PES 2014 Discussion Thread

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The shooting is so dependent on player, position, running angle, etc....
there were times I hit first time rockets from just inside the box into the top corner...
and then other times I would slow down and wait for the keeper to move before dinking it past it him from a few yards out..

Initially it was frustrating, but it's good, not perfect but good...

The passing is just amazing,....FIFA cannot come anywhere near the passing in PES 2014....
 
I don't think its the shooting that's the problem.

It's the bloody goalkeepers, they are beyond terrible at certain situations that it's exploitable. Honestly, their incapability of saving angled shots or near post ones, pulling off a wierd ass animation that doesn't even fit the context, and watching them parry it into the net. The goalkeeper's also have no idea how to deal with lob shots, it's as if they don't have the jump/catch animations to deal with it, so they just turn around and watch the ball go in.

The defensive back 4 AI is another thing. Though not as terible as the goalkeepers, they seem to have that binary option of 'should i maintain the line or track the man beyond the line'. So many freaking through balls, and one one ones because of this. The defenders have a tendency of running away from the ball just to get to the 'proper' position; they also get this jamming moment where they do absolutely nothing when another teammate enters their 'AI trigger zone'.

Player selection is another thing; problematic especially during corners, attacking or defending corners, and especially during deflections and rebounds. Not only does it do that dumbstruck thing when it and stops what's it is doing and waits for human input; It seems to not know where the ball it ending up, so you end up with a delayed player switching that moves around slowly and randomly, and only switches when the ball arrives at the player's feet, making it impossible to clear out the ball first time. You get defenders/attackers doing absolutely nothing during the moment while the game is trying to figure out which player to switch to, and who to give control to the AI or the human being.

Oh yeah, the refs, the ref's are terrible. Notice that they are almost never give fouls towards standing tackles, but when it comes to sliding tackles, or shoulder barges. If they player falls down from a shoulder barge, foul; if during the sliding tackle the player slightly touches the opposition's foot ever so slightly and then touches the ball, its a foul; no exceptions. The referee also has that funny 'advantage' rule it plays, where it forgets a few seconds after a tackle is made; and never pulls back clipping or obstruction that causes the player drinbbling to lose control of the run and the ball, resulting in them losing the ball.

I think i've mentioned everything that's wrong with the game. It does alot of things right like the physicallity, dribbling, animations, passing and the offensive AI; but this major flaws leads to so many freaking cheap goals conceded and scored.

Obviously it was never gonna be satisfying or have that 'PES magic' like many of you say it doesn't have.
 
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keeper awareness as well as taking 100 years to respond after they dive is the biggest issue i have with the game as well as the player awareness all over the pitch,as for shooting i have no problem, and also iv noticed i only get major slowdown when areas get congested but only happens when i play with or against a mate using same tv i get no slowdown at all on single player, if konami sort out this patch correctly come november this will be IMO the best football game ever made.
 
Well, we finally opted to play PES 2014 last night for our Weekly Lads Night session, and it ended up becoming the final nail in the coffin....

On three seperate occasions we were compromised by the dreaded 'stutter' issue, which is only rectified once the ball goes out of play.

Shame on you Konami.

We played a Knockout Cup with four EPL teams, but to be honest, we didn't even finish the final. I think it's safe to say, PES 2104 certainly won't be getting played again in Multi-Player in it's current state.

None of us, all HUGE PES fans, could even stomach the game, and that is now two weeks in a row. So that's it, we are done. Back to PES 13 for Lads Night, a game we all thoroughly enjoy.

I may consider playing offline ML, but I'm certainly not in any rush. And I'm really enjoying GTA 5, which is a first for me.

The amount of delayed action within the button press department, and the horrendous slow-down in the final third, makes this game unplayable. It's just not an enjoyable experience. I'm absolutely gutted to be honest. :(

So that's it for me, and as the story goes, it's certainly no Fantastic Mr Fox, more a case of The Emperor's New Clothes.....


All that glitters isn't Gold ..........
 
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Jimmy G-Force said:
Well, we finally opted to play PES 2014 last night for our Weekly Lads Night session, and it ended up becoming the final nail in the coffin....

On three seperate occasions we were compromised by the dreaded 'stutter' issue, which is only rectified once the ball goes out of play.

Shame on you Konami.

We played a Knockout Cup with four EPL teams, but to be honest, we didn't even finish the final. I think it's safe to say, PES 2104 certainly won't be getting played again in Multi-Player in it's current state.

None of us, all HUGE PES fans, could even stomach the game, and that is now two weeks in a row. So that's it, we are done. Back to PES 13 for Lads Night, a game we all throughly enjoy.

