no definite date but end of October
eFootball PES 2020 Discussion Thread (PS4/Xbox One)
- Thread starter Lami
- Start date
steff
Conference
- 10 September 2018
I love the Glasgow Derby games, you can definitely feel the difference, tackles flying in, cards getting dished out, scrambles in the box, lost to rangers 2-0 at home, beat them 3-2 at ibrox, late winner from Edouard, Morelos is a nightmare to play againstalright guys. little recap:
eagerly awaiting the derby match against celtic, i was setting up my team like forever!
when i started the match, i could instantly feel there was more pace and more physics involved (plus more aggressive AI).
overall, for my liking, it was a little bit to frentic! anyway... the ref let it roll for the most part but fouls were giving in a acceptable amount!
Celtic was a real difference to what i played in the scottish league before. much stronger and much more aggressive while pressing high! Motherwell, wich i meet just before that game, i beat by 1:0 at home. before that Motherwell match i changed nearly the whole team. all my fav and strongest player i gave some time to rest, to be ready for the big battle. so my "second team" with a lot of young guns and low level players was able to snatch a win! i liked how i planned that and how it played out!
another thing: i had Goldson and Morelos injured for weeks and they arrived perfectly in time for the derby!i was so happy to have them back in my team!
so i had a tough fight against Celtic! Celtic Park with the fans was hell for me!
to make it short: we got behind when Edouard scored 2 times!! oh boy... what a challenge, i thought! the battle became even harder... i tried and when i hit the 2:1 i was full of hope! in the end... we lost it 2:1 but i was ok with as Celtic was the better team! no we are 3 points behind them on 2nd place in the league.
i went to bed late... because i had to play the following europe league match against Zürich. scored the opening goal only to receive the late equalizer... anyway! a fair 1:1 and i went to bed very happy. another great night with PES2020!
Pagi84
League 1
Basically I'm relying everything on Mikalov sp?. As his strength and height makes him a half decent target man to hold off defenders for lay offs or score himself.
robbieryan
I dream of occasional fanzine mentions
fefepes
League 1
- 2 July 2018
yeah its crazy imo, do not get it at all. so boring playing AI, no excitement
Pagi84
League 1
I would agree except Master League is a great concept and they removed the online version of that and online often lags or becomes unresponsive making it really horrible to play.
Sobakus
League 2
- 1 October 2018
I feel the opposite. Unless I am playing with friends or people I know, online feels very meaningless and boring... especially since most people, unlike you, just use the same 5-star teams all the time. And the gameplay online is usually much worse. Those of us who like Master League treat the game as more of an RPG I guess.
- Staff
- #4,029
I dont get whats the difference.
Most of the demo I played online. Nearly a month of online matches almost every day.
Goals felt exactly the same to me as they are when Im playing AI.
And I was on manual, so most of the opponents I was paired with were mature people looking for a good game, not just wanting to win at all cost.
Add to it formations like 4-1-5, lags, people rage quitting, flash pausing, spamming some unnatural skills, or sending you vile messages after the match.
Plus - with a 5 year old sleeping next door I can stop it at any stage if she is crying or calling me.
Offline is simply more relaxing and enjoyable for me. Plus I like some sort of structure.
I like to see stamina dropping over matches, players banned, injured.
Same way as you find it boring offline - i find it boring online. Its just match after match after match. With a big potential of having an arsehole on the other side.
totally agree unless it's someone I know online can be a nightmare and full of idiots at times. I really enjoy the AI Cup and league modes
- Staff
- #4,031
Online, if someone has a poor team, they can make gameplay decisions as if they are a great team and it makes no difference to their success. So playing against Barnsley is the same as playing against Barcelona, because it's human nature to try and attack and score as many goals as you can.
This applies to every aspect - e.g. hitting constant through balls to wingers whether the team's strength is there or not, because that's what the player likes to do (in some cases it's ALL THEY KNOW), and the game engine isn't sophisticated enough to inhibit this.
Whereas an AI using a poor team SHOULD play differently, having to use the strengths of their team to advance - making A) each game different, and B) mimic real life (and allowing you to do so with your team). Whereas online, it's miles from realism.
