Agreed.
Lets make it clear: PES 2015 is not on PES 2014 level when it comes to realism of animations/player movement physics, but on the other hand, it doesnt look nowhere as unrealistic as PES 2017 and SPECIALLY PES 2016 wich is ridiculously bad on this aspect. Well, but wich game is on PES 2014 level on this aspect ? No one. Even EA with their unlimited budget couldn't ever produces a game in wich players moved so realisticaly. Thats a fact.
But it seems that all the amazing work done on PES 2014 on the tech aspect came with a price: bad control reponse for many. Maybe with more time under development they could have managed to fix control responses while keeping at least almost the same level of realism ? Who knows...
I think Konami had the wrong plan. It was clear for me that PES TEAM wanted to show the true potential of Fox Engine right away, to make everyone excited about what the future holds, and as it takes much time to really make that adaptation of a new engine to a sport game, in the end what we really got was nothing more than a tech demo.
Imo, what we could have as PES 2014 should actually be PES 2015/6. And PES 2014 should be the hidden project to be release on nextgen. In other words, PES 2017/2018 should be the finished, very well polished PES 2014 with all the technical evolution the "new consoles" could offer.
Pes 2014 should be their hidden project known now by the name of PES 2017. But they wanted to blow peoples mind right away releasing a rushed failed product on old consoles. Its a matter of having no vision, thats main Konami problem:
Great post, not because I totally agree with you, but because it really raises questions as to why or who at Konami decided to take steps backwards from the realism of pes14 to what we have now. I do think that pes17 has many, many improvements from 16, as can be spotted in the many clips we've seen...Ball physics do look much improved which is a huge thing in football.
BUT its 2 key areas that we can see have fallen short (gone backwards). First, animations with player movement/dribbling look really bad as they did with 16. Many posts ago, I mentioned that 'the look' still has, in my view, a direct relationship to how the game feels when controlling a player. Simply put, the game needs to feel like playing real football when controlling a single player. I tried pes14, pes15 and pes16 in free training mode.. simply moving around with the ball, sprinting, passing, crossing scoring etc, and by a MILE, pes14 felt the most realistic (some of this also do to the fact that the ball physics are in my view amazing in 14). More realistic than any other football game. It Looks and feels brilliant. The players actually have player models of real life looking football players (no hunch, no big shorts that make upper legs look enormous), particularly the players with their shirts untucked - to be specific - they look awesome in 14. The movements were natural and realistic.. out of any soccer game, the least amount of missing animations that ive seen. This obviously increases the response time, but I always thought this increase in response time was in fact more sim than the arcade feel of being able to go left, right, and 360 in a milli second. Also, im playing we2014 asoki samuri, the last made version of we/pes14 which I believe improved the response issue quite a bit. Anyways with pes14 in free training mode, it felt like I was actually controlling a football player. You need this feeling in a football game - if you want to be immersed by it.
With pes15 and 16, free training mode, first thing I notice is a deterioration in realistic player models. Pes15 isn't that bad though.. pes16 much worse.. bigger shorts, legs spread wider, and more of a hunch in the running animations. Ok, the responsiveness no doubt improved, but with it comes the horrible/unrealistic movements (missed animations and sliding) and horrible running form. It also seems to negatively affect the passing. Almost too responsive, n no weight to the pass. Im talking more about 16 here, because, 15 actually felt pretty good (albeit not as natural and realistic as 14)..but pes15 player movement/animations are much better than 16, and there is a heaviness that I really enjoy when moving and passing in 15. Unfortunately the ball felt and sounded like a rock when you kicked it
The 2nd key area that is really concerning from the pes17 clips seen thus far, is exactly what Matt10 mentioned in his YouTube clip (fantastic summation btw, thanks for that). Its to do with the actual football brain/tactics that are incorporated in the gameplay. We desperately need realistic common-sense football in regards to how the game is actually played in the professional world of football (positioning and tracking). Matt10's video clearly shows that either Konami lack football knowledge (on how football is actually played, even by the worst of the worst professional teams) or are truly going the arcade route.
As critical or negative as many of us sound here, I do think we need to continue to relay these messages to Konami, and for them to know that many of us just aren't happy with the decisions they are currently making. Will it make a difference, who knows.. as they know they cannot make all fans happy with their decisions. Im just hoping that the big dogs at Konami start hiring or listening to some educated football folk who really know the game and that their passion heads towards a simulated route.
Anyways, although I doubt things will improve drastically from what we've seen from these clips, I do remain optimistic that the version we get will be a better build in regards to tactics etc. On a positive, at least it seems that some of the old issues from pes16 have been some what improved, ie. refs look much better now, keepers seem to save low shots better - haven't seen the slow mo dive. Shot variation/errors still need work though.