I may consider playing offline ML, but I'm certainly not in any rush. And I'm quite enjoying GTA 5, which is a first for me.

The amount of delayed action within the button press department, and the horrendous slow-down in the final third, makes this game unplayable. It's just not an enjoyable experience. I'm absolutely gutted to be honest. :(

So that's it for me, and as the story goes, it's certainly no Fantastic Mr Fox, more a case of The Emperors' New Clothes.....


All that glitters isn't Gold ..........
Click to expand...

I agree 100% multiplayer is unplayable, seriously makes you wonder if they had testers for this game and if they did should be sacked it's disgusting
 
Jimi_Zuko said:
I agree 100% multiplayer is unplayable, seriously makes you wonder if they had testers for this game and if they did should be sacked it's disgusting
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Something else that hit me hard, very hard, was the huge lack of variety in not only the shots on target, but also the shots off target. They all look the same, they all seem to miss by the same margin, same angle. It's terrible. There are no shots that seem to bend away, bend inside, high or low. It's just not right, and sooooooooo un-natural.

For a company that has always nailed the shooting element in PES, I have no idea what on earth they have done here. Nothing about anything, bar the dinks, feels/looks realistic.

There certainly comes a point when you say to yourself, no, I ain't forcing myself to like this. And when that happens, it's done. :(
 
Yesterday I decided to drop down the resolution and increase the pass assistance to 3 bars. As stupid as it may seem, game IS more responsive. The pass assistance its just preference and I will keep it that way. Its closer to the automatic passing system of older PES, and it depends more on the player ability rather then on my own aiming. Game looks more fluid, animations are better. It looks like PES 2014 can´t flow in higher resolutions for some reason.
 
Jimmy G-Force said:
Something else that hit me hard, very hard, was the huge lack of variety in not only the shots on target, but also the shots off target. They all look the same, they all seem to miss by the same margin, same angle. It's terrible. There are no shots that seem to bend away, bend inside, high or low. It's just not right, and sooooooooo un-natural.

For a company that has always nailed the shooting element in PES, I have no idea what on earth they have done here. Nothing about anything, bar the dinks, feels/looks realistic.

There certainly comes a point when you say to yourself, no, I ain't forcing myself to like this. And when that happens, it's done. :(
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Yeah your right, a lot of shots feel scripted as well as saves, calcio mentioned that earlier. On a positive note all these issues can be rectified with a patch, knowing konami who knows what we r getting in November.
 
leonwill3 said:
Need a solution; any help or verification needed.

MLO points bug:

Total cost of my team- 24965
total assets 26188
But...
The total cost bar is 25000. It has been stuck on 25000 for about 7/8 games. When going to buy a player it says 35 point's only.

Has anyone else had this bug? Is there a fix for it? Can I retrospectively get back my hard earned points

Please help. Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...

maybe this is the 'salary cap' that was promised but didn't materialise.

or maybe it's just another avoidable bug that they've let slip through
 
Jimi_Zuko said:
Yeah your right, a lot of shots feel scripted as well as saves, calcio mentioned that earlier. On a positive note all these issues can be rectified with a patch, knowing konami who knows what we r getting in November.
Click to expand...

I just hope that the game was rushed out, and they have been working on the issues since the game went gold. Pardon the pun.

It's not that hard to tweak the shooting, or adjust the keepers positioning to allow the unpredictability of the franchise. Slowdown and stuttering is more than fixable, it's just a shame the whole set-piece debacle won't be touched.
 
Played the demo again (360) just because I thought I was getting paranoid and I swear this is another game. It's free-floating, exciting, varied and mostly perfect. I can actually use speed as an advantage without immediately being run off the ball, players like Ribery or Alaba do make a difference and don't just trott along without any sense of awareness or urgency as if they recover from a stroke and are stuck in molasses – overall human-controlled players are much more agile and react quicker and – most importantly – true to their stats. Heck I can even pull off one or the other dribbling without immediately losing the ball. The AI plays more realistic too, has more than just two identikit attacking patterns and actually commits the occasional stray pass, which gives them a human touch. And even the ref seems more lenient...

The retail version, on the contrary (PC), has over the last two ML seasons slowly turned into a scripted, boring, repetitive, infuriating mess in which every game plays the same, every COM player is boosted beyond the ridiculous, every game follows the same predefined choreography in which both I (and the COM) score the same boring goals over and over again. Plus, everything that happens on the pitch seems strangely disconnected from your actions – often doing exactly the opposite of what you intended – and much more a result of the computers whim rather than your skills – to a point where even your successes seem 'granted' rather than achieved.

It's actually quite mind-blowing if you hold these two up against each other and wonder why Konami made these decisions.
 