Until gameplay advances football games to a whole new place, where you can't just play one way and succeed with any team, this is how it is. And would people even want it to change? Would people want to have to learn different ways of playing depending on their team's ability?
(I mean, I would - it's my dream - but current gaming culture suggests everyone wants to just pick up a controller and have fun / score great goals without having to think too much about it.)
Gordon Durie and Dave BeasantLooks cool, but what would classic Chelsea be?
PRO_TOO
Team Heffernan
as i know my Bundesliga pretty good but not every other team in europe in detail, its really nice for me to dive into one "new" club in detail! i get to know the team better every day i play. its similar to what the ML offers as a feature... the more the manager plays with the team the better the whole club becomes. i feel that in real life in front of my tv!
how much time i spent browsing the stats and making a plan... sicko (but fun)!and Morelos, wich i did not know till i played the Rangers, is growing on me! and when i watched real life videos of him scoring, i fell in love with him! he really is a player that stands out in my team. i have Defoe as CF as well but he's not getting any younger so i'm looking to sell him after that season and get a young fresh guy with perspective in. he should bring some decent funds into the club.
but Morelos... yes... he is a joy!
i'll keep him for sure and make him player of the year! yeah... look out Messi!!!"Rangers on the rise... and you dont want a problem with these guys!!"
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slamsoze
International
- 28 September 2010
I was holding back for serieB, for a possible datapack, but going today in PESasia on Facebook, and after a post by Buckshot on pesgaming it seems they edited the first announcement.
The first was this
Today it is like this
Seems we can/must patch serieB . Nothing new to expect.
The first was this
Today it is like this
Seems we can/must patch serieB . Nothing new to expect.
xPJRx
PESFX
Don't doubt that mate, Id expect that from a 15 minute match, but Im talking default, 10 min matches.
Really cant disagree with anything you've said here mate, I am enjoying PES20 alot, but only on professional, anything above that is a mechanical, scripted, user-handicapped and stats ignoring mess.
And the revamped ML ?? Seriously?
The new 'dialogue' system is pointless, none of the answers you provide have any effect on you ML whatsoever, where are the fabled player interactions? not once have I seen any interaction with any player or had to make any decisions which affect my game in any way.
The cutscenes for signings and press conferences are identical, the same scenes regurgitated time after time, season after season.
Nothing has changed at all apart from the new black colour of the main ML hub screen.
And this is year 2 of a '3 year grand plan' for Ml?? well f*ck me sideways.
I was holding back for serieB, for a possible datapack, but going today in PESasia on Facebook, and after a post by Buckshot on pesgaming it seems they edited the first announcement.
The first was this
Today it is like this
Seems we can/must patch serieB . Nothing new to expect.
I'm pretty sure that Serie B will be the new Rangers/Celtic saga this year. Promisses and nothing will happen. Konami being Konami.
xPJRx
PESFX
*** Long Post Alert ***
For those that are interested, this is an interesting read, posted on another PES forum, by the guy that used to write the Official Piggyback Strategy guides for PES.
I’m on a break before my next project starts, and this is the most interesting PES for a good few years, so I’m four seasons in on my ML campaign with Derby County. I’ve almost certainly overplayed it over the past couple of weeks, but it’s testament to how good this game is – and could be in the future, with astute tweaks – that I’ve only this weekend started to experience low-to-medium levels of annoyance with select features and foibles. If I were to have played PES 2019 with a similar intensity, I’d have reached “I want to topple mountains onto orphanages” levels of rage and contempt at least ten days ago.
I’ve been very interested to read about everyone’s experiences with the ML AI – especially PESFX's recent comments regarding the mechanical nature of the game on Top player and above, as it seems that I’m now experiencing something very similar. I’ve been on Top Player for all four completed seasons, with no real meaningful tactical shifts, but the way that the AI has played against me has *definitely* changed. I was going to switch to Superstar at the start of my last campaign, but then decided to take a meaningful tilt at the title first: Derby are only intended to be a waypoint before I take the reins at a real minnow in a semi-randomised ML world with very specific house rules. I went on to win the league, the Europa League, and the FA Cup – but it became a real chore.
After completing that surprisingly underwhelming treble, and having flirted with Superstar in pre-season, I have a lot of thoughts on how certain aspects of the ML AI might work.
