As someone who really went off pes in a big way early this year, or even in november after downloading patches, I certainly have no real desire or excitement about pes 2021, and doubt I'll go anywhere near it. I think pes is stale and has virtually no tech in it, bar some nice animations, for.players and the ball. In fact, at times, I feel a certain level of contempt for how mediocre it is and wonder how anyone can enjoy it, but...
I do find the nature of the questioning of strangelyenough a bit much. Some of the sarcasm directed his way is a bit tedious, especially the tired old placebo allegations.
Placebo seems to be used as a catch all attack on anyone who sees something they do like, dont like, or sees something that is now better or worse. In my experience, pes 2020 changed quite wildly at times between data packs, mostly in a way I didnt like. The idea that those changes were simply placebo is a dubious contention, suggesting that i, or anyone else, was actively looking for a data pack to spoil positive aspects of pes 20, and even though it didnt, i or anyone else simply invented those changes for ourselves. Presumably, because I was looking for pes to become worse so I could stop having fun with a game I paid for.
One thing that needs to be considered, and its uncomfortable for us all, is that some of us are more sensitive to changes than others. I dont consider myself particular sensitive to them, I just tend to notice certain things while completely missing the positives or negatives pointed out by others, even if i try looking for them. In addition, our overall attitude to a game will have a huge impact on how objectively we assess the impact of a patch. If we are tired of pes, if we just think its stale as hell, subtle changes wont register as we'll be bored of it within seconds. That's happened to me pretty much since February.
Simply dismissing something as placebo, especially if its subjective, rather than objectively measurable things like the number of fouls, catchup bug, ability to wrong foot the AI using right stick, probably reveals more about ourselves than the person seeing whatever they're seeing.