Here are my thoughts of where the game is, but also what can be done about getting it to an acceptable level using the tactical options we have available.
This is great, Matt, thanks for that! I've already implemented the five minute fix and the tight marking, but will try out the other suggestions as well.
I've almost played a full season with Corinthians in the Brazilian league on regular full manual now. I've enjoyed it quite a bit. Some games are ruined by AI cheating, but mostly it's been pretty good. I've really had to work the defenses with passing and movement to get goals (or have just tried with some insane long shots, and scored every now and then). I've compiled a little list of things I wish PES/Konami would get sorted eventually though (not that I'm hoping it will ever happen), thought I'd share.
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The referees. They're doing my head in with how often they give the opposition freekicks and how few freekicks I get. I've had situations where an opposition guy has fouled one of my players, then my player rolls into the legs of the opposition play, and they get the freekick! It's just ridiculous, and can surely be fixed somehow, as it's obviously biased towards the human player.
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Replays after fouls. I don't need to see them, please just get rid.
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Tackling when trying to reach stray balls. This one is doing my head in as well. So you've had a shot saved, the ball is bouncing around a bit in the six yard box, you have two players close, you think one of them could pull off a header or maybe a volley, you press the shot button, you then slide tackle their keeper or someone and give away a foul. You simply can't reach those stray balls if there are opposition players around, it seems, you'll end up tackling them 49 times out of 50.
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Stealing the ball from the opposition defence up high. This is so easy even on World Class, and should just be fixed one way or the other. I've had to just keep myself from pressing the opposition up high, but then you can have the opposition pass the ball around the back for a while, and waste valuable time, so the natural thing would be to press. Should really be fixed one way or another. I've had way too many steal the ball from an opposing player up high, one on one with keeper, goal. Not realistic at all.
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Player reactions. This is especially noticable when playing full manual, as passes aren't always perfect. Sometimes you pass the ball a bit behind your guy, and it would of course be natural for your player to have some latency in reaction, but what you're often seeing is your guy drifting on for a couple of seconds before reacting, which just isn't realistic, and it makes attacking in smaller spaces ridiculously hard on higher difficulties, as the opposition simply react sooner than your guys 10 times out of 10.
- I'm playing the Brazilian league now and have had something like
7 home matches in a row (including 5 league matches). I don't know the Brazilian league too well, but I suspect this is some lazy Konami coding, as it's been a problem for at least 10 years with PES games. Should be so easy to fix.
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Crossing and heading on full manual seems broken to me. I might be doing something wrong, but even while holding L2 down while crossing, way too often the players I have in the box will just stay rooted to the spot, even if the ball is flying just over their heads, if I press the shot button. If I do get my head on the ball, it will very often just loop into the air and over. I had an instance that I studied with instant replay where my striker goes up to head the ball, he hits it cleanly on his forehead, the trajectory of the ball before he hits it, and the way he hits it with his head tilted downwards towards the ball, would suggest a clean header downwards towards goal, but the replay shows the ball magically looping up and over goal. Not physically possible, and I've had this happen so many times I can't believe it's all human error, really.
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Offsides. A bit of a minor niggle. I see often in offside replays that you are maybe a little finger or a fibre of your shirt in offside, it would be impossible for the human eye to spot this offside, but it's always called. I honestly don't think a lot of these calls would be made in real life, as they probably wouldn't be deemed offside. Especially when playing full manual, and it's hard to get around in and around a packed box, these are quite annoying, especially if you've had a lovely passing move end with a goal, for it to be disallowed for your striker to have had his eyebrow in offside. A little more leeway on offsides would make the game a whole lot more enjoyable on full manual at least, in my opinion.
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The AI cheating. This one takes many forms, and I'm sure you all know it. Some matches you notice it as soon as you take the kick off, your players just don't respond to your commands as well, they're slow to turn, they're straying out of position just a little bit, don't receive passes well, react slowly to things happening etc. Why do they do this?! I mean, it's normal for a team to be out of form, and have bad days, but I wish there was some way for me to get an indication of this happening. Are all my guys on down arrows? Sure, I'd understand it, and I could maybe do something about it, but they're not! Some of them might be in perfectly good arrow poing up form, yet still not be able to pass to a team mate five yards away. Also, the obvious cheating where the AI, being Nottingham or someone, turns into Barcelona anno 2010 and you can't touch them. Even if you try to tackle a player he will just magically bump out of the way.
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Player form. This one, yet again, doesn't make much sense. I had a player I hadn't played all season get into the starting line-up on a neutral arrow. He goes on to score a hat trick, and had an assist as well, involved in all the goals, didn't put a foot wrong, MOM display, he was awesome. The next match he has a downward pointing arrow - what the hell? How can that be? He's had the match of his life, for crying out loud, he must be buzzing! Player form is just completely random, it's like it has nothing to do with how you play the game. I remember this working in earlier games (back on the PS2), so not sure why it doesn't now. If you had a string of good games, your team was buzzing, likewise if you were in a rut, you could clearly see it from the form of the players, and you had to fight to get out of it - now it's just all over the place and random.
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The camera. I haven't found a single camera I like this year. Only a couple of them allows you to see the entire width of the pitch, one being "fan view" which make the intricate short passes in tight spaces much harder, and one is the dynamic wide on a very low height setting, which basically mean you'll struggle to see what is happening on the far side. I've had to settle on a custom 0-10-10 (zero zoom, ten height, ten angle), but it's frustrating that you can't see the lower side of the pitch when you're in the middle of the pitch. You need to rely on the radar too much, and especially on manual passing, this isn't ideal.