First things first: I think the (almost miraculously superb) match ball is almost entirely systems-based and is sacrosanct as far as the simulation is concerned. The AI doesn’t appear to ever “cheat” with the physics to give itself lucky bounces for tap-ins, or suchlike. Instead, the coders apply buffs or debuffs to the players themselves: specifically acceleration, reactions, strength and “magnetism”, the force that helps steer players into direct possession of the ball.
PES 2020 employs a variety of different AI templates that determine how teams approach a fixture. These govern shifts in the attack/defence level, but also scale the intensity of AI play with slider-style stats witchcraft, or by secretly activating tactics that the team do not actually have in their repertoire (particularly gegenpress-style swarming). When it’s subtle, this adds granularity to the match experience – but when it goes overboard, it makes PES feel mechanical and unfair.
(A classic example of how AI match templates function can be found in the difference between league and cup matches. The cup template for single knockout fixtures gives matches a very different feel to league games, with opponents often favouring attacking play and even switching to all-out attack from early in the second half if they’re behind. My Europa campaign also introduced me to very distinct AI tuning and tactics for matches played over two legs in that competition.)
The better you are doing, the more reactive the AI becomes. First year in the Premier League (my third ML season), I was struggling against the top teams that by default favour proactive attacking football, grinding out wins against defensive relegation candidates, and enjoying my most fruitful, high-scoring matches against mid-table sides who would actually come out and play, but lacked the real firepower to punish me for doing the same. During my title-winning season, with perhaps a few too many wins under my belt for the liking of the PES “hand behind the curtain”, it became harder to detect any real individuality in each opponent – apart from the attack-focused top sides, who I was routinely scoring three, four or five against, and marvelling at their apparent passivity compared to the previous season. Meanwhile, mid-table sides became a low-scoring chore, and games against relegation candidates were consistently awful.
(Swansea, in particular, can fuck the fuck right off.)
I think I know why this is. The PES 2020 adaptive difficulty code overrides certain elements of a team’s tactics to stop *you* from playing, rather than to identify and exploit your potential weaknesses. I can understand why: reactive football is much easier to code than a more expressive, imaginative proactive style. Score via too many through-balls or passes into feet in the box, which most of us here seem to favour, and your opponents will all start using a deeper defensive line.
The problem here is that this completely breaks the challenge of facing the top teams. By dropping the defence deeper for the likes of Man City and Liverpool, the gaps between the three banks of players – back line, midfield, forwards – are more pronounced. Without compressing the play, it’s harder for them to win the ball, and to find a route to goal when they do. Conversely, making the more defensive teams sit even deeper and narrower, while increasing their defensive aggression, makes them the real powerhouse opponents of any given season, even if the league table doesn’t ever reflect that.
(There are a few Premier League teams who use the Hug the Touchline tactic, and this is especially vile when combined with a deep back line – overt or secret – because it spreads their team all over the pitch. You either throw everyone forward, or drop off and let them play through you, because pressing will see you chase shadows in their half for the entire match.)
In what might be the most gratifyingly systems-oriented PES in many years, there’s a particularly nasty old trick that the Konami devs have retained to make defensive teams (especially those lining up in a 4-2-3-1) pose a threat in attack: instanced stat doping and force fields for wingers and strikers, irrespective of their true attributes. I’ve seen a 64-rated LMF withstand three defenders at once without ever flinching or reverting to the shielding animation, and do this – while also outpacing everyone on the field – for an entire ninety minutes.
The worst examples of PES 2020 pulling strings cropped up during the Europa knockout rounds, where teams weak on paper performed like gods on the pitch. I wouldn’t mind that so much in isolation, but PES was also blatantly applying stat reductions and other penalties to my players. It’s also as if the game reduced magnetism for my players to a trace level, as I had to wrestle with Super Cancel to even get them to move to the ball. Any use of sprint led individuals to be decked instantly, without a peep from the ref, while I was getting booked for elementary tackles – three or four per match. I also conceded six penalties in these Europa games – but only *one* in every other fixture that season!
