PES 2012 Discussion Thread .......

Geez Arsenal absolutely tore me to shreds lastnight. I decided to take on each team with Santos and see how I fared on professional. After 2 tries I got Man poo beat then I moved onto Arsenal and boom its a new animal altogether. This game doesnt seem to have a universal solution to beating the AI. You have to take each player on his merit and suss out who their main players are.
 
What I find most funny is how KONAMI keeps saying what freedom we will have and yet year after year we are limited in so many things and so many things are still forced on you.

Why cant I make my players sprint when I use the off the ball player movement from set pieces???

Why can't I make my player sprint when the oppossing goalkeeper has the ball???

Why can I only shot feint in 3 directions instead of at least 16 if not 360 so I can choose exactly where the right spot would be???

Why can't I use the new burst thingie in exactly the angle I want???

etc...
 
For those of you playing on PC with the demo extender, I highly recommend giving Bayer Leverkusen a go. Barnetta, Ballack and Renato Augusto are formidable behind lone striker Kiessling. Transfers haven't been updated yet so you get to use Vidal as well, who's a fantastic little player to use as a deep-lying playmaker. Always seems to find himself in space, always available for the pass.
 
For those of you playing on PC with the demo extender, I highly recommend giving Bayer Leverkusen a go. Barnetta, Ballack and Renato Augusto are formidable behind lone striker Kiessling. Transfers haven't been updated yet so you get to use Vidal as well, who's a fantastic little player to use as a deep-lying playmaker. Always seems to find himself in space, always available for the pass.

But thats the thing. every team you try for the first time has these hidden gems. MLO is absolutely going to rock!! Apparently it has player growth? Has this been confirmed?

Jimmy hit the nail on the head I need to be done with PES2011 completely. When you get tired or lose concentration you go into autopilot and try PES2011 party tricks and this is to your detriment 9/10 times
 
But thats the thing. every team you try for the first time has these hidden gems. MLO is absolutely going to rock!! Apparently it has player growth? Has this been confirmed?

Jimmy hit the nail on the head I need to be done with PES2011 completely. When you get tired or lose concentration you go into autopilot and try PES2011 party tricks and this is to your detriment 9/10 times

Yeah, it's not in. Player contracts are though.

Not too bothered about Player Growth though, it could open a huge can of exploitable worms if not implemented correctly.
 
Still not quite feeling this game, I have to say.

I've been looking closely at the problems I have with it, and trying to work out which are down to me and which are down to the game itself. For example, I still have a bit of a problem with the passing (on pretty much any passing assistance level, weirdly - although I'm playing on 0 for now), regularly putting the ball behind the man I'm trying to pass to, messing up simple 5-yard balls, etc. It's kind of weird, because intricate passing has always been my main strength in PES, but I know it's my fault because I'm not used to the new mechanics: in three months' time I'll find it quite amusing that I couldn't pass straight to begin with. But there are also problems which are in the game - someone posted a diagram on here showing how, if a teammate is standing between you and another teammate further away, your player will always pass to the man nearest to him even if you max out the power in an effort to reach the guy further away, and this usually leads to surrendering possession. I've tried playing on semi-assisted, assisted and unassisted cursor switching, and it happens in every one.

What's more, this seems to be linked to a wider problem (which I think is a hangover from the cursor-switch bug on the last game). In PES2011, problems arose when the ball was in between two players, and the cpu would get confused and usually only let you have control of the wrong one. In PES2012, when you release the ball, the cpu always selects the recipient - and in the same way it couldn't judge who was best placed to reach a loose ball in the last game, here it often misjudges who should go to receive the pass. One of my favourite passes is the backwards through ball (where you send a gentle through ball sideways and behind you, into the path of a deeper player: the ball goes into space and he comes forward to collect it, and your original player stays where he is for a return pass if needed). It was pretty essential in PES2011 when you were playing possession football. In this game it often doesn't work very well, because the cpu will sometimes think you're trying to pass to someone miles away - often a centre back - who will come running madly up the pitch with no hope of receiving the ball (while the actual intended target stands and stares). The opposition collect the ball, your centre back is now miles out of position... goal.

