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Really surprised how things ended out! I think the problems as ever are just that the refs are really inconsistent and a lot of the rules around sticks/outs/controlled movement/etc. are poorly thought outBushido Brown posted:Separately on the “controversy” I’ll say without spoilers that it wasn’t as controversial as I expected and I assume that it must have read differently live, because I didn’t see anything here that I thought would really change the outcome. Reddit is saying that the audience went apeshit particularly towards the women RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 16:07
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RBA Starblade posted:Really surprised how things ended out! I think the problems as ever are just that the refs are really inconsistent and a lot of the rules around sticks/outs/controlled movement/etc. are poorly thought out Somebody mentioned earlier in the thread the rule for controlled movement in Robot Wars was "you are able to leave your own circumference". I know maybe that's not everyone's ideal rule and it leads to some really messed up bots technically having controlled movement, but what it lacks in strictness it makes up for in clarity. I don't really care how they fix the rule, but they need to make it extremely clear so that any participant can know what they're dealing with in the heat of the moment. I think able to leave your own circumference is pretty lax, but it's a million times better than what they're doing now.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:57
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If the rule said you need to wait 20 secs to unstick then Minotaur got robbed, but that's on the refs. And I don't necessarily hold it against Witch Doctor that they ran out the clock. But, running out the clock like that while being the beneficiary of a bad ref call like that feels... inappropriate. If they had done one solid hit just once, I would have been satisfied that they were back in the fight and wouldn't have minded them sitting out the rest of the match. But just waiting to be counted out while dodging Minotaur was dumb. If you have to dodge the other bot, you shouldn't be looking for a count out.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:13
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RBA Starblade posted:Really surprised how things ended out! I think the problems as ever are just that the refs are really inconsistent and a lot of the rules around sticks/outs/controlled movement/etc. are poorly thought out Battlebots finally joining the big leagues! Wished someone recorded those controversial moments live, but considering the lack of amateur footage, Discovery must have been pretty strict on recording from the audience.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:14
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lol OK Reddit says Witch Doctor spent that whole time being told by their ref that the other ref was juuuuuuuuust about to start counting down Minotaur. Maybe this was on the refs
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Apr 7, 2022 17:19
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sweet geek swag posted:If you have to dodge the other bot, you shouldn't be looking for a count out. [/spoiler] Yeah exactly. Minotaur was "crab walking", but also really obviously limping in Witch Doctor's direction - it had to keep retreating from it. Also I always laugh when they have a guy come out with a crowbar and get to it lol
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Apr 7, 2022 17:50
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the controversies weren’t the biggest deal imo. witch doctor vs minotaur - yeah witch doctor was stuck but minotaur lost a wheel, and with how they crab walked they probably would’ve unstuck witch doctor themselves with a hit. the refs might’ve called it quick because it was the same spot that cobalt got caught in. they definitely seemed to have enough controlled movement though because they were absolutely able to shuffle towards WD. in the end the practice of hanging back when you think your opponent is dead is smart and common practice and I would’ve done the same thing in their situation, don’t want to pull a bronco situation again. overall the rules for crabwalking and getting stuck are inconsistently implemented and i wouldn’t mind seeing some more objective methods of determining each. hydra v tantrum - i’m with tantrum on this one. hydra got the flips in but the point of that is to cause damage, get them out of the arena, or exert control. the damage was minor, they didn’t get out of the arena, and hydra likes squatting in the middle of the arena anyway so the control wasn’t much. when there was an opening tantrum came in and chewed up the lifting fork on hydra which is meaningful damage. hydra wasn’t aggressive in the slightest because his whole thing is camping the center. the championship fight was a big letdown because of the early mobility issues of WD and also because I wanted WD to win, but tantrum is one hell of a bot that they showed that their novel weapon does really work. cool stuff.
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Apr 7, 2022 23:21
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Ah man, rip Cobalt I enjoyed Matt Maxim driving a big spinny weapon for the first time All these spoliers have to be about Hydra then Nissin Cup Nudist fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 01:23
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Well that was a fight. That is the second time a bot got stuck on the same part of the shelf. Should probably get that looked at. As for the count issue, I'm on Team Minotaur. It might have been ugly movement, but Minotaur did reach it target and able to have engage if WD played ball. That's control to me I think I'm with Hydra there. Tantrum didn't do much for most of that fight. If destroying a small part of the flipper arm allowed for more damage points, that is really really lame Nissin Cup Nudist fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 02:04
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Hydra didn't do any damage though. Tantrums weapon and drive were still working fine at the buzzer.
