Drastic difficulty shift!?

[Limphy]

ok, first of all, i've been playing PES since 2003, and have played BaL ever since it first arrived, so i do have a little background, and i consider myself a reasonably experienced player..

..i'm also pretty familiar with the game's dynamics, so i know all about the scripting, defender-catapulting and such, and have come to accept it

What puzzles me this year, however, is the sudden difficulty shift i experience after half a season or so..

As i've mentioned before, i consider myself an ok player, so this year i was delighted to see the Super Star difficulty an option! I stared a CF with a 60 overall rating and got signed by De Graafschap .. frankly, they were terrible, so i was looking to move on straight away ...playing well and frustrating through, i managed to secure a 6.6 rating and in late december, received an offer from Sporting, a solid ''B'' ranked team. Needless to say I accepted without hesitation, and by january i was already in portugal ...

the first few games were just how i hoped! I was playing for an above average team who passed around well and supplied me with a couple of chances almost every match ... i had a solid 7.1 average after the first couple of games, and felt great! (I'm not saying it wasn't difficult, it was, but only to the point where i was able to sufficiently enjoy playing with my capabilities, winning or losing.

Then, suddenly, something shifted! As we went against Shaktar in the Europa league, something wasn't right. My teammates became awful; they struggled with passes, ran into opposition, and kept conceiving goals.. It was, however, a well known feeling, since PES has been doing this with ''European'' matches since the beginning of the BAL mode (though i don't see the appeal, nor realism in this). I've come to grips with this ''glitch'' over the years, so i just quietly sat through the bombarding session, counting down the clock ...

... the real surprise, however, were/are the following matches ... usually, the team overcomes the horrific defeat in the Euro League and gets back on ''form'' (though they're still not playing full potential, i know) for their own national league, and i expected no less from Sporting .. but no such luck; the team, including myself, are playing attrociously for about 5 or so straight matches (despite being on ''top'' form?) ... they can't/won't pass, they ran into eachother, and conceive goals.. to top it of, the opponents play like superhumans! Believe me, I'm aware of how defender's ''cheat'' in this game, and how diificult it is (especially in the early stages) to get past them, but the rate of it all during the last few matches don't even compare! No matter where i am, less than a second after a recieve the ball (if at all!) i get violently rammed down by at least one of the opponent's players, and if, by chance i manage to get past, my ball control feels as if it's closer to 45 than 75 (which it supposedly is). And this goes for my teammates as well.. i do think there's been a drastic improvement this year as far as teammate AI goes; they're actually able to dribble and pass instead of just running into others ect., but during the last few matches, the whole progress seemed to evaporate.. they're playing shit again! ... and the worst part? Despite playing like a bunch of schoolgirls, they manage to somehow defy logic and the laws of physics and achieve the weirdest imaginable goals (only when i'm not involved in the action, naturally ...) making me look/feel like an inadequate striker.. it's a tiny bit frustrating

so, anyway, does anybody else have similar experiences? is it a glitch of some sort? Or is it just Konami's way of making things more ''Interesting'' if your ratings are ''too high'' (j/k.. hopefully:S)

 

[Limphy]

ok, seriously!? this is the eighth consecutive game we're getting massacred by super fast and powerful opponents, and my own team playing nothing like before, in fact, even worse than my previous club with D/E rankings ... i mean, i would accept it to be this ridiculously hard mode meant to be played only by the top gaming elite, but as i mentioned before, the first half-season wasn't anything like this, and the only thing i've changed since is my team ... i don't get, but it's getting really frustrating to the point where i'm deciding not to play anymore...

 

[0zz]

It's "normal" in this game.I think that this is Konami's way of implementing fatigue factor, but if it's true, then I've never seen more EPIC FAIL than this. I've experienced this in every single career I started.Guys with "pinpoint pass" "classic10" and other fancy cards are totally useless. Game just takes away like 50% from every single stat of all your teammates.I begged the fucking tv for a trademark ball from Pirlo but he seems to have fucking coffe break in the middle of vital games.And when I finally set up action,( YES I had to go to midfield to create something), my winger gets the ball, storms down the wing, I'm right in the fucking middle, two steps behind the ball,ideal spot for easy tap in, this is the moment when "I'm gonna fuck this up" factor comes to play. Winger either runs out of field, making various dribble moves( no defensive cover), crosses the ball high and wide, shoots or stops and waits for defender to catch up.All AI had to do was pass the rock to my feet.Most of what Limphy said and things I've experienced starded after spending 1,5 seasons in one club.It seems like no matter how "good" your team is, they gonna loose regardless of oposition.

