I love HOF. It's my favorite difficulty for when I want to take more user control (of the main ones anyway, I think Allstar+ in dynamic might be my favorite overall). I've been getting some very realistic results using Zone hitting and Meter pitching on HOF - it really feels like a great mix between my own skills and the teams ratings.
I've tweaked just one slider for this difficulty up to now - Strike Frequency down to 3. This changes the way the CPU pitcher approaches the early counts - it will try to throw more pitches outside the zone early on. It's up to you if you can lay off them, and if you do you'll see plenty of deep counts, and walks when the pitcher loses his control later in the AB. I just had a game vs the Dodgers where Ryu walked me 5 times and struck me out 4. It keeps the CPU more in line with the 50 - 60% first strike % stat, at default Strike Freq it's up near 70% a little too often for my liking. That's the only thing I've changed - admittedly I have a hard time judging things like fielder speed and reaction in user-controlled games so I tend to leave them alone unless something's obviously wrong, like no XBH at all.
Ah, I know where the second question is going. I'll say this - if you thought past games in this series had these "theatrics", you're going to feel the same way once you aim to a corner and the pitch ends up over the middle to get mashed, because it's no different in that regard. You just can't do that on HOF and probably Legend - you've got to aim farther off the plate to allow for those "back over the middle" misses to not turn into deep strikes - and often longballs. The range of error in HOF pitching is HUGE (even when you hit your meter mark perfectly), and it forces you to be more cautious and perhaps even risk walking more batters, so as not to throw easily hittable pitches. It does work, it just takes a different mindset to pitch effectively at this level.
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As far as my offense and defense goes, they're pretty much in line with the team I'm using - which is to say I'm lucky to scrape out a few runs with the Cubs, yet I can mash where it doesn't look like I'm playing on HOF with the Red Sox. It's really great to see my own skills work in tandem with the ratings to produce this effect - it's still a baseball sim, but I know my play is having an impact on the game.
I'm planning on streaming to Twitch quite a bit tomorrow, starting off with some pitch strategy discussion (applicable to any level, although I'll be doing that on AllStar) and later on playing a game or two on my HOF settings. Tune in if you like!