Legend difficulty rant (PES 2021)

[PogChampion]

If you're looking for some realism, don't you dare come anywhere near Legend difficulty

The more I play it the more I hate it. In first couple of seasons I kinda struggled against top teams and gained my points against the weaker sides, which is completely normal. No big deal.

Now I'm in my 4th season with Chelsea, have a score of 15 wins, 2 ties and 6 losses.

Here are some of the teams I've beaten:

Manchester United
Manchester City
Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur
Everton
Leicester
(Have in mind most of these were easy wins by 2 or more goals)

2 ties were against the mighty Sheffield and Arsenal

and the losses?

Obviously against all top teams!!

Burnley
Fulham
Newcastle
Leeds
Bournemouth
Wolves

It's a total joke how the AI works completely different when playing against weak sides. They will usually play all defense from the 1st minute and you basically can't do sh**. If you're lucky you might score but it actually has to be a perfectly executed attack, and I repeat, a PERFECTLY executed attack, because you can forget about counter attacks.

Oh and did I mention that your defense is a complete opposite? Expect a bunch of weird bounces, sluggish reactions from your centre backs, GK going braindead, all which will lead to you conceding a goal eventually.

I went to legend difficulty because I needed more challenge than superstar, but the more I play it, the more unrealistic it's getting. It was actually fun at start because you really had to try hard to win any match. Now I don't even have to worry against the top teams but I have to be prepared for a 10-15 minute torture when playing against the likes of Nottingham Forest or WBA.

I'm not going back to superstar because it's no longer fun for me, but I'm already losing interest with legend just after one ML session.

 

[MKC]

If you're looking for some realism, don't you dare come anywhere near Legend difficulty

The more I play it the more I hate it. In first couple of seasons I kinda struggled against top teams and gained my points against the weaker sides, which is completely normal. No big deal.

Now I'm in my 4th season with Chelsea, have a score of 15 wins, 2 ties and 6 losses.

Here are some of the teams I've beaten:

Manchester United
Manchester City
Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur
Everton
Leicester
(Have in mind most of these were easy wins by 2 or more goals)

2 ties were against the mighty Sheffield and Arsenal

and the losses?

Obviously against all top teams!!

Burnley
Fulham
Newcastle
Leeds
Bournemouth
Wolves

It's a total joke how the AI works completely different when playing against weak sides. They will usually play all defense from the 1st minute and you basically can't do sh**. If you're lucky you might score but it actually has to be a perfectly executed attack, and I repeat, a PERFECTLY executed attack, because you can forget about counter attacks.

Oh and did I mention that your defense is a complete opposite? Expect a bunch of weird bounces, sluggish reactions from your centre backs, GK going braindead, all which will lead to you conceding a goal eventually.

I went to legend difficulty because I needed more challenge than superstar, but the more I play it, the more unrealistic it's getting. It was actually fun at start because you really had to try hard to win any match. Now I don't even have to worry against the top teams but I have to be prepared for a 10-15 minute torture when playing against the likes of Nottingham Forest or WBA.

I'm not going back to superstar because it's no longer fun for me, but I'm already losing interest with legend just after one ML session.

I know how you feel, my friend, back in PES2018 i had the same problem, but i had always done my best to play on the hardest difficulty setting, or else it wasn't "legit" to me, something like that, stupid pride on my behalf.

After getting sacked in my ML, with a terrible campaign, i decided to drop down to easier difficulties, but yes, it wasn't much of a challenge, since i was so used to Legend. So what i did after that was... Drop down even further, this probably doesn't make much sense, but there's a twist!

Full Manual, those are the control settings i've been using ever since, it's much harder to do anything, passing, shooting, crossing... However that's the entire point, because now i could comfortably play on Regular, Professional or Top Player, and have very balanced matches overall, where the A.I. was much more reasonable.

Definitely recommend that you give it a shot, it's tough getting into it at first, but the way i did it worked well, i began on the 1st difficulty setting, the easiest one, i think it was called "Begginer", and i played a few matches, trying to get a hold of the controls on FUMA, eventually it became easy to win, so i moved up to the 2nd difficulty setting, "Amateur" i think, and i just kept repeating the process until i moved up to Regular and eventually Professional.

 

[TyDog2021]

If you're looking for some realism, don't you dare come anywhere near Legend difficulty

The more I play it the more I hate it. In first couple of seasons I kinda struggled against top teams and gained my points against the weaker sides, which is completely normal. No big deal.

Now I'm in my 4th season with Chelsea, have a score of 15 wins, 2 ties and 6 losses.

Here are some of the teams I've beaten:

Manchester United
Manchester City
Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur
Everton
Leicester
(Have in mind most of these were easy wins by 2 or more goals)

2 ties were against the mighty Sheffield and Arsenal

and the losses?

Obviously against all top teams!!

