Best PS4 PES (2015-2021)?

[Chris Davies]

Hi Chris, no problem! The DT18 I'm using is this one @millossobek reported: https://evoweb.uk/threads/pes-2019-discussion-thread-pc.79091/page-80#post-4203685 (it's in the @incas36 gameplay collection)

With this DT18 I've had CPU using long shots and high crosses consistently (other than a very nice amount of fouls and an over aggressive AI - maybe a bit too much, but I like it). I've settled for this but I think there are a lot of other valid ones in the thread, between Incas collection and @Sany023 's zip (will probably try them too at some point). Of course, it goes without saying, don't expect miracles - the AI as a base does always have that "robotic" touch that it's quite distinguishable at this point of the saga no matter the Dt18 you try, but the experience from vanilla to me it's way improved anyway.

As for the patches, I probably expressed myself poorly, I meant Konami's official updates. I remember AI wise the game was in a much worse state in the first months (as I wrote above), then somewhere in the beginning of 2019 it came out a patch that fixed at least the more blatant stuff.

PES 2019 is a surprise. When I first played it, I was completely unaware of the gameplay modding community, and only played Vanilla.. and it was incredibly frustrating to me.. I would be, for example, playing with Estudiantes de la Plata vs a much weaker Argentinean team, winning 2-0 comfortably in the 75th minute, and then my opponent would go absolutely insane and score 3 goals in the last 15 minutes. Time after time.. I think I "rage quit" PES 2019 more times than any other game I've played..... BUT this, like @Madmac79 mentions, is BEFORE gameplay mods. Now I am using the dt18 linked above by Mac, and also have tried THIS ONE (which is an edited version of a @*Supernova* gameplay), and "Professional Gameplay Mod, again by Master Incas (the last two are designed to be played in Professional, as for the reduction of the momentum).. That being said, PES 2019 is an absolutely beautifully designed game IMO. The best looking out of the entire generation, with smooth dribbling, great lighting, and overall feeling. It is definitely moving up my list.

Thanks so much for these replies re: PES 2019.

I managed a few games over the weekend with the DT18 you pointed to @Madmac79, and it's the most I've enjoyed a modern PES title in a while (since replaying the PES 2019 demo the other day and finding it really fun anyway)!

It feels like a fairly balanced challenge, and the weight is really nice as well. It was a lot of fun, but one Champions League tournament was enough to remind me why I stopped playing:

• Tiki-taka: Half the AI's passes are first-touch, which makes the game into a tiki-taka fest. I wouldn't mind if it was only elite teams, but the AI does it with every team, and it exposes a balancing issue IMO (i.e. you may as well never take a touch and just first-time-pass your way around the pitch). Pass accuracy percentages aren't too high weirdly, but that seems to be mostly because of the AI clearing the ball so often.
  
  
• Catch-up: Prime Mo Salah can't blast past anybody. I feel like it has to be this way to keep scorelines from being silly - in an identical fashion to FC right now (where the "Authentic" gameplay mode restricts scorelines simply because everybody is restricted to walking) - but it makes every match a pass-fest, and dribbling opportunities are limited.
  
  
• Lack of responsiveness: I'd much rather this was the case than FC's floatiness, but it's undeniably frustrating when your player has BAGS of time to move in the direction you've inputted but instead is "locked up" and just walks into the opponent. It's almost like there's a "tick rate" of the game linked to animations, and occasionally you're just stuck in a "bad time" to be dribbling and you just have to watch helplessly as you give it away.
  
  
• Poor foul detection: I'd totally forgotten about this! The AI's fouls were actually fantastic, really realistic and plenty of them. But several times per game, players will have a natural coming-together (e.g. legs touching as a player dribbles) and a foul will be given for absolutely no reason.

There is no perfect football game and I am happier to live with the above foibles than FC's, because everything feels much more grounded and whenever you score, you've earned it. But there's always that nagging part of me that thinks "if I could just fix those things"...

 

[rockstrongo]

Thanks so much for these replies re: PES 2019.

I managed a few games over the weekend with the DT18 you pointed to @Madmac79, and it's the most I've enjoyed a modern PES title in a while (since replaying the PES 2019 demo the other day and finding it really fun anyway)!

It feels like a fairly balanced challenge, and the weight is really nice as well. It was a lot of fun, but one Champions League tournament was enough to remind me why I stopped playing:

• Tiki-taka: Half the AI's passes are first-touch, which makes the game into a tiki-taka fest. I wouldn't mind if it was only elite teams, but the AI does it with every team, and it exposes a balancing issue IMO (i.e. you may as well never take a touch and just first-time-pass your way around the pitch). Pass accuracy percentages aren't too high weirdly, but that seems to be mostly because of the AI clearing the ball so often.
  
  
• Catch-up: Prime Mo Salah can't blast past anybody. I feel like it has to be this way to keep scorelines from being silly - in an identical fashion to FC right now (where the "Authentic" gameplay mode restricts scorelines simply because everybody is restricted to walking) - but it makes every match a pass-fest, and dribbling opportunities are limited.
  