Sure, there are ways around this, but it feels so unnatural and makes it much harder to play a composed passing game, because at any second a simple pass meant to retain possession could go astray, not by a yard (which could be put down to realistic error) but by 20, 25 yards. I wouldn't mind if you just missed the guy you were aiming at, and he could adjust his run to try and reach the ball. But he ignores the pass (and can't be selected in time), and a very safe pass becomes a nightmare error which gifts the other side a goal. I thought it was just me not aiming carefully enough - but then I realised that even on wide cam, you can't actually tell if there's a centre back offscreen, directly in the line of your pass, ready to leave his post and sprint stupidly up the pitch... so you never know whether it's worth risking the sideways pass or not. It's like the game's encouraging you to go forwards all the time.

What's with the defenders being sucked forwards, too? Even if I set my defensive line deep, they seem to spend a lot of time hanging around the halfway line, which would be fine if they knew how to play opposition strikers offside. Time and time again, the AI will ping a couple of passes, suck my dumb CBs forward, then release a through ball for an uncatchable striker, who beats the non-existent offside trap somewhere near the centre circle. I know PES has stolen a few things from FIFA 11, but I would have said that "one defender always playing the opposing striker onside, leading to millions of one-on-ones" was a feature best left where it was. Funnily enough, setting offside trap to "on" doesn't seem to solve this problem.

My real bugbear, though, is still the game speed. In Demo 1, the ball moved incredibly slowly along the ground, but players moved unrealistically fast. Rather than close the gap by slightly increasing short pass speed, Konami seem to have just upped the game speed even more - which doesn't solve the slow-ball problem (it still moves a bit too slowly along the ground) and massively worsens the other, bigger problem of unrealistically frantic player movements. The game plays at an acceptable speed with the South American teams - faster than I'd like, but acceptable - but Spurs v Bayern is a bloody joke. What's the point of coding a sim when it plays out at arcade speed?

(No, I can't drop the game speed, because online will be fixed at 0, and I don't want to get used to a nicely-paced game then go online and feel like a player from the Portuguese division 2 who's just been dropped into the Premier League. And no, I can't just control the pace of the game and keep it slow, because as soon as the opposition gets the ball it'll suddenly go back into fast-forward mode, like everyone's just had a hit on the crack pipe, and that looks even worse.)

I've said this before, but where exactly is the active AI in this demo? I mean on my team. Yes it's much better than 2011, and when I'm in possession someone will overlap and someone will come short and offer themselves for a pass... but is that all there is? When attacking, I still get the sense of a lack of movement ahead of me, unless I start spamming one-twos and so on. Haven't seen any dummy runs, diagonal runs, anything like that, or if I have they've been so subtle they haven't been much use. I saw the AI score a goal with some great Javier Hernandez-like movement (a back-and-forth shuffle in the box to shake off a marker, like his goal against Bolton the other day) but I've buggered if my players do anything like that.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some great, intelligent movement from my forwards during quick-passing moves around the edge of the box - scored a lovely goal with Internacional that way - but deep-lying playmakers and classic No.10s seem almost useless, because when they get the ball more than 20 yards from goal, there's so little going on ahead of them. Funny thing is, if Konami hadn't released all those mouthwatering promo vids, I wouldn't know what I was missing and would be praising the improved AI, which really is fantastic when it works. It just seems a bit, I dunno, selective.

Something not right about the general feel of the game, too - still has that "rubbery" feeling from the first demo, because of the elastic-band dribbling, the unpredictable ball physics, the jerky animations and the freaky stop-start acceleration. Makes me queasy.

It's not totally frustrating - now and then, football will break out on the pitch and suddenly the game looks like the best and most realistic football sim I've ever played. But I'm not finding that all the time, and when this game is bad it's really bloody irritating. Like I say, I'm hoping most of my frustrations are down to me not quite clicking yet, and many of them probably will be. But some of the stuff I've mentioned here is clearly the game fucking up, not me, and right now it's driving me off the hinge.

I completely agree with what you said.

I don't buy into the "you/we're not good enough yet to judge the game" argument. Yes, there are moments when you think to yourself this game is great. But then there are too many issues that crop up again and again that just leave you frustrated.

It feels like they have all the elements in the game to make it great, but for whatever reason, be it lack of time etc, these elements are not properly balanced with respect to each other.