(The Europa group stages, incidentally, have teams generally sit back. The final uses the usual attack-heavy cup template. I barely scraped through on away goals after 180 minutes of hell against a superpowered Rangers in the quarter-final, but thrashed a full-strength Arsenal 7-1 to lift the cup because they threw a defender up front, at 2-1 down, from the 54th minute.)
My conclusion – and a TL;DR for anyone who wants one – is that the PES 2020 ML AI in its current form will tip the scales to spoil elements of your play that it deems to be too successful, and dramatically so when you begin to win too many games. Adaptive difficulty is real, and can serve up some truly ugly, frustrating, unfair matches.
The two games that I played on Superstar last night were the worst experience I’ve had with PES 2020 so far. It felt as if the AI’s current adaptive difficulty settings for my ML, plus the jump to Superstar, plus the fact that it was a pre-season tournament (for the cup-specific aggression boost) all conspired to serve up a dizzying maelstrom of PES United and Celtic players sprinting at 99 pace to smash my drunk and disoriented players to the turf with mechanical consistency. It felt like Legend+ difficulty. It felt broken.
And so oddly, from *really* enjoying the game until very recently, I’m not quite sure where to go from here. I’m now wondering if the AI’s repertoire of adaptations follow you from club to club. I’ll give Derby another couple of tries on Superstar – but if that doesn’t work, perhaps a fresh start elsewhere might
For those that are interested, this is an interesting read, posted on another PES forum, by the guy that used to write the Official Piggyback Strategy guides for PES.
I’m on a break before my next project starts, and this is the most interesting PES for a good few years, so I’m four seasons in on my ML campaign with Derby County. I’ve almost certainly overplayed it over the past couple of weeks, but it’s testament to how good this game is – and could be in the future, with astute tweaks – that I’ve only this weekend started to experience low-to-medium levels of annoyance with select features and foibles. If I were to have played PES 2019 with a similar intensity, I’d have reached “I want to topple mountains onto orphanages” levels of rage and contempt at least ten days ago.
I’ve been very interested to read about everyone’s experiences with the ML AI – especially PESFX's recent comments regarding the mechanical nature of the game on Top player and above, as it seems that I’m now experiencing something very similar. I’ve been on Top Player for all four completed seasons, with no real meaningful tactical shifts, but the way that the AI has played against me has *definitely* changed. I was going to switch to Superstar at the start of my last campaign, but then decided to take a meaningful tilt at the title first: Derby are only intended to be a waypoint before I take the reins at a real minnow in a semi-randomised ML world with very specific house rules. I went on to win the league, the Europa League, and the FA Cup – but it became a real chore.
After completing that surprisingly underwhelming treble, and having flirted with Superstar in pre-season, I have a lot of thoughts on how certain aspects of the ML AI might work.
First things first: I think the (almost miraculously superb) match ball is almost entirely systems-based and is sacrosanct as far as the simulation is concerned. The AI doesn’t appear to ever “cheat” with the physics to give itself lucky bounces for tap-ins, or suchlike. Instead, the coders apply buffs or debuffs to the players themselves: specifically acceleration, reactions, strength and “magnetism”, the force that helps steer players into direct possession of the ball.
PES 2020 employs a variety of different AI templates that determine how teams approach a fixture. These govern shifts in the attack/defence level, but also scale the intensity of AI play with slider-style stats witchcraft, or by secretly activating tactics that the team do not actually have in their repertoire (particularly gegenpress-style swarming). When it’s subtle, this adds granularity to the match experience – but when it goes overboard, it makes PES feel mechanical and unfair.
(A classic example of how AI match templates function can be found in the difference between league and cup matches. The cup template for single knockout fixtures gives matches a very different feel to league games, with opponents often favouring attacking play and even switching to all-out attack from early in the second half if they’re behind. My Europa campaign also introduced me to very distinct AI tuning and tactics for matches played over two legs in that competition.)
The better you are doing, the more reactive the AI becomes. First year in the Premier League (my third ML season), I was struggling against the top teams that by default favour proactive attacking football, grinding out wins against defensive relegation candidates, and enjoying my most fruitful, high-scoring matches against mid-table sides who would actually come out and play, but lacked the real firepower to punish me for doing the same. During my title-winning season, with perhaps a few too many wins under my belt for the liking of the PES “hand behind the curtain”, it became harder to detect any real individuality in each opponent – apart from the attack-focused top sides, who I was routinely scoring three, four or five against, and marvelling at their apparent passivity compared to the previous season. Meanwhile, mid-table sides became a low-scoring chore, and games against relegation candidates were consistently awful.
