Over under elevation scoring

competition-discussion vrc-discussion
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(Accidentally also posted this onto the vex forums, meant to just post this here but oh well)

The way over under is scored is very interesting right now. Elevating is not just about how high you can get, it is also strategic. Don’t believe me? Here are two examples of how strategy can be used to make a loosing alliance win:

Both examples are compared to this theoretical match where the blue alliance is winning but just by a bit:

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Situation #1:
If the red robot at C lowers itself to B, due to how ties are managed in the scoring, red would now be winning:

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This one stems from the fact that ties are handled like 1,2,3,3 instead of: 1,2,4,4. While this can be changed, I believe this one is good how it is.

Situation #2: if the blue robot at D goes up to E, due to the way ties are handled, it might give blue 5 more points, but red now gets 10 more points

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This one stems from the fact that ties are handled like: 1,1,2,3 instead of: 1,1,3,4. Which in my opinion is a very easy and smart change to make so that scoring higher for your team doesn’t make the other team score higher too

I’m curious to hear what your guy’s opinions are about this, feel free to start a discussion on this!

TLDR; red can score more points by making one robot go lower while hanging, or, by blue making one robot go higher.

19 Likes
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I actually hadn’t considered that, this seems to be a flaw with the scoring system. I suspect this will get changed in a future update.

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This was something our team realized and discussed within a few minutes of reading the scoring rules, so it probably wasn’t an oversight on the GDC’s part. I personally think ties in an alliance will be rare because it probably won’t be very easy to get two robots at the same height (within 3.6") of each other on the one pole. It could just be a strategic element that the GDC chose to include to induce the very discussion we are having right now; a way for people to use the nitpicky scoring rules for their alliance’s benefit.

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Yeah this is definitely on purpose and here to stay. The rapid adaption to hanging situations is exactly what makes it a challenge over just going as high as you can in a black and white “no hang, low hang, high hang”.
A good team will be built to change their hang as needed, and reward them with 5 extra points.

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The problem is that I think there’s no easy way to tell what your elevation tier is in-match.

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I feel you are right but the way this might become useful is a team that can hang and park, and a team that can park, where both teams should park as long as they still get the highest tier, but also that with an opponent bot parking it makes no difference.