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Apr 8, 2022 02:41
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Aw man, I really wanted to see Witch Doctor finally take home the giant nut. Maybe next year. 
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Apr 8, 2022 03:13
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Sirotan posted:Aw man, I really wanted to see Witch Doctor finally take home the giant nut. Maybe next year. 
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Apr 8, 2022 03:34
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Bushido Brown posted:its design allows it to showcase aggression and control by choosing when to engage. that's not how aggression works. you don't get points for driving around. the same way that you said that 'hydra could charge', tantrum couldve equally charged. and hydra definitely played the match aggressively. but the biggest thing to me isn't really aggression. it's control. hydra should've had 3-0 control.
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Apr 8, 2022 03:58
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PostNouveau posted:Somebody mentioned earlier in the thread the rule for controlled movement in Robot Wars was "you are able to leave your own circumference". I know maybe that's not everyone's ideal rule and it leads to some really messed up bots technically having controlled movement, but what it lacks in strictness it makes up for in clarity. I don't really care how they fix the rule, but they need to make it extremely clear so that any participant can know what they're dealing with in the heat of the moment. iirc at some point it was like over 50% drivetrain? idk, frankly if someone loses one side of their wheels i'm totally fine with them being counted out. that probably feels overly harsh but i dont think i've really watched a fight where i was glad that a crabwalking robot was continuing around. unfortunately sometimes its probably hard to judge some robots (thinking about HUGE) when half the drive is out
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Apr 8, 2022 04:00
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PostNouveau posted:lol OK Reddit says Witch Doctor spent that whole time being told by their ref that the other ref was juuuuuuuuust about to start counting down Minotaur. Maybe this was on the refs you can see the ref by the minotaur team start to go for his arm to start the countdown at least twice, maybe three times lol. there was a minotaur dude yelling at him and pointing at the arena constantly basically stopping him. it was kinda bad
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Apr 8, 2022 04:01
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RBA Starblade posted:Yeah exactly. Minotaur was "crab walking", but also really obviously limping in Witch Doctor's direction - it had to keep retreating from it. Same thing with the Ribbot fight, there needs to be some better metric for deciding if your movement is controlled. The circumference test mentioned, or maybe having you agree to stay within x feet of your own position while you wait for the countdown on the other bot. Run away, and the countdown must reset much like attacking can risk a countdown in progress. If you need to move out of the way because they're coming for you, it means they're coming for you.
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Apr 8, 2022 04:31
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On tantrum vs hydra: control goes to hydra, no question. Damage is probably tantrum, since while hydra did a ton of flipping, didn't seem to have a noticeable effect. Aggression leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but I bet the judges favored the driver that did more charging than pointing at the opponent while stationary. To me, Jake's driving was the definition of defensive.
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Apr 8, 2022 04:49
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Oof. I smell rule and venue changes before next year. Smell is not a human strong point though. Not a fan of Hydra, or it’s team, but they should have won. Hydra beat the poo poo out of Tantrum. Minotaur lost a wheel and was llimping. They lost. Need a rule change to define coordinated movement. I’d go with “able to attack your opponent”. Ray’s whining about Tombstone’s inability to move three years ago underscores that. And several matches this season. If you can’t attack, and are randomly looping around, get TF out. You lose. Which, which. Witch doctor is perpetually forever lovely in finals. Too bad they randomly took out Saw Blaze in the meantime. Hope they’re getting paid well. But then I’m still mad that Upper Cut lost too early though so I my be biased. Alex appears to be the best sport in the game.
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Apr 8, 2022 04:51
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rarbatrol posted:On tantrum vs hydra: control goes to hydra, no question. Damage is probably tantrum, since while hydra did a ton of flipping, didn't seem to have a noticeable effect. Aggression leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but I bet the judges favored the driver that did more charging than pointing at the opponent while stationary. To me, Jake's driving was the definition of defensive. idk, circling the opponent also seems like the definition of defensive. you aren't engaging, you're waiting for the perfect shot. you don't get points for aggression just because you're faster.