(Swansea, in particular, can fuck the fuck right off.)
I think I know why this is. The PES 2020 adaptive difficulty code overrides certain elements of a team’s tactics to stop *you* from playing, rather than to identify and exploit your potential weaknesses. I can understand why: reactive football is much easier to code than a more expressive, imaginative proactive style. Score via too many through-balls or passes into feet in the box, which most of us here seem to favour, and your opponents will all start using a deeper defensive line.
The problem here is that this completely breaks the challenge of facing the top teams. By dropping the defence deeper for the likes of Man City and Liverpool, the gaps between the three banks of players – back line, midfield, forwards – are more pronounced. Without compressing the play, it’s harder for them to win the ball, and to find a route to goal when they do. Conversely, making the more defensive teams sit even deeper and narrower, while increasing their defensive aggression, makes them the real powerhouse opponents of any given season, even if the league table doesn’t ever reflect that.
(There are a few Premier League teams who use the Hug the Touchline tactic, and this is especially vile when combined with a deep back line – overt or secret – because it spreads their team all over the pitch. You either throw everyone forward, or drop off and let them play through you, because pressing will see you chase shadows in their half for the entire match.)
In what might be the most gratifyingly systems-oriented PES in many years, there’s a particularly nasty old trick that the Konami devs have retained to make defensive teams (especially those lining up in a 4-2-3-1) pose a threat in attack: instanced stat doping and force fields for wingers and strikers, irrespective of their true attributes. I’ve seen a 64-rated LMF withstand three defenders at once without ever flinching or reverting to the shielding animation, and do this – while also outpacing everyone on the field – for an entire ninety minutes.
The worst examples of PES 2020 pulling strings cropped up during the Europa knockout rounds, where teams weak on paper performed like gods on the pitch. I wouldn’t mind that so much in isolation, but PES was also blatantly applying stat reductions and other penalties to my players. It’s also as if the game reduced magnetism for my players to a trace level, as I had to wrestle with Super Cancel to even get them to move to the ball. Any use of sprint led individuals to be decked instantly, without a peep from the ref, while I was getting booked for elementary tackles – three or four per match. I also conceded six penalties in these Europa games – but only *one* in every other fixture that season!
(The Europa group stages, incidentally, have teams generally sit back. The final uses the usual attack-heavy cup template. I barely scraped through on away goals after 180 minutes of hell against a superpowered Rangers in the quarter-final, but thrashed a full-strength Arsenal 7-1 to lift the cup because they threw a defender up front, at 2-1 down, from the 54th minute.)
My conclusion – and a TL;DR for anyone who wants one – is that the PES 2020 ML AI in its current form will tip the scales to spoil elements of your play that it deems to be too successful, and dramatically so when you begin to win too many games. Adaptive difficulty is real, and can serve up some truly ugly, frustrating, unfair matches.
The two games that I played on Superstar last night were the worst experience I’ve had with PES 2020 so far. It felt as if the AI’s current adaptive difficulty settings for my ML, plus the jump to Superstar, plus the fact that it was a pre-season tournament (for the cup-specific aggression boost) all conspired to serve up a dizzying maelstrom of PES United and Celtic players sprinting at 99 pace to smash my drunk and disoriented players to the turf with mechanical consistency. It felt like Legend+ difficulty. It felt broken.
And so oddly, from *really* enjoying the game until very recently, I’m not quite sure where to go from here. I’m now wondering if the AI’s repertoire of adaptations follow you from club to club. I’ll give Derby another couple of tries on Superstar – but if that doesn’t work, perhaps a fresh start elsewhere might
Negatrev
Premier League
- 19 September 2003
I didn't like his lack of Stamina, so I used Giois (SPL?) as a False 9 with Arcas and the left footed AM who's name escapes me (as he was the player who lost his place to a better set piece taker who could actually dribble!) behind him. He did score a decent number of goals, but his dribbling and workrate were the key to my formation.
fefepes
League 1
- 2 July 2018
its just about competition. pitting yourself against some one else. see who wins
the AI is souless and doesnt offer much satisfaction imo
offline can be laggy etc and i understand why people dont wanna play it but when it works its the only way to play pes other than local human vs human
i have not use any 1 player modes in pes since pes 3 or 4 days i dont think, i just get bored. actually last time i did it was pes 14 when ronaldo wa sback in game so i did copa libertores, only thrill was scoring with el phenomino
Only enjoy playing human opponents when in the same room. The enjoyment for me comes out of not just ability of the game but the atmosphere when you're in same space. You can have a good player lose because of pressure and banter.
