Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Quote from JohnG

"Along with the game there will be a new Mystery Game only change regarding lineups. I'll be able to explain that further next week also. "

I might be wrong, but that to me sounds like the beginning of the end of HAL lineups.
I know there are a few people who will be happy if this is the news, but myself and probably many others will not be happy with this change.

I'll wait for the official announcement, but I'm curious as to what others think about it.

Less HAL is better!!!

Sounds good to me.

I don't think so. I mean, you've got to have a lineup, so HAL has to put someone in there, just like he would do in the 2XXX game. I guess he could just put random people in there, but I don't think that is it. Sometimes I think he just puts random people in there anyway.....

I'm someone that lets HAL choose my lineups at the start of a season and I think I'm pretty good at interpreting his choices but I'm really hoping that's what the message was hinting at. I don't think it's an unfair advantage when we do it since everyone is capable, but I think it hurts the game when we drop players for no reason other than HAL didn't play a guy in the 1st series or two. I think the point of the game is to analyze how the players are doing to figure out the year. Tweak the injuries next.

It will also give us another reason to scream at HAL!

Even though I have gotten good at interpreting HAL's lineups, I think this will be a very good change. Letting HAL decide lineups makes it too easy to score on a 1-year wonder card or to dump a player with a single bad year. It eliminates the risk in both situations.

Yes, it can be fun interpreting what HAL does. However,it's also fun to set your own lineups with a new team--something I miss. And really, the mystery card games were never intended to be a case of "push a button and have HAL tell me if I have a good year or not."

One more benefit of this anticipated change is 1-year wonders will more likely be available for a team doing poorly and wanting to take a risk to become competitive. The way it is now, most 1-year wonder free agents were probably already briefly on someone's roster and cut since HAL didn't play him.

I'm certainly surprised at the responses I've seen so far. Though I'll still be unhappy if that is in fact the change we're expecting, it will be an interesting challenge going back to the way I used to play the game before discovering HAL lineups and still being successful at the game.

I agree with Rigged Splits and coyote03.

I hope this means the end of HAL deciding on lineups when we leave it blank. I'd rather see some type of automated lineup go in that could easily be predicted. (Something like, highest paid player at each position is the default starter. There would be a specific order to fill each position: C,1B, 2B, SS, 3B, RF, CF, LF, DH.)

When a lineup is left blank you actually could figure out ahead of time who will by default go where, but it won't give you any clues to what year the player has.

I've reluctantly used leaving the lineup empty to try and identify players, but have not gotten good at it. Being able to figure out players this way has taken away from my enjoyment of the game.

To me it's more realistic to use injuries to identify years combined with looking at the stats. This method sometimes takes a little time to happen, but I find it to be much more enjoyable.

I hope leaving the bullpen/starting pitching blank is changed to no longer give clues to year also.

I would like to see this done away with too. If someone leaves their lineups blank Hal can set order by most at bats, salary, plate appearances, average, etc... Anything to take away from managers trying to gain an advantage from this. Sure we all have the option to leave a line up blank, but it doesn't seem right.

Sure we all have the option to leave a line up blank, but it doesn't seem right.

I totally agree. It just seams weak to me to try to gain an advantage in that way.