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Apr 8, 2022 04:56
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getting in flips means nothing if the flips don't do anything other than scuff paint
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Apr 8, 2022 05:02
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some stuff from reddit that explains why this was hyped up to be the Controversy of the Decadequote:Ok, so some notes from filming on The Controversy, from an audience perspective:
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Apr 8, 2022 05:03
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Borsche69 posted:idk, circling the opponent also seems like the definition of defensive. you aren't engaging, you're waiting for the perfect shot. you don't get points for aggression just because you're faster.  You can debate if Tantrum's driving was moderate or significant, but sitting in the middle of the battlebox is their canonical example of minimal aggression.
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Apr 8, 2022 05:08
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I have always wondered why Witch Doctor never uses forks and has rarely even run a full wedge since their big redesign. It seems weird that in a competition where leverage is king, you'd be happy with a design that most bots can get under. Obviously they're durable enough to be a successful bot, but how much more durable would they be if they were hurled through the air about half as often?
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Apr 8, 2022 05:18
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Borsche69 posted:idk, circling the opponent also seems like the definition of defensive. you aren't engaging, you're waiting for the perfect shot. you don't get points for aggression just because you're faster. On the merits of the footage alone, maybe? But we know how the teams drive and their motivations for doing it. Hydra wants to be used as a ramp and will sit there waiting for the moment, and tantrum needs to get partially under a robot in order to get a solid hit with their weapon, so they try to get around to the side. I have a feeling if tantrum had been more damaged during the fight, hydra would have been given both more damage AND more aggression points.
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Apr 8, 2022 05:19
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Borsche69 posted:that's not how aggression works. you don't get points for driving around. the same way that you said that 'hydra could charge', tantrum couldve equally charged. and hydra definitely played the match aggressively. Except Tantrum did charge. I think folks are just conflating what entertains them with the judging categories. I don’t understand how camping in the center is “control”. If they had driven Tantrum around the box or decided where engagement happened I’d get it. But that isn’t what we saw. Hydra is more entertaining. It is cooler. It did much more impressive things. But I think it still lost the match.
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Apr 8, 2022 05:21
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oh jay posted:
i mean my opinion is that by circling around, you're avoiding contact. tantrum did eventually come in multiple times, but its not like hydra was unwilling to meet. idk, this might just be a personal thing. both teams clearly wanted to engage on their own terms, and its hard to fault them for that. tantrum was circling and hydra was matching that to keep their front facing. and when tantrum did go in on hydra, its not like hydra backed away - they wanted the weapon to weapon engagement. and they wanted that as much as tantrum wanted to come in on the sides. Bushido Brown posted:I don’t understand how camping in the center is “control”. tantrum spent most of that match either in the air or unable to get underneath hydra. i have no idea how flipping the other guy like 40 times is anything other than being in total control of the match. hydra is clearly dictating the terms. tantrum has to keep circling because hydra is getting underneath, and every time hydra gets underneath, tantrum gets airtime
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Apr 8, 2022 05:40
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PupsOfWar posted:I have always wondered why Witch Doctor never uses forks and has rarely even run a full wedge since their big redesign. It seems weird that in a competition where leverage is king, you'd be happy with a design that most bots can get under. it reminds me of beta, very obviously going out of their way to try to NOT play the ground game, and then just eating poo poo for it for whatever reason.
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Apr 8, 2022 06:01
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Tantrum should not have beaten Hydra, but I'm fine with them winning the whole thing. Their victories over Witch Doctor and Cobalt were so impressive and driven flawlessly that they earned it. I'm just happy that something other than another vertical spinner won. Tantrum has come a long way from being Tombstone fodder like 3 seasons ago. The shelf is loving stupid and contributed to a lot of the dumb stuff this season. Blip was basically high centered on the lip of it, multiple robots got stuck under it, it makes horizontal spinners worse since there's not as much room to move around. I'm hoping they release that it didn't work out and get rid of it next year.
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Apr 8, 2022 07:34
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It was pretty lovely of the Minotaur team to not accept the result, it was a unanimous judges' decision so it's not like there was any ambiguity there. I blame the referees for the match being such a mess, they made some bad calls. I guess the lovely design of the shelf was also a big factor. The misogyny from the audience is also super disappointing.
