The Autonomous Win Point is a relatively recent addition to VEX, added only in 2020 with the start of the Change Up season. Meanwhile, Don’t cross the Autonomous Line has existed for a few years longer (since Turning Point iirc). Because of this, or maybe its intentional, does not award an AWP to the affected alliance. While this makes sense most of the time, the AWP is very important in rankings, and a team crossing the line and illegally interfering with opposing robots can result in tournament-affecting changes to the rankings, so it might not be the worst idea to award the AWP to the affected alliance. It wouldn’t be completely crazy either; APs are already automatically awarded in the case of SG8 violations. What do y’all think?
1 Like
While I think this could be an interesting and useful addition, i think it could add a big element of luck to the game and would only favor the worst teams.
Arguing for the rule change, I agree that interference with the other team can affect the AWP. For example at my last tournament, we were in a qualification match, we scored 2 discs in the high goal and our alliance partner got their roller. However, when we went to get the right side roller, the opposing alliance crossed the line and blocked us from getting the AWP. However this is not always the case.
Sometimes, the opposing alliance only slightly crosses the line. I think that awarding the autonomous bonus for this is a great decision, but adding the AWP would affect the rankings a lot. The autonomous bonus is a great incentive to stop teams from crossing the line, as it can be a tiebreaker in many matches. But even if you win the autonomous bonus, you can still very easily lose a match. Let’s say for example you have a flywheel and catapult going against two pushbots. Autonomous runs and the pushbots do nothing to score. During autonomous, the flywheel slightly crosses the line. With this rule change, the AWP would be awarded to this pushbot alliance. Even though they probably will end up losing the match, they still get unfairly ranked because they got lucky and their opponent accidentally crossed the line.
The AWP is supposed to be an award for teams that excel in the game and are able to create an effective autonomous program. It shouldn’t be used as a punishment that could end up ranking the worst teams at the competition at the top because of luck.
I don’t believe that this rule change would be good as it would add a large element of luck to the game and greatly favor teams that don’t have an autonomous at all.
Love to hear what the rest of you think.
3 Likes
last year in tipping point that was the case, it seems like they changed it this year, most likely due to the fact that they wanted awp to be a challenge for this year, requiring more accuracy than years prior.
4 Likes