What I miss in the gameplay besides my usual rants regarding cheating, stamina-system and independent ball(physics) is something that is seldomly mentioned:
A CPU-AI that anticipates things and tries to force certain developments. Imagine a situation that a midfield player passes the ball back to one of the CB's. In real life football teams sometimes anticipate a possible opportunity to force a mistake by pressuring closer to the possible candidates for a pass from him and trying to intercept the ball, so that he is either forced to play a highball , play back to the goalkeeper or play into the out...
if he doesn't want to risk losing the ball in a critical area of the pitch.
That tension to make a mistake is somehow missing. Coupled with that topic are the aspects of ballcontrol/ballphysics and vision. Players under pressure should have reduced vision (of course stat-dependent) and so playing to certain players not in direct vision-line should result in less accuracy.
And quickly passing the ball around because of pressure should transfer energy onto the ball from one pass to the next and reduce accuracy as well as make it harder to control.
And maybe the pitch is a bit too big or the players too small on it.
The other thing that is missing is how players can position their body toward the ball: In real life football when a ball comes high to a player, let's say towards his breast-area. In that situation he has the option of receiving the ball with his breast or he decides not to touch the ball, circle his body around it and let it through to use the ball's velocity as an opportunity to run up the pitch.
The ability to position the body in different and creative ways around the ball seems to be missing. Using supercancel helps a bit but even with that tool it's not possible to circle the ball in the ways real players can do.
I agree with you, but it's all interlinked isn't it?
You're first example is spot on, the pressure creation from the CPU. In the older PES' you had this pressure sometimes. The sense of risk was more palpable because the defenders were slower to react and slightly less responsive, plus their pass accuracy probably wasn't the best, meaning that you sometimes had to take no risks pass it back and smash the ball forward from the keeper. The trade off is, as you say, the stamina system should be interworked into this philosophy.
I use this phrase a lot, but there is no trade-off in football games. If you want to press fine, but it should only be allowed or realistic to do it in spurts. There should be a clear and noticeable drop off in something at the end of it, like obviously players getting tired pressing all the time, pass accuracy decreasing, and responsiveness and positioning being affected.
The trade off the other side is that a team may have to play quick nimble clear the ball football for a while whilst the opposition hounds them. Whatever the case, at least there is a trade off.
The CPU's default mode of countering should also come at a cost. A team camped entirely in it's own box should not be able to just play two passes easily to counter at will with masses of space. The lone CPU striker (who causes havoc nearly all the time) should be hounded by two or three defenders as the ball breaks forwards, keeping that pressure and penning the CPU back. So the CPU's tactics of defensive and counter come at a cost, and that is sustained pressure against them which again leads to mistakes in concentration etc.
The main problem I see, and it dates back to forever, is that EA and KONAMI don't really know how to programme difficulty and realism. Since Jesus was a boy, the way to make the game more difficult isn't making the CPU smarter, hold onto possession longer and ensure the tactical side is top notch, but rather to crank up pressure, CPU dribbling directness and scripting. This has just got to stop going into PES 2014.
Take Man City as an example, in PES 2013 loads of fast dribblers. And take a team like Chelsea. And because they have good dribbling skills their game is predominantly dribble with every player regardless if the ball gets lost or not. It's purepy a dribbling/directness numbers game, the more the dribble with lightening speed at you then eventually they will get by you. It's the lesser teams that play more football because they have less pace and less dribbling, when it should be the other way around. Just because top teams have great dribblers doesn't make them direct sprint whores all the time. What if I want to defend deep against City? I should be able to, and the game should shift in its patterns. Sustained long phases of possession from the CPU (City) with them unable to use sprint and dribbling because I've got 11 behind the ball.
KONAMI need to get right back to the tactical side of the game and it's trade offs, combined with a more skill/technical emphasis. By skill I mean the ability to shape and shift a player movements to lose a man instead of sprint whoring, using your body to shield the ball without Superstar level meaning that CPU players can just morph through you.
The laws of physics being bent and stat boosting should definitely not be used to make the game harder. What should make the game harder is the CPU's ability to keep possession longer, the human players tactical mistakes in terms of defensive positioning and other things that make the game more random. For example the ball needs to bounce more, it really should seem alive. First touches under pressure should be emphasised more if the player isn't really world class, there's a reason why the ball is played into midfield and then passes quick to the defenders even though seemingly the guy in midfield had some space to work with.
If you aren't a top class team, then possession football should be difficult, or at least trying to sculpt a possession style game should be difficult and a long process. Look at Liverpool for example. There's a reason why teams can't all play like Barce, in that it's fkin impossible to do so with such consistency all the time. Why do division two players lump it long from the full back for example, because A) he knows he hasn't the technical ability on the ball on a worse ground than the worlds best B) he doesn't want to lose possession and so plays the percentage game and C) because players around him haven't made themselves available for the pass because they don't want to be in a risky position.
All this is missing from current games. PES 2013 is a good game, very good on times. But average players should feel just like that, average. Both for the human and the CPU. That doesn't mean average players (in terms of raw stats) should be useless though, they may have other more defining characteristics like work rate, positioning skill etc which make them invaluable to the team. I shouldn't have Gareth fkin Barry or Carrick running at me left right and centre full throttle. Pace and dribbling mean nothing without close control and technical skill, and yet all of a sudden anyone fast has the finesse of Ronaldo and Messi.
And online....I mean oh my God...where do you start on this one?!? I for one don't venture online, but I can bet what it's like. The game needs to be stripped down, and if need be make it totally defensive/technical orientated. Make players re-learn the game again, make it almost impossible to use sprint.
Just my two cents....again