For example, passing has become more error prone and slower yet dribbling has become easier, quicker, and extremely nimble. Add to the fact that defending 1-v-1s has become more difficult...leads me to see that a more direct dribbling style of play is more effective than trying to pass around patiently while looking for an opening.
 
This is easy to deal with, and I was thinking about your concerns last night, and this is how I see it......

I much prefer the crossing from PES 11, and the timing required to connect. It was alot harder and more realistic for it. But, the bottom-line this year is that we now have emphasis on defending. And this relates to every aspect, including dealing with crosses. If you are defending, then the emphasis is on exactly that. I heard you mention that the strikers were always getting ahead of your defenders. But guess what, that is a strikers job, that is what he his constantly trying to achieve, to lose his marker. Therefore, whilst in defence-mode, it is now our job to stop that from happening. The onus is now on us for when he does break the shackles. The easiest way to do this, and I did this many times last night, is to switch to your CB using the Right Stick Cursor Switch. By doing that, you then take control even before the cross is whipped in. It's much easier to police this way, and much more rewarding when you thwart the striker, and as they say in the trade, 'put him back in your pocket'.

Also, on a different note, I took Manual control of my GK last night after conceding a FK just outside the box. I moved my keeper to the other side of the goal, then swtiched it off Manual so he was back to CPU control. I think part of me still expected the CPU Ai to hit the corner I'd moved to. It didnt, they placed in into the other corner, leaving me looking very silly indeed. I love the way the Ai adapted, class.

I will have to practice this right stick cursor switch. But still don't change the fact defenders are leaving open space they should be covering, like in real life. Yes strikers try to get ahead, but defenders follow they don't let them go and get free goals LOL.

Meh once you play it online, if you do, and pro players exploit this hard on you, THEN you will complain :COOL:
 
I completely agree with what you said.

I don't buy into the "you/we're not good enough yet to judge the game" argument. Yes, there are moments when you think to yourself this game is great. But then there are too many issues that crop up again and again that just leave you frustrated.

It feels like they have all the elements in the game to make it great, but for whatever reason, be it lack of time etc, these elements are not properly balanced with respect to each other.

For example, passing has become more error prone and slower yet dribbling has become easier, quicker, and extremely nimble. Add to the fact that defending 1-v-1s has become more difficult...leads me to see that a more direct dribbling style of play is more effective than trying to pass around patiently while looking for an opening.

Yup, me too.

Then again, it's not perfect but the best we've got. So might as well get on and start obsessively playing it ;)
 
Still not quite feeling this game, I have to say.

I've been looking closely at the problems I have with it, and trying to work out which are down to me and which are down to the game itself. For example, I still have a bit of a problem with the passing (on pretty much any passing assistance level, weirdly - although I'm playing on 0 for now), regularly putting the ball behind the man I'm trying to pass to, messing up simple 5-yard balls, etc. It's kind of weird, because intricate passing has always been my main strength in PES, but I know it's my fault because I'm not used to the new mechanics: in three months' time I'll find it quite amusing that I couldn't pass straight to begin with. But there are also problems which are in the game - someone posted a diagram on here showing how, if a teammate is standing between you and another teammate further away, your player will always pass to the man nearest to him even if you max out the power in an effort to reach the guy further away, and this usually leads to surrendering possession. I've tried playing on semi-assisted, assisted and unassisted cursor switching, and it happens in every one.

What's more, this seems to be linked to a wider problem (which I think is a hangover from the cursor-switch bug on the last game). In PES2011, problems arose when the ball was in between two players, and the cpu would get confused and usually only let you have control of the wrong one. In PES2012, when you release the ball, the cpu always selects the recipient - and in the same way it couldn't judge who was best placed to reach a loose ball in the last game, here it often misjudges who should go to receive the pass. One of my favourite passes is the backwards through ball (where you send a gentle through ball sideways and behind you, into the path of a deeper player: the ball goes into space and he comes forward to collect it, and your original player stays where he is for a return pass if needed). It was pretty essential in PES2011 when you were playing possession football. In this game it often doesn't work very well, because the cpu will sometimes think you're trying to pass to someone miles away - often a centre back - who will come running madly up the pitch with no hope of receiving the ball (while the actual intended target stands and stares). The opposition collect the ball, your centre back is now miles out of position... goal.