  
• Lack of responsiveness: I'd much rather this was the case than FC's floatiness, but it's undeniably frustrating when your player has BAGS of time to move in the direction you've inputted but instead is "locked up" and just walks into the opponent. It's almost like there's a "tick rate" of the game linked to animations, and occasionally you're just stuck in a "bad time" to be dribbling and you just have to watch helplessly as you give it away.
  
  
• Poor foul detection: I'd totally forgotten about this! The AI's fouls were actually fantastic, really realistic and plenty of them. But several times per game, players will have a natural coming-together (e.g. legs touching as a player dribbles) and a foul will be given for absolutely no reason.

There is no perfect football game and I am happier to live with the above foibles than FC's, because everything feels much more grounded and whenever you score, you've earned it. But there's always that nagging part of me that thinks "if I could just fix those things"...

How does it stack up vs console version?
have you tried both recently, and or just vanilla pc version?
Havent played 19 on pc but i remember my 17 vs console 17 is two different games

 

[Chris Davies]

How does it stack up vs console version?
have you tried both recently, and or just vanilla pc version?
Havent played 19 on pc but i remember my 17 vs console 17 is two different games

The 19 PS4 demo (played on PS5) is what made me interested in it again, because the dribbling freedom and some of the physical battles felt so fresh.

I want to tell myself it's the same on PC and console to save myself from wasting £10, but they do feel different to me - but I'm telling myself that's because the PS4 demo was just a demo, and the full releases always feel different (especially when patched).

 

[rockstrongo]

The 19 PS4 demo (played on PS5) is what made me interested in it again, because the dribbling freedom and some of the physical battles felt so fresh.

I want to tell myself it's the same on PC and console to save myself from wasting £10, but they do feel different to me - but I'm telling myself that's because the PS4 demo was just a demo, and the full releases always feel different (especially when patched).

Cant speak for PES 19 on pc vs console, but like i said PES 17 XBOX ONE/PS4 version is very different from the pc version, plays a lot like the 360/ps3 version.
Better or worse? no clue,different!
But i prefer my Pes 17 on console, despite mods etc

 

[Topaz]

For someone that enjoys a balance football game for both attack and defense and where attributes and team style matters more than fancy animations or player faces, this is my order:


1) PES 2017: Best tempo, best CPU AI when it comes to team styles. It did have flaws. For example, closing down/pressing was too overpowered and i wanted player attributes to shine more defensively.
2) PES 2019: Whilst it didn't have the best AI, it did have tons of variety. Dribbling felt good, crossing felt good. The physics of this game is pretty good and the way the players position themselves. But it still had issues where team spirit was too overpowered and script would kick in where bottom league teams would have 90% pass completion ping ponging everything.
3) PES 2015: Very fun arcadey game. Easily the best attacking AI the series has ever seen. I remember Salah destroying me on this game with his dribbling. But there were issues. Shot variety lacked. Build up play wasn't as good as the other games on the series and in general, scoring goal felt a bit weightless on this game.
4) PES 2020: This is where the series took significant dive downhill. Extremely slow player reaction, huge input delay. The animation felt very caned. Ball physics felt unsatisfying and the AI was easily the worst in the series doing the same type of goal 99% of the type. You know when the defender plays a forward driven pass to the striker and they turn and shoot and goal. The only good thing I would say about this game is off the pitch stuff.
5) PES 2021: Same as PES 2020 but even more clunky. But it has the best off the pitch patches in the entire series. That's about it.
6) PES 2016: An unbalanced mess. Goalkeeper being braindead and CPU can only score a specific type of shot every goal. The physics also felt off like tackling phased through dribblers.

 

[millossobek]

Hey guys, a small parenthesis: just to add to my post above, as I didn't include these links..

Here are two packs of a lot of PES 2019's gameplay mods for your convenience.

https://evoweb.uk/threads/pes-2019-discussion-thread-pc.79091/page-80#post-4203685 (pack of Master @incas36's gameplays)
https://evoweb.uk/threads/pes-2019-discussion-thread-pc.79091/page-80#post-4203699 (pack of many different gameplays by different creators, compiled by @Sany023)

 

[Kopite1990]

Thanks so much for these replies re: PES 2019.

I managed a few games over the weekend with the DT18 you pointed to @Madmac79, and it's the most I've enjoyed a modern PES title in a while (since replaying the PES 2019 demo the other day and finding it really fun anyway)!

It feels like a fairly balanced challenge, and the weight is really nice as well. It was a lot of fun, but one Champions League tournament was enough to remind me why I stopped playing:

• Tiki-taka: Half the AI's passes are first-touch, which makes the game into a tiki-taka fest. I wouldn't mind if it was only elite teams, but the AI does it with every team, and it exposes a balancing issue IMO (i.e. you may as well never take a touch and just first-time-pass your way around the pitch). Pass accuracy percentages aren't too high weirdly, but that seems to be mostly because of the AI clearing the ball so often.
  