Jimmy G-Force said:
Well, we finally opted to play PES 2014 last night for our Weekly Lads Night session, and it ended up becoming the final nail in the coffin....

On three seperate occasions we were compromised by the dreaded 'stutter' issue, which is only rectified once the ball goes out of play.

Shame on you Konami.

We played a Knockout Cup with four EPL teams, but to be honest, we didn't even finish the final. I think it's safe to say, PES 2104 certainly won't be getting played again in Multi-Player in it's current state.

None of us, all HUGE PES fans, could even stomach the game, and that is now two weeks in a row. So that's it, we are done. Back to PES 13 for Lads Night, a game we all thoroughly enjoy.

I may consider playing offline ML, but I'm certainly not in any rush. And I'm really enjoying GTA 5, which is a first for me.

The amount of delayed action within the button press department, and the horrendous slow-down in the final third, makes this game unplayable. It's just not an enjoyable experience. I'm absolutely gutted to be honest. :(

So that's it for me, and as the story goes, it's certainly no Fantastic Mr Fox, more a case of The Emperors' New Clothes.....


All that glitters isn't Gold ..........
Click to expand...

Now you know how bad the stutter is especially during multi player offline. My friends cringe at the sight of pes now. To think we thought this was the year back for them.

I havent taken mine from the drawer in a whole week. Can't be bothered to. Just waiting to see if anything is done about the slow motion stutter for PlayStation users in the November patch. In all seriousness, I honestly doubt it will.
 
Jimi_Zuko said:
I agree 100% multiplayer is unplayable, seriously makes you wonder if they had testers for this game and if they did should be sacked it's disgusting
Click to expand...

I hope sincerely that the testers were indeed fired. Honestly hope that the creators and coders for this series would get fired too so that we can have a brand new game with brand new people.

Hate how they can send out a stuttering unfinished game in 2013 and fully expect $60 for it. This is worse than the 2008 debacle.
 
Jimmy G-Force said:
I just hope that the game was rushed out, and they have been working on the issues since the game went gold. Pardon the pun.

It's not that hard to tweak the shooting, or adjust the keepers positioning to allow the unpredictability of the franchise. Slowdown and stuttering is more than fixable, it's just a shame the whole set-piece debacle won't be touched.
Click to expand...

it sounds like some of these issues are limited to ps3. I do not have stutter on xbox or pc.
 
HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE THE BOMB
(borrowing the title from Kubrick's movie, it's the best way I can describe my relationship with PES)

I want to focus in this post solely on performance/stutter and its impact to gameplay and how I totally love/hate the game depending on it and how it surprised (and infuriated, and astonsihed) me to discover the relationship between performance and gameplay, that goes further than I expected.

It all started thinking about different posts here about different aspects of the game and how the audience seemed to have totally different opppinions on some matters. And how performance seemed to be so suspect.

I did some test and what I found is at the same time infuriating, alleviating, ridiculous, encouraging or totally useless. It can be only in my mind for all I know. That's up to you.

MY SETTINGS
First of all the settings I play in:
Slim PS3, BRay edition with installed data on hard disk, updated version of the game, 1 Bar assistance for passing, Basic shooting and Through ball, -1 speed, Professional difficulty, 10 minutes long, 720p TV mode. It's already ridiculous when each of the items in this list can be/has been mentioned as part of the problem/solution for stuttering (or part of it), and Konami should be ashamed of that.

I actually play 10 or 15 minutes depending on the day, but let's assume I play 10 minutes which is easier (and shorter) to test.

I play mostly offline 1vsCPU. Game experience may change dramatically when other people join the game, be it online or offline.

PROLOGUE
I recall how my first matches in PES2014 felt very promising, I loved the game even if it was obviously flawed. While I learned the intricacies of control I was convinced it was the best footy game I had ever played.

In the process, I had to relearn how to play PES (didn't play much of it the last years), how to cope with through balls and how to defend properly and minimze the high deffensive lines. Then I wanted to improve my dribbling and my finishing, which suddenly started to feel awkward.

I did all that through 2 seasons of Master League with Barcelona, in which gradually I found I was fighting against the controls, the game stuttered, all the precision and joy went away and finally was experiencing a total mess. The game was properly schizophrenic. Soemtimes played great and sometimes it was a turd and lagged and stuttered like hell. The usual session would involve many matches and I always felt that the first match was the best one and from then on the experience was quickly degrading, to the point my players felt like shit. At the beginning, I blamed myself. You know, the more you play you maybe turn more mechanical, less patient and try to push things too much.