Sure, there are ways around this, but it feels so unnatural and makes it much harder to play a composed passing game, because at any second a simple pass meant to retain possession could go astray, not by a yard (which could be put down to realistic error) but by 20, 25 yards. I wouldn't mind if you just missed the guy you were aiming at, and he could adjust his run to try and reach the ball. But he ignores the pass (and can't be selected in time), and a very safe pass becomes a nightmare error which gifts the other side a goal. I thought it was just me not aiming carefully enough - but then I realised that even on wide cam, you can't actually tell if there's a centre back offscreen, directly in the line of your pass, ready to leave his post and sprint stupidly up the pitch... so you never know whether it's worth risking the sideways pass or not. It's like the game's encouraging you to go forwards all the time.

What's with the defenders being sucked forwards, too? Even if I set my defensive line deep, they seem to spend a lot of time hanging around the halfway line, which would be fine if they knew how to play opposition strikers offside. Time and time again, the AI will ping a couple of passes, suck my dumb CBs forward, then release a through ball for an uncatchable striker, who beats the non-existent offside trap somewhere near the centre circle. I know PES has stolen a few things from FIFA 11, but I would have said that "one defender always playing the opposing striker onside, leading to millions of one-on-ones" was a feature best left where it was. Funnily enough, setting offside trap to "on" doesn't seem to solve this problem.

My real bugbear, though, is still the game speed. In Demo 1, the ball moved incredibly slowly along the ground, but players moved unrealistically fast. Rather than close the gap by slightly increasing short pass speed, Konami seem to have just upped the game speed even more - which doesn't solve the slow-ball problem (it still moves a bit too slowly along the ground) and massively worsens the other, bigger problem of unrealistically frantic player movements. The game plays at an acceptable speed with the South American teams - faster than I'd like, but acceptable - but Spurs v Bayern is a bloody joke. What's the point of coding a sim when it plays out at arcade speed?

(No, I can't drop the game speed, because online will be fixed at 0, and I don't want to get used to a nicely-paced game then go online and feel like a player from the Portuguese division 2 who's just been dropped into the Premier League. And no, I can't just control the pace of the game and keep it slow, because as soon as the opposition gets the ball it'll suddenly go back into fast-forward mode, like everyone's just had a hit on the crack pipe, and that looks even worse.)

I've said this before, but where exactly is the active AI in this demo? I mean on my team. Yes it's much better than 2011, and when I'm in possession someone will overlap and someone will come short and offer themselves for a pass... but is that all there is? When attacking, I still get the sense of a lack of movement ahead of me, unless I start spamming one-twos and so on. Haven't seen any dummy runs, diagonal runs, anything like that, or if I have they've been so subtle they haven't been much use. I saw the AI score a goal with some great Javier Hernandez-like movement (a back-and-forth shuffle in the box to shake off a marker, like his goal against Bolton the other day) but I've buggered if my players do anything like that.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some great, intelligent movement from my forwards during quick-passing moves around the edge of the box - scored a lovely goal with Internacional that way - but deep-lying playmakers and classic No.10s seem almost useless, because when they get the ball more than 20 yards from goal, there's so little going on ahead of them. Funny thing is, if Konami hadn't released all those mouthwatering promo vids, I wouldn't know what I was missing and would be praising the improved AI, which really is fantastic when it works. It just seems a bit, I dunno, selective.

Something not right about the general feel of the game, too - still has that "rubbery" feeling from the first demo, because of the elastic-band dribbling, the unpredictable ball physics, the jerky animations and the freaky stop-start acceleration. Makes me queasy.

It's not totally frustrating - now and then, football will break out on the pitch and suddenly the game looks like the best and most realistic football sim I've ever played. But I'm not finding that all the time, and when this game is bad it's really bloody irritating. Like I say, I'm hoping most of my frustrations are down to me not quite clicking yet, and many of them probably will be. But some of the stuff I've mentioned here is clearly the game fucking up, not me, and right now it's driving me off the hinge.

Hello, my good friend pere ubu, nice post and i can see where you are coming from.

At the moment this game for me is great, outstanding even but there's many thing which just puzzle me. It's a bit of an enigma!

