Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

rjohaire called this out deep in the "What a stupid feature" thread, but it is worth calling out on its own.

In order for a league to use the reverse lineups feature, the lineup usage setting that will be used from the CDROM game is very likely going to be "Draft League Mode - No Rest". For CDROM players you know what that means, but since the many Online players don't play CDROM take note.

Be sure to set ALL FOUR of your lineups. If you leave your Reverse lineups blank, expecting HAL to use the Primary lineups as a default, he won't! He will set his own lineup vs the Reverse pitcher.

Just an FYI, not an opinion or commentary.

Is that right??

This is a direct quote from John Garcia "You'll find these 2 new lineups right underneath your existing default lineups vs. L and R (via the Your Team->Set Your Lineups menu item). Note that you don't have to touch these new reverse lineups if you don't want to; if you leave them empty, nothing would change with how your team is managed."

So do I trust SOM administration or the guys in this forum?

I'm going with the guys in the forum...

Well, there's been confusion on things in the past and SOM keeps a lot of the settings for the online game behind the curtain (i.e. MAX rules like ""Improve Statistical Accuracy"), which again is neither a criticism nor an opinion.

I just did a test in the CDROM game to confirm what I stated, and HAL definitely creates his own lineups vs reverse pitchers if you leave the reverse lineup blank and only have a primary lineup.

Having said that, this can be resolved in the programming that loads HAL by writing the Primary lineup into the reverse lineups when the manager settings are updated in the user interface if the reverse is blank, or better yet, put a checkbox in the lineups page to say "use primary in reverse situations" and grey out the reverse lineups (think bill to / ship to in ecommerce sites, click the "bill to" address to use as the shipping address...)

It would be great if SOM could clarify this for us. In the interim it's worth the extra 18 clicks per team to avoid any surprises.

Although the Windows game does work like that Rob, our programmers have assured that for the Online game, as long as no players are on the reverse lineup, it will default back to the standard lineups. You DO NOT have to set all four lineups.

-John

We will know for sure on this by this time next week.

For now I will say it makes me a little happy that someone from Strat noticed this concern on the boards and spoke to it directly. Thanks JohnG.

I might add that any feature used online has to be interpreted and presented to the game engine. So the fact we have reverse lineups online and similar feature in cdrom game does not mean it is literally the same as setting or not setting those in the cdrom game. This is a simple programming logic if lineup3 present use, else use lineup1. So I tend to trust JohnG and the programmers on this one.

If indeed we have JohnG's attention might ask one more question. Seems many are concerned this feature is being applied to existing teams. Is it too late to alter that so the feature is only used in future teams? Perhaps something similar to when bullpen v2 was introduced people could choose to use it or stick with old bullpen version on their existing teams.

Regardless of which way that answer falls I think it would promote some good will to see it at least spoken to even if that speaking is to say too late too difficult.

JohnG wrote:Although the Windows game does work like that Rob, our programmers have assured that for the Online game, as long as no players are on the reverse lineup, it will default back to the standard lineups. You DO NOT have to set all four lineups.

-John

Thanks for the clarification John!!!!

JohnG wrote:Although the Windows game does work like that Rob, our programmers have assured that for the Online game, as long as no players are on the reverse lineup, it will default back to the standard lineups. You DO NOT have to set all four lineups.

-John

It would be really nice if you came on and answered ALL of the questions people have about whats going on and why rather than just this one. Although 'maybe' its a step in the right direction that you have commented...

I know we strat-o-matics like detail, but its getting harder and harder to set up teams for me with more and more buttons to click. I still play because playing with these names are like chanting ohm-na-ha-na-rahm-nay-Que (Yes, I stole Woody Allen's chant, better price than wholesale). And, I dont really care if i win or lose.

A whole lot of these settings I have to set the same way over and over and over. I set them the same way every time and you are wearing me out. Try to find buttons we click the same every league we join and auto set our teams accordingly?