Then I thought it would be the effect of the new Heart feature or the usual CPU cheating in ML. I even posted a rant about it some pages ago. So I started a League with Saint Etienne (Professional, 10 minutes long, Saint Etienne default stadium). First matches felt good again for some reason, rediscovering the game. But it had the same evolving pattern with time. The more I played, the more I hated it. But every time I came back to it I though: hey, it's actually not that bad, I can dribble and do a lot of things I thought I couldn't. The right stick is great, shooting feels better . Yes, there's slow downs in the final third, but not as much as I recalled.

How can it be that after 5 matches I was hating the game so much? Then I read some posts here talking about how resolution improved performance and how the game felt totally different. From a technical point it's quite weird to think that resolution/performance could impact such things as AI behavior. So I decided to do a test.

A TEST
First of all I started the game and changed my default camera from Wide to a custom one. The first match felt much better, with less stuttering. Slowdowns on the box were obvious but not game breaking (I think it's unacceptable on a title like this, but that's another debate). But in my 5th match I was dragging again, my dribblings weren't sharp at all, my football quality had gone down quickly. I started to spot frame drops here and there.

So I reached the first important conclusion: the game has memory/performance leaks. The more matches you play in the same session, the worse it will be the performance and it will stutter more. I have verified this by playing the same game in different conditions through different saves (being the first match I play in a session, the 3rd or the 5th). There's a substantial difference in performance, the game gradually gets sluggish. The difference between the first and second matches were very subtle, if any. The difference between the fitst and 5th matches were obvious.

And here's the most important things I learned. Peroformance greatly affect a wide variety of things in the game, from AI to shooting, to dribbling... Why is that possible is one of the things I thought a lot while playing, but there's an obvious connection, so in some way the way it's programmed is highly dependant on the framerate of the performance.

One example is the right stick. In my first matches I could perfectly use the right stick in an intuitive way and achieve great movements through my opponents. Reaction times to my inputs were quick, precise and useful. I could easily rip appart defenders and create goal chances by dribbling with the right player. When the experience drags, the right stick starts to have unexpected outcomes, I'm unable to dribble like I did. All the joy of the right stick is lost, be it because the game can't properly recognize the movement (dropping frames may interfere with the recognition of the movement I did both in terms of duration or direction) be it because it can't represent it in the game.

And while the all the input and control schemes seem to suffer because of the frame drops, it seems that AI doesn't suffer it the same way. That's why when frame drop, the same dribbling that would be succesful in optimal conditions won't succeed. Strange? That's what I feel! Maybe the AI can read "between frames", because it's not connected to the visual layer of the game, so it can disrupt your dribbling easier. There's clearly a connection between frame drops and awkward AI behavior. The way the AI attacks or how they can evade me is totally different. Goalkeeper flops are more prone to happen when the game performs badly, the same way collisions may have awkward outcomes. Once, when stuttering a lot, I had a unnatural rebound of the ball that went like 100 meters up and spent 6 seconds before coming down to earth...

The more you play, the worse it gets the slowdown in the final third, up to a point which is comical. And the more floating shots get, be it because input lags and the system can't recognize your input with precision or because the lag made you shoot in a bad composure, too early, or only detected a tap of the shoot button instead of the powering you think you did. Shooting is always miles better the first match I play in a session. It doesn't mean it's perfect, it has the obvious flaws we all agree on (too hard to score from long range, lacks variation, etc...), but the distance between the shot I expected and the outcome is much shorter. As a reuslt of everything, my average of shot attempts in the best conditions is 14 per match on 10 minute games! When the experience degrades, the exact same match, I can have less than half of that. Performance is degrading my skills the same way it degrades the gameplay.

I feel in control in my first match of each session, I can even do close control dribblings, do some sharp turns inches away from the CPU player, first time shooting, heading, passing... everything seems to work properly. As a result, AI feel more natural, there's less stupidity and more effectiveness in all your movements and the CPU AI seems to play smarter (probably because when lagging your confusing inputs may disorient a nano-second reacting CPU design in an unexpected way). Yes, performance definitely impacts AI in a bad way. Things like individuality also get blurry when the game starts to drag. It kills the joy and the unpredictability as Jimmy put so clearly in his post.

MY CONCLUSIONS
Technically I think I understand why is happening, because the input layer, the rendering layer and the AI layers are all evolving at different speeds, to put it simple. That's the only explanation I can think of for my experience. If that's true, it means that the experience we all have can get extremely different depending on the hardware and software conditions of the game (from hardware specs to settings of the game).

That's why I ended up saving after each match, quitting the game and starting it again. And had the best session so far of PES 2014. At least in the circumstances I describe.