I'm fine with the passing really and the game speed is fast on 0 but I'm thinking this is mainly down to the 10 minute time length. Also i've long conceded that 10 minute's won't be very simulation heavy. This is where the Enigma gets me.

On 0 game speed and in general you see so much 'warping' and 'snapping to grid'. What i cannot understand is just how unnecessary most of it is. It's almost like it's being deliberately put in to make the game faster. I mean i can see the individuality is still there, defenders still turn slower than strikers etc.. but it's like every player is given a warp card so the game is quicker.

The enigma, is this a factor of 10 minute games or is the game just bugged in this regard?

Probably both!

Thing is i can live with this. But i just wonder is this game 8/10 or 9.5/10, i don't know until the full game is released.

Also trust me mate also. Just play on -2, forget online. Your only going to get the matches you want with PEEL players, vs randoms the game will be set up so anyone can play it, and us sim lovers are outnumbered heavily by those who just want a more simple game although it should be far better than PES 2011 vs randoms which was, bad at best. (which ironically was still the best online football game ever :CONFUSE:)

I won't delve too much into the positives since everyone mentioned them, the negatives, i dunno, i've mentioned the fast turning.

My summary is the game is great and it's done more than enough, i just don't know how truly good it is, or f it's very flawed in a certain area!

Finally what the fuck is up with these crowd colours? Some idiot decided they would all wear striped yellow tops and other random gash, it's a real shame since the crowd now wears the teams tops and the gash the others wear ruins the atmosphere!
 
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Bayer Leverkusen (me) 5-1 Espanyol (Professional 15 min game)

36 shots to 9, 58% possession to me and on 1-bar passing.

I just can't seem to get a good difficulty level balance where the games are even :(

Edit: My next game was Internacional 2-1 Santos

Much better, 16 shots to their 10 but they gave a FAR more challenging game due to Ganso and Neymar. Good fun!
 
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I just had a great time playing with a friend both using Fixed controller settings.

He Picked Chelsea and Picked his controller to be fixed on Drogba, I the. got Bayern with Schweinsteiger.

It was a 4-4 thriller. Drogba a hattrick, I had an assist and a late goal to put it even. So exciting. It really does become about trusting your teammates. The AI is also really good and for the most part make great decisions. There was this one play where I played long ball toward a Mario Gomez running in Space through the middle of the pitch. Cech stopped the 1 on 1. I was both upset and happy. The latter because it was a great ball and I made something out of nothing, but upset Cech got the better of Gomez when we really needed a goal because we were down 3-1. It really was excellent. My friend after a first half hattrick got frustrated in the second half, barely got any touches and only had one shot off goal in the second half. His midfield got drowned by the pressure and could not give Drogba any service. It really makes you feel like part of the team, but it's great with a friend right next to you.


Grab a friend and try it, you will have a blast.

We then went with Ajax vs Benfica, I picked Ericksen from Ajax, my friend went with Luisao, to try defending. It was a tough game, I barely got any space to dictate the game. Got three shots though all on target. I even had 35 out 41 passes completed. None the less, Benfica got the winner late from a Luisao header from a corner. My friend defended excellently and then when he had a chance (and figured out how to send him up through the set piece menu) got up for a Corner and smashed it in from the Aimar cross.

If you play this game, make sure to check your stats at the end of the game. For the most part its good, the performance ratings could be better, I really like the way fifa does them.

All this to say, BAL is going to be excellent this year.
 
Just for the record, that was said in jest to a friend.

Mind you, he is shit.

Hahaha, Jimothy, you cheeky bastard...



I'm fine with the passing really and the game speed is fast on 0 but I'm thinking this is mainly down to the 10 minute time length. Also i've long conceded that 10 minute's won't be very simulation heavy.

I've been playing this and wondering what it'd be like on 20 or 30 minute games. If it was played at this pace for 30 minutes it could get exhausting, and finish with a cricket score. I hope they do a bit of "throttling" again for longer games, spreading out chances etc.


On 0 game speed and in general you see so much 'warping' and 'snapping to grid'. What i cannot understand is just how unnecessary most of it is. It's almost like it's being deliberately put in to make the game faster. I mean i can see the individuality is still there, defenders still turn slower than strikers etc.. but it's like every player is given a warp card so the game is quicker.

