It's random as you have no direct input on how quickly or slowly the player reacts to the training and learns the skill; the game decides. In CM, the player's attributes increase directly in line with my performance in the skill games. If I do badly, they don't develop as quickly.
And that's fine; if you don't like it then you don't like it but it doesn't mean that it doesn't add depth to CM. It's there if you want it, as opposed to nothing in ML.
Well that's down to how you use it, it's not the game's fault. There are several skills games per training type and you can mix up the players each time. You choosing not to can't be blamed on CM.
It's better enough to matter as the alternative is literally nothing. It adds depth that ML doesn't. Same with the negotiations; it's far from the greatest system but it adds more than the alternative.
Again, the game offers you the chance to change it to suit you with the sliders. I find I can get a fairly decent balance and have had the odd injury crisis. I haven't played this year's ML for long enough to notice any injuries, as I just couldn't bring myself to stick with it, however in years gone by there has been literally no injuries at all. Great that PES seem to have sorted it, however I've had a satisfactory number of injuries for years on FIFA.
But that's pretty much how form works in real life, when you're on good form then you're more confident and have a gpod chance to carry on your run. However, that's where injuries and fatigue come in and change things. You rotate; you slip up; your form slips up. In PES, the form changes are just random. I had Mo Salah scoring three in four games and for the fifth game he had a downwards form arrow; makes no sense.
To conclude; I'm in no way saying that CM is fantastic. It leaves a lot to be desired, however in the spirit of a comparison thread, it is night and day the better of the two modes. For me, CM is 100x better than ML and has depth that keeps me playing it for most of the year; I can't even manage a week or so on ML and I, like many including probably yourself, have lived and breathed ML over the years. I'd play it through season after season but over the years it has regressed; features removed and now it's just a hollow shell with daft nicknames and a bunch of glorified exhibition matches. Feels so far from what made ML great; CM keeps me engaged, maybe not like ML used to at its peak, but still long enough for me to fully appreciate the game.
Fair enough. I think you're the first person I've heard that actually plays the skill games for player training, so good on you for that. Personally that's not how I want to spend my time, doing skill games, but I'll give you that if you do use it that way, then yes, player training in CM is a deeper experience than in ML.
But I wouldn't say it's not a problem with how I use it - I use it the way it makes the most sense. You're told which players have the most potential for growth, so in terms of reaping value from player growth, it makes sense to focus on those players. Meanwhile FIFA has always rewarded certain play styles and attributes more than others, so it makes sense just to focus on those. For CBs it really makes only sense to train their defensive attributes; wingers it's always pace and dribbling; strikers the finishing skill games, maybe pace and dribbling too; etc.
So for me, it's an extremely repetitive experience that is equally unrealistic. I mean this is like having a manager pick out five players from their squad and telling them to train while the rest sit on their asses between matches and do nothing. This is like a manager choosing five highly rated youngsters and turning them into world beaters within two years, no question asked, no doubts to whether they'll realize their potential. If that's not unrealistic and essentially a cheat, I don't know what is. Meh, too each's own I guess. For me it's a shitty system that if it wasn't there wouldn't bother me in the least and if anything would actually make CM a bit more challenging.
But beyond training, what else is there really? And when it comes to form, yes and no. There's nothing that you said that is wrong about form, but still the way it plays out in CM is totally unrealistic - you don't
ever see a player IRL go through an entire season on form
every single game but this is the case in CM, every time. Once I get a player on good form in CM, usually after the first few games, then he's on good form the entire season.
And that's how it'll be for just about every player on the team. IRL how often would you go into a match with all players on the best form they could be? And that's
every single match (or close to it).
So yes, the randomness of PES's form is unrealistic, but in the end the result is more realistic than CM because over the length of the year, ML captures the ups and downs better. Squad rotation/selection is such a big part of being a manager and in CM unless you pick up the odd injury or get fucked with unrealistic scheduling, there's zero reason to really ever rotate. Unless they change it so that getting and staying on good form is more difficult, all form is in CM is an attribute boost. Considering how easy CM has been in the last few years, that's the last thing it needs and it makes the experience shallower, not deeper.
Again, you're absolutely right that CM is better. Maybe I've been playing the mode so long I'm just pissed at how little depth has been added throughout the years. For me it remains such a shallow experience that captures very little of what managing a club is about, that it's tough for me to concede that there's much depth at all. Yes it looks 1,000 times better than ML, and yes it's implemented far better, but for me all my CMs are essentially the same, with very little variety and depth. If it is a deeper experience than ML, it ain't by much IMO.