Burnley
Fulham
Newcastle
Leeds
Bournemouth
Wolves

It's a total joke how the AI works completely different when playing against weak sides. They will usually play all defense from the 1st minute and you basically can't do sh**. If you're lucky you might score but it actually has to be a perfectly executed attack, and I repeat, a PERFECTLY executed attack, because you can forget about counter attacks.

Oh and did I mention that your defense is a complete opposite? Expect a bunch of weird bounces, sluggish reactions from your centre backs, GK going braindead, all which will lead to you conceding a goal eventually.

I went to legend difficulty because I needed more challenge than superstar, but the more I play it, the more unrealistic it's getting. It was actually fun at start because you really had to try hard to win any match. Now I don't even have to worry against the top teams but I have to be prepared for a 10-15 minute torture when playing against the likes of Nottingham Forest or WBA.

I'm not going back to superstar because it's no longer fun for me, but I'm already losing interest with legend just after one ML session.

And you make up a new thread just to say this been known for a long time mate @Tom

 

[PogChampion]

I know how you feel, my friend, back in PES2018 i had the same problem, but i had always done my best to play on the hardest difficulty setting, or else it wasn't "legit" to me, something like that, stupid pride on my behalf.

After getting sacked in my ML, with a terrible campaign, i decided to drop down to easier difficulties, but yes, it wasn't much of a challenge, since i was so used to Legend. So what i did after that was... Drop down even further, this probably doesn't make much sense, but there's a twist!

Full Manual, those are the control settings i've been using ever since, it's much harder to do anything, passing, shooting, crossing... However that's the entire point, because now i could comfortably play on Regular, Professional or Top Player, and have very balanced matches overall, where the A.I. was much more reasonable.

Definitely recommend that you give it a shot, it's tough getting into it at first, but the way i did it worked well, i began on the 1st difficulty setting, the easiest one, i think it was called "Begginer", and i played a few matches, trying to get a hold of the controls on FUMA, eventually it became easy to win, so i moved up to the 2nd difficulty setting, "Amateur" i think, and i just kept repeating the process until i moved up to Regular and eventually Professional.

This sounds fun. I'll consider it when I decide to play again. I think I had enough of PES for a while

 

[InfaRedd]

I absolutely hate this game and I have no idea why I still keep playing it. I've downloading every gameplay mod thinking something is gonna change and it never does. I feel like I've gone insane. Legend and PES in general is a giant stink sandwich and I hate that I keep taking a bite.

 

[Marlon Anthony]

Legend difficulty was never intended to offer a realistic or simulative challenge, It's purpose is supposed to be that it's a horribly hard difficulty to play on. It's just the problem is that it's not difficult because it offers the ultimate in CPU intelligence and challenge but rather the ultimate in handicapping the player and making every input of yours completely ineffective which yes is generally poor programming.

It doesn't make the AI smarter or more challenging necessarily, It just makes your players slower, less accurate, passing and shooting weaker if your'e even lucky to beat the input delay imposed on you, Your team will never mark nor make runs while the CPU's defence is constantly back and organised to precision and homing missile presses any one of your attackers who receive the ball.

It's like smelling a toilet brush, What do you expect it to smell like? The solution is to swallow your pride and stop forcing yourself through the game on this difficulty. There's nothing to prove by doing so and it'll be horribly rigged forever.

 

[Legatus]

If you think ML sucks on Legend, try Become a Legend.... Opponents are on Legend difficulty and your teammates are Top Player, at best.

 

[PogChampion]

Legend difficulty was never intended to offer a realistic or simulative challenge, It's purpose is supposed to be that it's a horribly hard difficulty to play on. It's just the problem is that it's not difficult because it offers the ultimate in CPU intelligence and challenge but rather the ultimate in handicapping the player and making every input of yours completely ineffective which yes is generally poor programming.

It doesn't make the AI smarter or more challenging necessarily, It just makes your players slower, less accurate, passing and shooting weaker if your'e even lucky to beat the input delay imposed on you, Your team will never mark nor make runs while the CPU's defence is constantly back and organised to precision and homing missile presses any one of your attackers who receive the ball.

It's like smelling a toilet brush, What do you expect it to smell like? The solution is to swallow your pride and stop forcing yourself through the game on this difficulty. There's nothing to prove by doing so and it'll be horribly rigged forever.

I've said why I'm playing on legend, has nothing to do with my pride or proving to myself. Superstar is way too easy which equals boring, and I never said I'm struggling at Legend, yea I struggle to win against shitty teams but on the other hand it's very easy to beat a top team, no logic... Comprende? Capiche?

 

[Chris Davies]

It's a shame we don't have the choice of switching handicaps on or off. But that's how PES difficulty has always worked -the AI and/or the engine simply isn't advanced enough to outplay you to win, and this has been my major issue with the game since the PSX days.

