SETTING YOUR LINEUP

[Jedediah-Hartford]

I'll concede my "phoning it in" line was off the mark. However, being less in control of your team as a strategic policy just doesn't sound to me like something worthy of a reward. In an endeavor like this league, one steeped in the idea of ownership, yielding any of that to a system feels like making the game more of a lottery. Any game I play against an auto-filled lineup feels less realistic by nature in comparison to one where the other owner has filled out a lineup card of how he wants his squad organized. It's not about seeing the other team's lineups ahead of time for me, it's about owning the direction of your team, since we are essentially owner/GM/coaches (see related tangent below). I'd actually prefer it if the lineups were hidden from public view until after the games were under way, that would seem more realistic (although it would also be nice to allow the flexibility of playing more than 6 defensemen, but I digress) and would still allow confidentiality for each team's strategy.


While typing out the owner/GM/coach sentence above, it occurred to me (as it probably has for many of you already), we've added refs, would it be possible to add coaches to the sim, who could have their own traits? With something like that, auto-lineups could be based on the coach's traits instead of a system just plugging the better players into whatever slot is next on its list. Would that be something that could reconcile the auto vs. hands on debate in a way that could make everyone happy (except Glenn's amount of spare time.....)?

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

Feb 28, 2019 6:40:23 GMT -5 Mike - Montreal said:

Here’s a crazy thought: how about instead of penalizing not setting a lineup, we encourage setting one with a “chemistry” bonus.
Leaving a line together for 5+ games (?) adds a small stat bump.

Or perhaps if we’re really looking for a deterrent, we should increase the out of position penalty.

My experience over the last two seasons has been if I set a lineup, I’m winning at about a 50% clip and often 4-3, 3-2 games. NOT setting a lineup I have a much better record and I’m often putting up 5+ goals. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s been my experience. Happy to be the guinea pig on this if Glenn is able to tell my record with setting lines vs. not.

Right now, the argument “set your lines so I have a better chance to beat you” is not a compelling reason for me to do it.

Also the insinuation that all teams that don’t set lines are phoning it in is BS. I’m on the site and the boards multiple times a day, was very active at the trade deadline. We should be worrying about the 2-3 truly non active teams who literally haven’t checked in since the fall.

I think the low hanging fruit is making the OOP more prominent. That is pretty low hanging fruit and would be pretty easy to do. I can't do it now though as it wouldn't be fair/balanced for the teams that have yet to play the non-lineup setters.

In regards to locking lineups I had done some preliminary work way back when of locking visitors lineups down an hour before game time to allow the home team some line juggling time prior to puck drop. The initial work was really geared to locking the lineups of owner entered lineups and didn't take the auto lineups into account. This is because these lineups are only currently generated when a game is kicked off and there are holes, or an empty, lineup to fill.

If I had unlimited time, this would be something that would be high on the list to complete for sure.

[Scott-New Jersey]

Feb 28, 2019 9:29:24 GMT -5 Phil-Cornwall said:

and just like that, we see NJ has buckled and gotten terrified of playing Halifax and submitted a lineup!!

I've had a lineup in jackhole

[Phil-Cornwall]

no you didn't. For many games, you had no lineup nutbag.