Pinnacle is poorly designed

Achieve Robotics Competition | RECF Achieve | Pinnacle | 2026-2027
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I went to a competition yesterday, and I walked away from it with the opinion that Pinnacle is a game that inherently discourages robot complexity and strategy. The factors that cause this are not inherently bad, but in conjunction result in a game that is not good. Here are my reasons for believing this:

  1. Scoring on center goals is discouraged.

While they are worth more points than the alliance goals, scoring on them is not worth it. They can be descored far faster and easier than it is to score, so building up a stack against opponents that can score at all is nearly impossible. As a result of this, high level matches end with very few objects scored on the center goals. This means that the vast majority of points scored are on the alliance goals. This leads in to my second point,

  1. Defense is disadvantageous.

Legal defense is not very effective. As a result of the ease of defending the center goals, teams do not use them, meaning it is disadvantageous to plan strategy around defense of the center goals. Since the only other option is alliance goals, teams only use them. Defending these legally is practically impossible, as transitively removing any objects can lead to a violation. This means that robots will rarely interact, as playing legal defense is ineffective in preventing scoring.

  1. It is not beneficial to switch toggles

Since it is not beneficial to score on the center goals, the only toggles that matter are the alliance side toggles. Attempting to switch an opposing toggle to your color is not advantageous because alliance color halfpins are worth the same as yellow halfpins, and attempting to switch the toggle puts you dangerously close to opposing alliance goals. Very few teams score yellows, and It is very easy to accidentally push a robot into their own stack while fighting for the toggle, which is an instant DQ.

  1. There are too many matchloads.

If each robot gets an equal quantity of objects (which is roughly common in balanced, high level matches), they will be left with 4 pins laying on the ground, 2 cups standing up, 1 pinnacle standing up, and 9 pinnacles as matchloads. This means that a ground intake is just not necessary, as it is very rare to even use up more than 9 matchloads.

  1. Endgame is too valuable.

Endgame is worth 21 points, and by far the easiest thing to do in the game. Attempting to stop another team from parking is not worth it, as you forfeit your own park and put yourself at risk of knocking over another team’s tower.

These all result in it being disadvantageous to build a robot that can intake or have toggles better than basic passive toggles, because it wastes wattage and is not useful. There is no competitive reason to build anything other than a lift and a claw, and that’s just boring, for both competitors and spectators. Here’s how I would change the rules to fix these issues.

  1. I would raise the protection to the last 60 seconds. This allows teams to stack on the center goal for much longer without it being a given that your pins will be descored.
  2. This issue would be fixed by the first solution, because teams would meet defense beyond descoring when coring on the center goals.
  3. This would be solved by increasing the point value of yellow pins, but would also partially be solved by the first solution, as more teams would score on the neutral goals controlled by toggles.
  4. This could be solved by decreasing the amount of matchloads. If there were only 8 pinnacles total, with the rest being moved to lay down on the field, it would necessitate some sort of intake in competitive match play.
  5. If endgame was decreased to between 5 and 10 points, it would be far more balanced.
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I don’t think the game is poorly designed, while it might have been rushed (rightly so), I actually find the game more fun than Override.

In response to your points:

  1. Scoring on the center goal isn’t discouraged, at my first competition there were plenty of teams that targeted it. While it does behave like a high risk high reward target, I think we need to wait for the season to progress and more effective center goal scoring to come out.

  2. Honestly, I think defense will play a huge part in late season pinnacle. One well built robot can easily fill both alliance goals in a match, so assigning one team to full time defense can easily win a match, just by shutting down the other alliance.

  3. This is partially correct. With yellow pins being equal in value to colored pins, they aren’t a huge point swing like in Override. However, there are only 6 alliance colored match loads, so only enough to fill one goal. So yellow pins and toggles are still an important part of the game and can still win matches. And to be honest, I’m so glad we don’t have toggle camping, High Stakes was a nightmare.

  4. This is true. But is it a problem? Not needing a ground intake means more efficient and creative scoring because that motor and space can go somewhere else. And honestly it’s the number of alliance match loads that matter most, which run out quickly.

  5. This one I 100% agree with. There were several times our team just forgot about parking cause we were focused on scoring and nearly lost the match to a double park. I think 12 points would be more reasonable.

I don’t think protection should be raised, descoring is an exciting and challenging part of the game, whether or not to potentially waste match loads if it gets descored, but potentially securing the win. And 30 seconds is enough to completely fill the goal before the match ends. In my opinion this game is way more exciting to play and watch than override, where every robot stays in there own corner then camp toggles and get dqd for knocking over a stack right by the toggle.

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