If I could go back in time and count all the times in a PES game that I've been through on goal, one-on-one and either A) my player stops sprinting or B) I press shoot, and he carries on for a good 4-5 steps, at which point the keeper comes out to save the ball and/or the defender cuts across me and regains possession... Then I'd say it would be in the high hundreds.

Comprende? Capiche?

Please refrain from the (completely unneccessary) attitude.

 

[Marlon Anthony]

I've said why I'm playing on legend, has nothing to do with my pride or proving to myself. Superstar is way too easy which equals boring, and I never said I'm struggling at Legend, yea I struggle to win against shitty teams but on the other hand it's very easy to beat a top team, no logic... Comprende? Capiche?

Well my reply wasn't actually directed at you in general but rather the topic of committing to playing on unsatisfying difficulties in general. I know how it feels as when the game starts cheating, It's blatant and can really make you feel like you're being screwed, Your blood boils & that you've really wasted your time invested.

But I think generally, people need to take a step back and ask themselves if they should keep playing something they don't enjoy or find a compromise like lowering the difficulty & playing with a weaker team or experimenting with manual.

It's a shame we don't have the choice of switching handicaps on or off. But that's how PES difficulty has always worked -the AI and/or the engine simply isn't advanced enough to outplay you to win, and this has been my major issue with the game since the PSX days.

If I could go back in time and count all the times in a PES game that I've been through on goal, one-on-one and either A) my player stops sprinting or B) I press shoot, and he carries on for a good 4-5 steps, at which point the keeper comes out to save the ball and/or the defender cuts across me and regains possession... Then I'd say it would be in the high hundreds.


Please refrain from the (completely unneccessary) attitude.

Yeah I wouldn't mind if the top difficulty was the only one with handicaps or was at least named appropriately as "God difficulty" (I don't think calling it "Bullshit difficultly" would get approved even if it's the most accurate description)

But the handicap/scripting can also at times enable itself in lower difficulties such as professional, especially in ML which doesn't make sense. It's literally one difficulty up from Regular and it's already insane at times too. Isn't the point of difficulties supposed to be to feel at ease playing something on your skill level, not something that says one thing but ends up being harder anyway for the sake of deception?

 

[Hatrickhero]

It's a shame we don't have the choice of switching handicaps on or off. But that's how PES difficulty has always worked -the AI and/or the engine simply isn't advanced enough to outplay you to win, and this has been my major issue with the game since the PSX days.

If I could go back in time and count all the times in a PES game that I've been through on goal, one-on-one and either A) my player stops sprinting or B) I press shoot, and he carries on for a good 4-5 steps, at which point the keeper comes out to save the ball and/or the defender cuts across me and regains possession... Then I'd say it would be in the high hundreds.


Please refrain from the (completely unneccessary) attitude.

it wasn t like this in the ps2 games no way, it was much more balanced, much more varied cpu attacks etc..

 

[Stringer]

I find Professional the perfect difficulty; not easy, yet not frustratingly hard. Anything from Top Player and above is too much for me.

 

[DevPlays]

I find Professional the perfect difficulty; not easy, yet not frustratingly hard. Anything from Top Player and above is too much for me.

Same for me as well.. I am playing with my keyboard. So, FUMA is impossible. I don't have a controller. If I had it, then I would be playing FUMA in Top Player/Superstar difficulty.. Life sucks man .. 🤣😂

 

[BrendaBruna]

Same for me as well.. I am playing with my keyboard. So, FUMA is impossible. I don't have a controller. If I had it, then I would be playing FUMA in Top Player/Superstar difficulty.. Life sucks man .. 🤣😂

I almost relate, because I do have a controller, however, I'm too used to play on the keyboard, so I only use my old controller for penalties, because that's something I absolutely cannot do on the keyboard.

As to FUMA, I'm not a fan, but I do use a lot of manual passing. On the keyboard, FUMA is unviable for building plays and keeping possession, but sometimes a single manual pass can break the opposite defense like no amount of assistance would. I also tend to use more manual passing on my line of defense. So basically, I play with assistance for purposes of possession game, but at the same time I use manual passing in my line of defense and also for most of the through balls or when I feel like trying something less predictable - or more risky, which I do on purpose to counter the amount of assistance provided on PA1, which is too much, so mixing up manual passing with the assistance if you can't go FUMA is almost perfect, it ends up being closer to the PA0.5 that KONAMI should've implemented in the first place, something like what we see on PES 2011.

 

[slamsoze]

I almost relate, because I do have a controller, however, I'm too used to play on the keyboard, so I only use my old controller for penalties, because that's something I absolutely cannot do on the keyboard.