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Apr 8, 2022 10:36
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Borsche69 posted:
I don’t agree, but clearly this is why it was a split decision. Perhaps they need to add a category for “hits” but generally, Hydra flipping tantrum without causing damage is the same to me as tantrum tapping Hydra with its spinner when it isn’t spun up. Hydra’s looks cooler, but I think showy hits that don’t cause damage are hard to deal with.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:07
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PupsOfWar posted:I have always wondered why Witch Doctor never uses forks and has rarely even run a full wedge since their big redesign. It seems weird that in a competition where leverage is king, you'd be happy with a design that most bots can get under. Crazy enough, they brought forks and never used them. They've mentioned them in nearly every video they've put out this season. They seem to take pride in not contributing to the fork meta.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:10
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Honestly, I feel like Tantrum got a fluke win in the final. That was some very minimal damage done in a freak occurrence kind of way that basically had Witch Doctor high centered by its own scraped up armor for the entire fight. Tantrum had a mostly incapacitated opponent the whole final and didn't even really seem to to that much more damage to them after that.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:12
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Hydra drives boring (because it's at risk of snagging that late in the season) and it finally met a robot that is basically indestructible so it can't lean on damage points to mask the weaknesses inherent in a bot that low to the ground. "Always facing them" is not aggression, or control really. If it had been chasing tantrum and also flipped them a bunch then Hydra would have won.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:27
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I think BattleBots have shot themselves in the foot by historically hiding things like time outs, restarts, and unsticks in the TV edit. The rules and reffing has been inconsistent but I think it feels even worse because they never show what actually happens and slide things around in time for TV. I don't know if I would say anyone has been "robbed". I'm sure there have been worse judges decisions before. I do think all of the bots in the last episode had a legit shot at the nut and any of them could have won if the luck flowed their way. Hearing about how lovely some of the fans reacted and directed their hate towards the women there really disgusts me. I was thinking earlier this year how great it is that the teams have been evening out somewhat and that there are enough women in the sport that they don't have to highlight any one of them as "the girl" anymore. I would like to see that trend continue and I hope they kick all the sexist fuckheads out.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:34
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:It was pretty lovely of the Minotaur team to not accept the result, it was a unanimous judges' decision so it's not like there was any ambiguity there. I blame the referees for the match being such a mess, they made some bad calls. I guess the lovely design of the shelf was also a big factor. I honestly think it's fine. Team Minotaur has every right to be pretty upset with how the fight went. As far as I've read (which isn't much), all their anger and upset was mostly directed towards the refs and probably for good reason. It really seems like the timeout was called pretty quick after Witch Doctor got stuck and likely because it was right before the 90 second mark in the fight, and after the 90 seconds, it would have been a count out instead of an unstick. (You can see a clock a little prior that was around 1:40 remaining) The judges decision was the right decision for the fight with what they were given by the refs. I imagine Battlebots is going to do a big rewrite on how the refs handle things. As there was honestly quite a few very questionable ref decisions during the season, especially on what qualifies as a bot not having controlled movement.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:35
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Also the dumb shelf wasn't bolted down so bots kept bumping into it, popping it up in the air, and then the drat thing lands on them clamping the bot in place. Whiplash was robbed! 
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Apr 8, 2022 14:44
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SLICK GOKU BABY posted:I imagine Battlebots is going to do a big rewrite on how the refs handle things. As there was honestly quite a few very questionable ref decisions during the season, especially on what qualifies as a bot not having controlled movement. I've seen a few suggestions around for new rules. I think they're all better than what's going on right now: - The circumference rule. I talked about this one already, but it's very clear. - Any movement means the bot is alive. This one is veryyyyyyy forgiving, and I think you might have to allow bots to tap out if you implemented it. You'd have to turn some of these robots into complete mulch to get them to stop moving completely. - If you can move toward your opponent to attack, you're alive. I think this one involves too much interpretation to be workable. It's not clear in much the same way the current ruleset isn't clear, but it is a bit of an improvement over the status quo.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:51
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PostNouveau posted:I've seen a few suggestions around for new rules. I think they're all better than what's going on right now: You can always let go of the sticks and say your bot is dead if you want to tap out.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:57
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For "controlled movement" you could require both bots to return the their starting square in the "countdown" phase and if you don't make it back in 10 sec the you're out.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:59
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The talk of abuse hurled at the teams is realllllllllllllly disappointing, especially gendered abuse at the same event that had its first female winner. All these teams are losing money on Battlebots despite it being one of the biggest shows for Discovery. The Witch Doctor team runs a bunch of robotics workshops for kids in their spare time. Maybe they should just go back to what they had during covid where the only attendees at the fights were the other teams.
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Apr 8, 2022 15:00
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