of other supporters of BO1) and to promote discussion that may help to sway my opinion.

[OscarMNOVA12]

Last I checked with V5, it’s still expected that VEXNet communication will be used during matches, but you’re free to use BT or VEXNet outside of matches.

I wasn’t claiming students abuse BO3, I was stating that students would likely abuse the availability of an unlimited VAR system.

As a head referee in my state, VAR would be entirely abused if given. Granted we’re fortunate in many cases to have the equipment and capability to review things would it ever change, but it’s still asking a lot resource wise that not every area is able to provide.