Clearly, the game has serious performance AND design problems in terms of programming. It's shocking and shows how rushed it was to adopt the new engine and how crap it was the merging of old and new tech. And clearly shows this game is in BETA state at best and shouldn't have been sold like this in the first place.

There's a great football game when everything works fine. Flawed, but still the best PES I've played. If Konami is able to fix this and put some stability to the game, even if they don't sort out things like long range shooting or the goalkeeper mess (don't you dare to bring him out) they will have a good game and fans will feel only a bit infuriated. If they can even fix some of the most glaring flaws, then the game has master-piece potential.

But if Konami doesn't fix performance properly, it will realy mean the end of the road. Because you can design a better or a worse game, but at least it should work out of the box. Having to quit the game after every match to play it properly is a joke.

PS: But I do it, because the few minutes that the magic lasts, it's a great product.
 
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mathewsss said:
The shooting is so dependent on player, position, running angle, etc....
there were times I hit first time rockets from just inside the box into the top corner...
and then other times I would slow down and wait for the keeper to move before dinking it past it him from a few yards out..

Initially it was frustrating, but it's good, not perfect but good...

The passing is just amazing,....FIFA cannot come anywhere near the passing in PES 2014....
Click to expand...

Agreed with all points. Shooting is a little too dependent on body position in my opinion. Needs tweaking. Passing feels good this year. One bar is comfortable and rewarding but zero bars is where it's at for me. It provides just the right amount of freedom. There is error involved just like real football but it allows me to be very creative. I also never have to use the triangle button for through balls.
 
Rooney10 said:
What's wrong? Or is it a norm to pay $60 for a game that stutters on the PlayStation?
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helps if you know how a game development process works.

throwing the baby out with the bathwater comes to mind.

'sack the testers' is as utterly moronic as it gets
 
Ipswich69 said:
Agreed with all points. Shooting is a little too dependent on body position in my opinion. Needs tweaking. Passing feels good this year. One bar is comfortable and rewarding but zero bars is where it's at for me. It provides just the right amount of freedom. There is error involved just like real football but it allows me to be very creative. I also never have to use the triangle button for through balls.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit stuck with the passing, zero feels too manual and one-bar feels too automated. Either way it doesn't matter as I don't really feel any difference between players's passing ability, beyond using through balls.
 
Rooney10 said:
I hope sincerely that the testers were indeed fired. Honestly hope that the creators and coders for this series would get fired too so that we can have a brand new game with brand new people.

Hate how they can send out a stuttering unfinished game in 2013 and fully expect $60 for it. This is worse than the 2008 debacle.
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Strange rhetoric really.
 
Plus it's more than likely the testers pointed stuff out without anything being done about it because of time and money. No excuse, but the games industry is very strange. You have the people making the games who want them to be as good as possible, and you have the execs and publishers who don't give a shit and pile on the pressure by restricting resources and pushing deadlines too tight.

I'm not suggesting this goes on at Konami but it's commonplace in the industry, I know people with first hand experience.
 
99% sure that is the case. getting the game out before FIFA (and far enough away from next gen consoles) was more important than the quality to the people upstairs
 
gomito#10 said:
so do you recommend saving after each match in ML, quit game completely, restart game, and load ML?
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Yes, that's what I do in my League save and I'm enoying the game a lot more and in my case it reduces souggishness and stuttering to the minimum and it feels much better in all fronts.
 
Today I wanted to play the online for the first time.... but it says something along the line of..... "check if the internet definitions are configurated"
What do I need to doooo!:CONFUSE:
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
I'm a bit stuck with the passing, zero feels too manual and one-bar feels too automated. Either way it doesn't matter as I don't really feel any difference between players's passing ability, beyond using through balls.
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This is how I feel, I also personally prefer PES 13 for passing. I just think they had Zero Assistance pretty much spot on, I'm caught in between Zero and 1-Bar on PES 14, and I'm not fussed on either.
 
The point of the testers is to point out problems, yes. They're powerless to actually fix the problems. The most they can do is grade bugs from minor to major in terms of impact to the game. God only knows what Konami fixed instead of the existing bugs.

Honestly, the suggestion that the QA team are to blame, or that the solution is to fire everybody who codes or designs at the company, is embarrassing to read.
 
romagnoli said:
The point of the testers is to point out problems, yes. They're powerless to actually fix the problems. The most they can do is grade bugs from minor to major in terms of impact to the game. God only knows what Konami fixed instead of the existing bugs.

Honestly, the suggestion that the QA team are to blame, or that the solution is to fire everybody who codes or designs at the company, is embarrassing to read.
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and even that will get overruled by producers etc and even potentially ignored :))
 
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