  
• Catch-up: Prime Mo Salah can't blast past anybody. I feel like it has to be this way to keep scorelines from being silly - in an identical fashion to FC right now (where the "Authentic" gameplay mode restricts scorelines simply because everybody is restricted to walking) - but it makes every match a pass-fest, and dribbling opportunities are limited.
  
  
• Lack of responsiveness: I'd much rather this was the case than FC's floatiness, but it's undeniably frustrating when your player has BAGS of time to move in the direction you've inputted but instead is "locked up" and just walks into the opponent. It's almost like there's a "tick rate" of the game linked to animations, and occasionally you're just stuck in a "bad time" to be dribbling and you just have to watch helplessly as you give it away.
  
  
• Poor foul detection: I'd totally forgotten about this! The AI's fouls were actually fantastic, really realistic and plenty of them. But several times per game, players will have a natural coming-together (e.g. legs touching as a player dribbles) and a foul will be given for absolutely no reason.

There is no perfect football game and I am happier to live with the above foibles than FC's, because everything feels much more grounded and whenever you score, you've earned it. But there's always that nagging part of me that thinks "if I could just fix those things"...

Weirdly, I went through the exact same thing this weekend after going through the motions with FC26.

I loaded up PES21 and PES19 - I know the recent games have their flaws but I instantly felt a connection that I hadn’t felt in over 4-5 hours of the FC26 trial.

It pretty much confirmed my thinking with FC26 and it’s back to retro PES gaming for me 👍🏻

 

[cleanslate]

This is the totally wrong thread but - does anyone know how to turn off auto passing / tackling / shooting in PES 2011? I like the gameplay on the whole but my players suddenly doing shit without me touching anything really puts me off

 

[tutu7]

Among all of these, I've only played 17 and 21, both for a short period of time.
I find PES 2017 to be very end-to-end, so not very good if you are interested in more "sim" games. It has its strengths, though: I'm talking mainly about the AI, which is far superior to many other games of the series, not because of the difficulty, but for the variety of solutions it can display.

PES2021 has excellent ball physics, good animation, great inertia. It all seems very realistic. However, unfortunately, vanilla gameplay is awful as far as I'm concerned. The issue that bothers me most is the players' positioning across the field: midfield is almost absent, players are always too wide and can't block the passing lanes. Therefore, the match becomes an endless sequence of counter-attacks, with constant defence retreating (defence) and everyone rushing forward as soon as you regain possession (attack).
To summarize, no midfield battles, a lot of long throws, very few random moments and absolutely no incentive to play in a less direct, strategic way. Not to mention the extremely monotonous AI, which worsens an already flawed gameplay by a lot.

This is what I can say about vanilla games on consoles.

Off topic: with mods, PES21 can improve quite a lot. I was never interested in trying to improve my PES21 experience until a few weeks ago, because the vanilla game seemed too flawed to be fixed (according to my taste, of course). However, I really liked the physics and inertia of this game (which I think are the best ever seen in a football game to this day), so I gave it another chance. After experimenting with different mods, I had to (partially) change my mind.
My favourite gameplay mod, at the moment, is SimSnob experience. My favourite feature of this mod is the increased compactness it gives to the midfield, achieved by reducing the continuous counter-attack tendency of the game. This mod also improves AI play, making it more reasoned and less direct and clinical. Obviously, this is still PES21, so don't expect miracles. I also changed ball physics, using NextGen mod ones, because I found passes to be too fast for my liking.
Despite these fixes, I still didn't think there was enough midfield filter, so I tried various things, without much success. But then, I came across this thread by Anth (https://evoweb.uk/threads/pes-2021-tactical-adjustments-for-more-of-a-midfield.87202/) and I tried to follow his wise suggestions (I encourage you to give them a try on console, too). The result was interesting: less variety in tactics, but far more compact formations and, finally, an acceptable midfield filter. I also slightly tweaked the db.
I'll leave a video to let you see the results. Personally, I had some fun playing this, which I would never have thought lol (especially for a PES5 fan like me).
I would be very interested in hearing your opinions about this



I'm extremely bad at playing this, I know hahaha

 

[icarus10_]

I've been wondering this exact thing, looking for a new football game fix.

I used to love PES 2017, but the AI gets someone sent off every match I play and it's so attack-heavy that it's just silly. It's one of my least favourites now.

I downloaded the PES 2019 demo on PS4 last night and I was really surprised at how fresh it felt, on Top Player too.

As Inter, the ball weight felt so right, transitions were well balanced, and it had those "special moments" I've been missing (I hit a hopeful through ball to create a 1-on-1 with the opposition defender and managed to outmuscle him just enough to force a shot off, which the keeper just diverted wide). Even the keepers feel great, sometimes palming a really hard shot into the net if they're poorly positioned.

But... I re-downloaded it on PC (Steam) with all the data packs etc. and it just didn't feel the same. The AI were turbo-ping-ponging it everywhere, no matter the team - pass accuracy super high as a result - and I was a bit crushed.

So I have two questions...

1) What's your favourite of this era and why?

2) Does gameplay feel different between PS4 and PC, or is it just the case that the final version of PES 2019 was different?

Pes 2019 demo is best gameplay. Konami changed the gameplay when it officially released.