It doesn't seem quite that bad to me, but I do know what you're talking about. Mostly I've got used to the increased AI pressure and can play around it, but sometimes it goes way over the top.
The frustrating thing is that even if the cpu wants to press constantly, two players should be able to do the job of four or five. There are plenty of times in the game when you're pressed effectively by two players, but sometimes when that's not enough the AI (instead of just shifting responsibility to other players further down the pitch) immediately sends four or five lumbering idiots to crowd you out. That might happen to Lionel Messi when he's near the edge of the box, but it doesn't happen to Johnny Nobody when he's three yards past the halfway line, and in real life it would be a suicidal tactic.
Even worse is when the AI makes your players do the same thing. I was playing the Copa Libertadores the other night and came up against Corinthians. Now, it's daft enough that Fat Ronaldo still seems to run pretty fast in PES2011, but when he's bearing down on my goal what I really don't need is to hit the pressure button to draw one more defender across, only to find FIVE of my players running over, all approaching from terrible angles which basically mean they arrive just in time to run pointlessly behind his shoulder in a little semi-circle, none of them making any attempt to tackle. They looked like backing dancers on the fucking X Factor. Anyway, he scored.
I hate to say it, but I've been getting that "on rails" feeling back a bit since the patch. I don't know what it is, but there seems to be slightly less freedom than there was. Maybe I've just been playing badly this week, or maybe I've just had a lot of heavily scripted games, but I've been seeing an awful lot of straight lines and bad reactions, worse than before. As well as that thing where players running onto a pass slow down just enough to ensure that they get there a split second too late - we all know that one, right? Then again, I've been playing Copa Libertadores mode and most of those players have much lower stats than the Montpellier side I use in League Mode (which is daft in itself - Estudiantes De La Plata, South American champions in 2009, are not a worse team than Montpellier).
I dunno, I love this game but I end up moaning about it so much... just little things, but important little things. Infuriating.
I've found a lot less freedom. The passing, in the demo and initial release, was still fairly manual in terms of the amount of power you applied. I remember really having to adjust to the amount of power I'd need to hit for a simple pass, a tiny tap would see the ball move about 3 inches forwards, but once learnt then it proved really subtle.
Today, I tested it out, and no matter what power you give the pass, it still travels like a rocket straight to the player you're aiming at. The only option is that it bypasses the nearest player if you wallop the ball, but a tiny tap, unlike the earlier versions (if that's what you want to call them) now sees the ball travel directly to a player. In terms of using the power bar, it feels more like PES2010 now. I just don't know why.
What's really pissing me off though, is like I said, I quit FIFA because after FIFA09, EA changed the whole outlook of the game by introducing insane closing down and overly physical challenges that left FIFA 10 & 11 literally the most annoying games ever made. Now this PES patch seems to have deliberately introduced a lot of this game ruining feature into their own game.
So, Konami deliberately added the one feature from a rival game that everyone consistently moans about. Great.
It's not so bad when playing with some of the top teams, because they have the first touch and passing ability to pass around the herds of rampaging defenders. But dribbling? On Professional and higher I find it impossible. And to play with the default ML players on Professional is impossible for me. They get closed down before they even manage to get the ball under control or perform a kicking animation sometimes. I really wish I could have shown some video evidence, after a while today I realised that whenever I was losing the ball it was because I was totally surrounded by the AI. Four seperate replays that I randomly chose to view saw my player looking for a pass while having almost all options cut off because I had, on each occasion, anywhere between 4-6 AI players within 5 feet of my player, bunching into a huddle around me. And it's not like I dallied around, the replays showed them sprinting from their positions insanely fast, hounding me, if I kept the ball, another of the nearest 4-6 players break off and cut off all avenues, then surround you, and shove you off the ball.
A great tactic has always been to not sprint. Before, I could keep the ball fairly well, and look for options to pass to even when under pressure, simply by not sprinting. Such a great antidote to FIFA I thought, but today the AI literally sprints after you even if you do a slow dribble, and just run 'into' you without committing a foul. You do that stupid stumble animation that renders him unusable for about 10 seconds, they run off with the ball.
And how can anyone dribble on Pro or higher now? Someone will always be in a position to get the ball off you, because the new found 'sprinting' style of AI defending means they always have at least 3 players circling you.
Ugh, why would Konami take the WORST aspect of FIFA, the one solitary aspect that put me off the whole series, and put it into PES???
I've tried moving the game down to Regular, but though you can suddenly enjoy again a slower pace where you're not being hunted down, it's still too easy.
I'm still well annoyed though, PES2011 was by far my favourite game right now and since the patch it's gotten progressively annoying to the point where I come off playing feeling exactly like I did after playing FIFA11. Annoyed.
. so i'm not even going to bother with this.