As to FUMA, I'm not a fan, but I do use a lot of manual passing. On the keyboard, FUMA is unviable for building plays and keeping possession, but sometimes a single manual pass can break the opposite defense like no amount of assistance would. I also tend to use more manual passing on my line of defense. So basically, I play with assistance for purposes of possession game, but at the same time I use manual passing in my line of defense and also for most of the through balls or when I feel like trying something less predictable - or more risky, which I do on purpose to counter the amount of assistance provided on PA1, which is too much, so mixing up manual passing with the assistance if you can't go FUMA is almost perfect, it ends up being closer to the PA0.5 that KONAMI should've implemented in the first place, something like what we see on PES 2011.

Same for me as well.. I am playing with my keyboard. So, FUMA is impossible. I don't have a controller. If I had it, then I would be playing FUMA in Top Player/Superstar difficulty.. Life sucks man .. 🤣😂

This is coming from someone that played on keyboard religiously , from FIFA 99 till PES 2015. Guys take a gamepad (if financially possible of course). I realised on PES2015 that i was making my life harder and i was missing some key points of play options, like aim 360 direction with manual passing/shooting. So i purchased an XBOX 360 for Windows. I struggled a lot in the beggining, but once i got familiar with Analog stick, my life became easier.

I am telling this to you, cause since PES 2011~2013 i was trying to adapt to gamepad, with not any success, tried with the D-pad cross in the first steps, but always was returning back to keyboard. Once on PES2015 and pushed my self on analogue stick, after 2 months of intensive play sessions, i was in a decent control level.

I know that the solidarity of moving in the 8 basic directions with keyboard, cannot be achieved with any D-pad or Analog stick, but you sacrifise much more, imho always.

 

[PogChampion]

This is coming from someone that played on keyboard religiously , from FIFA 99 till PES 2015. Guys take a gamepad (if financially possible of course). I realised on PES2015 that i was making my life harder and i was missing some key points of play options, like aim 360 direction with manual passing/shooting. So i purchased an XBOX 360 for Windows. I struggled a lot in the beggining, but once i got familiar with Analog stick, my life became easier.

I am telling this to you, cause since PES 2011~2013 i was trying to adapt to gamepad, with not any success, tried with the D-pad cross in the first steps, but always was returning back to keyboard. Once on PES2015 and pushed my self on analogue stick, after 2 months of intensive play sessions, i was in a decent control level.

I know that the solidarity of moving in the 8 basic directions with keyboard, cannot be achieved with any D-pad or Analog stick, but you sacrifise much more, imho always.

I was a keyboard player myself and can't agree more, controller makes life so much easier, It's worth the short struggle before getting used to it

 

[Bogo36]

I had the same Problem. Superstar way too easy and Legend way to difficult. With Incas golden exe mod the Game is almost perfect on Legend:
https://evo-web.co.uk/threads/my-2-cents-gameplay.86005/

 

[DevPlays]

This is coming from someone that played on keyboard religiously , from FIFA 99 till PES 2015. Guys take a gamepad (if financially possible of course). I realised on PES2015 that i was making my life harder and i was missing some key points of play options, like aim 360 direction with manual passing/shooting. So i purchased an XBOX 360 for Windows. I struggled a lot in the beggining, but once i got familiar with Analog stick, my life became easier.

I am telling this to you, cause since PES 2011~2013 i was trying to adapt to gamepad, with not any success, tried with the D-pad cross in the first steps, but always was returning back to keyboard. Once on PES2015 and pushed my self on analogue stick, after 2 months of intensive play sessions, i was in a decent control level.

I know that the solidarity of moving in the 8 basic directions with keyboard, cannot be achieved with any D-pad or Analog stick, but you sacrifise much more, imho always.

I know mate. I will buy one in future. Not anytime soon tho. I don't have money... Lol..

 

[Hatrickhero]

I had the same Problem. Superstar way too easy and Legend way to difficult. With Incas golden exe mod the Game is almost perfect on Legend:
https://evo-web.co.uk/threads/my-2-cents-gameplay.86005/

it can t be way too easy on superstar when u play vs real madrid, the cpu cheating in that match is really too much to bare, benzema will be the strongest forward ever, and asensio better than messi... it is too much, and not realistic when u see the cpu cheating in full swing... PES loses it s shine in Master league because of this cpu ai cheating...

 

[Hatrickhero]

i am here to rant on superstar difficulty in master league, the catch up bug is still there, i have messi running on goal in a 1on1, and the defender just behind messi would clip the ball from behind off him without a foul.... this would never ever happen in real life without getting a foul from it... small things like these in PES really matter a lot when u are looking for 1 goal to progress into a later stage in a cup competition for example, and add to that, i had once Dybala running on goal aswell from the left hand side, he s inside the area just behind the 6 meter line, and the shooting on basic is atrocious, wtf, i mean this is dybala,with a shooting ability above 85..... he skies it into raw z without even pressing much on the button..... shooting on basic is just not good at in PES