I just don't get it. Is there anyone in the world who wants a game that is both a.) highly technical, with a strong simulation element and b.) a 100mph thrash? The sim players want simulation (so long as it's still fun), the arcade players want arcade (so long as it still looks at least vaguely realistic). You have to make a choice, Konami-noids, you can't try to split the difference like this.

I guess they were worried about alienating casuals - without realising that casuals are going to be alienated anyway - and thought this was the best of both worlds. But this is only "the best of both worlds" in the sense that putting ice cream on curry is "the best of both worlds". It's a real shame.
 
Man that looks miles better. Wish I had a decent gaming PC, really considering getting one now. The patching and modding going on with PES is amazing.

Generally I've never looked forwards to a game as much as this. Football Life looks amazing. The immersion seems great, love the videos showing the trainer, and your own customisable manager taking training in the background etc.

It's not really an important point but can you import faces to your manager this year? Kind of like they do in FIFA? You could kind of do it in PES2011 when creating a player but I just couldn't get it to look like my face. Would be amazing if the technology in PES2012 is better and could be used on your manager for the cut scenes etc. Would add a whole new level of immersion in the game mode.
 
Edit - I did play one match with Spurs on 1 Bar Pass Assistance and the difference was quite dramatic. It felt so much easier than 'Zero', with alot less requirement for the weight of pass and direction. I did enjoy it, but being the kind of player that gets his kicks from the challenge, I had to switch straight back to 'Zero'. There is no doubt this Passing Assistance option will users a big advantage Online if not segregated. :(

That's what i'm worried about too, and why I'd been glad that up till now PES had no passing assistance settings other than the manual modifier. Zero assistance is amazing, a mixture of manual/semi manual that takes into account stats (unlike FIFA), but not being the standard is a problem for multiplayer.

When I used to play FIFA 09 manual, the manual players were at a disadvantage online; although it was more free, you had to direct and weigh the power in your passes much more, whereas the assisted (and to some extent semi manual) players could just ping it about carefree with no challenge. It led to unbalanced matchups and I eventually played in an all manual league with the likes of Klashman, Honome, Tom Mills (now editor of FSB) Dudu etc.

The freedom is the advantage but the increased difficulty is the disadvantage against someone not using it. I'm not sure whether 'skill' will overcome it, I'll have to wait and see.
 
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There's plenty of fouls now but we have an advantage rule that works so if you don't fall over you don't get play stopped. Works wonderfully.

I also conceded a penalty the other night from a mistimed standing tackle :P
 
Is anyone else getting really put off by the way the players skate around when playing the game on PC? I play the demo on PS3 as well and I don't get that feeling that players are skating on the pitch like I do with the demo on PC. It looks so crap, wish there was a way of stopping it :(
 
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Is anyone else getting really put off by the way the players skate around when playing the game on PC? I play the demo on PS3 as well and I don't get that feeling that players are skating on the pitch, it looks so crap, wish there was a way of stopping it :(

Yep.

Also, I'm starting to get annoyed with the animation of a player spreading their legs wider than Jenna Jameson when 'trying' to block a pass or shot...resulting in constant nutmegs. Additionally, the other animation where a player lifts their leg in a sort of half ass block attempt was cool at the beginning, but an annoying head scratcher when youre trying to make a last ditch block in front of goal.
 
Happens on Xbox too. I understand that players can't come to a complete stop (unless it's FIFA). But they don't slide like little kids wearing socks on floorboards! lol
 
I'm also not liking the auto block animation, they should make it so, in pes 2013, you press triangle when you dont have the ball, in order to try and block the shot from the CPU, instead of players automatically trying to jump and block...
 
Default Master League Team

+Top Player

+Zero passing assistance

+Only allowed to sign Youth Players


= a challenge of colossal proportions.


Can't wait. :SMUG:


Shame the UK only receives it another two weeks after the EURO release.

Is that you, Arsene? ;)
 
Haha :D

I almost jizzed in my pants a short time ago, was playing Inter vs Rangers and I chipped the ball to Pandev who was on the edge of the box in the D, and he did an overhead kick which flew and hit the post, if that had gone in I would've screamed like a girl in ecstasy.

Btw, who are your first signings going to be in ML? Mine are going to be Muniain, Montenegro, Estoyanoff and Aguiar :)
 
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