Impossible to recreate online, plus most players are dicks.
Also I grew up gaming when there was no online. Friends went home for the day it was you against the CPU.
Was also the perfect way to perfect a games intricacies by mastering it v the CPU. If you could master Master League with the default players on the hardest difficulty, no human player could beat you.
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Aribo n Ojo
League 1
- 29 July 2019
The problem with online gaming these days compared to 10-15 years ago is the win at all cost attitude. So they will try every exploit under the sun for an advanatge. Also the fact we cannot see what teams each other picks these days so more often than not its constant Real v Barca matches or has been through the years.
PES ai is pretty fun to play against and the last Fifa i bought the ai was fun to play against so no need for the raise of blood pressure compared to if i was playing a human on Fifa who would go 1 up and then pass it around the back four for the next 60 mins (is that still a thing?)
Negatrev
Premier League
- 19 September 2003
A lot of the issue with the teams sitting deep after you've had some success comes from most of the PL teams (if not all, I haven't looked) has DEEP DEFENSIVE LINE as one of their advanced tactics and as soon as you appear a threat, lots of teams use their most defensive tactics (sometimes combined with a def mentality) against you from the off. A bit more tactical variety among the teams would decrease this boredom.
I've only just got into the Europa League (starting 4th season soon with Reading ML defaults) so it will be interesting to see if I find any super powered teams there. But in my FA Cup matches last season (I got to the semis) the weak teams I played certainly weren't boosted at all. Only in one game had it felt a little handicapped for me and that was in the second match in the cup. In this match I needed to rest a lot of players and so my team mentality went from it's usual high 80s/early 90s to about 65-70, so I was expecting my players to have a few issues anyway.
Fingers crossed I don't suffer the same issues as him as I'm now also starting my 4th season playing on TP...
Negatrev
Premier League
- 19 September 2003
3 seasons on and Arcas is still a starting AM. But I have fairly strict rules on how I recruit to make the game feel more realistic for me (only BUY players who've been scouted, the rest must be youth or free signings/end of contract). His finishing still isn't great but he has great short passing and ball control making him a dream in that position. The only thing I'd really like to improve is his tight possession stat, but then maybe I'd enjoy him less as I wouldn't need to be so fleet footed with him!Castledine and Arcas, my favourite duo to achieve my goals
aussiepesfan
Champions League
- 17 April 2002
Just out of interest, which PES do you think was better than PES2020? In terms of the number of PRO's vs CON's, PES2020 is the new King. I loved pes5/6 PC, the we9LE PC, and we8/9/10jl's of PS2 glory days, but really, nothing comes close to PES2020. Animations, ball physics, physicality, AI variety, full manual, mistakes and mishits, no catch up bug,.. pretty damn special this year.
Negatrev
Premier League
- 19 September 2003
I find that almost every new release means I can never really go back. There are versions (like last year) where I play a lot less as it's just not fun enough, but even with a bad new version, it still usually brings too much good stuff that means I don't want to play an old one again.
pes.player88
Conference
- 30 August 2018
That's still there..
ad_
Inselaffe vom Festland
- 27 September 2014
- Chelsea
I haven't noticed that, yet.
Negatrev
Premier League
- 19 September 2003
It depends on what you think is meant by catch-up bug. I don't see players honing in on my faster players double-dashing with the ball like we had this issue with in the past.
pes.player88
Conference
- 30 August 2018
You are lucky then.
Catch up bug: Salah has a 10 yard gap on some one (I have seen defenders with low 60's speed catch salah) I knock the ball ahead of me and the defender still catches up as if Salah had 45 speed.