 

[fetidchimp]

yeah the shift between ok and diabolical AI is pretty noticeable....especially the running out of play for no good reason thing.
I noticed what op noticed in my second season. I imagine a lot of that has to do with the computer coach picking dudes with low moral and who are fatigued though.
My friend and i play 2 players vs the computer a lot and once your stamina bar goes to red, passes start going straight through your feet and passes you make end up going nowhere near where you wanted them to.
My guess is that the team you are in probably all have a lower all round stamina that brings them back to the pack half way through the season.
Getting in a good team seems to make this far less noticeable though as they have a higher stamina all round.
Just what i have noticed anyway, it really sticks out in 2 player vs computer with your own legend though.

 

[dan80]

Agree with all of this something else that annoyed me just before i raged quit twice and restart 2 times, i was rested for the the chelsea game im manutd and captain, manger rested me dont have a clue why now our form has been shit at late cant score at all but the game was skipped we won 5-1 away from home chelsea were 1st we were 9th, just so convinient as i wasnt playing.

Then next match i was back against stoke city who are last in the league so i thought well this should be piss easy as we just thrashed chelsea 5-1 away, but no i was playing hardly any chances then all of a sudden i was through on goal 1v1 and i have a 91 shot acuracy and couldnt miss but it went wide just pathetic, then they get a freekick and it skims vidic head all the keeper had to was just catch it but no he dives and it goes right past his hands so softly and its an own goal and they would of won but i re start the match by then, and they became super human stoke who are last for a reason scored 2 shitty cheating goals so i just turned the ps3 off.

The point is its random teams seem to mean nothing beat chelsea 5-1 when im not playing and no one ever seems to score but me, then im back against the worst team and what do you know we cant score im so frustrated with this pile of shite i could of easily snapped the disc earlier, but whats crazy is im still going to play this game despite hating it or just hoping one day we might actually be half decent team all of us.

 

[fluido82]

my first advice will be this: keep it simple in your first seasons. Your player is a sh.it so just don't miss the ball, don't miss a pass, even more, just limitate yourself to participate with the team, keep it simple, secure the pass, and when you can really take advantage of a space, take it. this way you will secure a decent rating even if your team is lossing and playing like shi.t. Remember that your rating is not only about scoring or making assits. is about your full performance.

second: Do not change of team continuosly. stay with one, even if they are playing like sh.it. There is something very important in the game to play better with your team: TEAMWORK, you have to increase it and the best way to increase it is to stay with one team for a long time. Do not give up, show mentality and stay with one team until you begin to play better. So to resume this, two things: in the game, your teammates will begin to respond better to you with the time and the second, you have to find a way and you have to adapt yourself to the team. and one last thing I´ve noticed: if you are in a weak/middle team, the game will begin to 'reinforce' it by buying new players with the time.

third: last year (pes 2011) I started a legend but before that, I edited some things. I edited two goalies (Casillas and Buffon), two defenders (Lucio and Chiellini) two midfielders (Mascherano an Essien) and two forwards.

Why the change? To have famous footballlers with great overall (level) as options for online teammates.

What did I change? Four things: 1.- the age to 17, 2.- Growing type to slow-delayed (sorry i dont know the name in english) 3.- Condition/fitness for the guys less than 6 to 6. and 4.- injury stat: for the guys with 1 to 2.

so, this way they will grow alone and be ready when i was retired.

But in the game, I played 12 - 13 seasons with Barcelona and at some moment the team became to old or even worse, too old and too young, there was only very old players or very young players (reborned) and then I suffered some seasons. It was so bad, that the game began to do something weird: To buy players for Barcelona. Even when the transfer market setting was in low and it was Barcelona: It brought two players back, a powerfull Mascherano and a still young but good Puyol. Actually Puyol was funny because he reborned and he was sold, and then he was back and he was sold again and the he was back for the last time, and the machine buy a 32 years old ashley young and the team became competitive once again. we even won champions league for the last time..

So, in the middle of that I thought oh I should make the same changes for Barcelona and National team next time'

So this year I did it. few changes, dont mess with the essence of the players, they are like that for a reason, do not change cards, do not increase stats or you will regreat that.

Just change key player of one team: the team you will be for a long time. If you change more teams (one weak, one middle and one big) you will have a Real Zaragoza winning la liga and a Udinese winning the champions later and nobody wants that.

You better hold on until you can play with that team.
and even then, you will have a complete diferent challenge. I will just say something about it: it's easy to get in the team, the hard part is to remain with the team.

So, Just key players of a team and key players of your national team, yo choose..

It´s obvious Konami is still working with some issues like the time issue so to take away this kind of frustration, you can do this.

Also you can turn on the classic players option.

I changed some players and at the end I have (for example) a Pique who is 101 overall since 33 years old, when I retired, he was 39 years old and he was with the same 101 overall, why? because I change the growing type to slow/delayed. the same with other players..

If he is to old and you want him to reborn, do not change the growing type. I changed to seedorf (national team) and van nistelroy, and they reborn with a overall of 54 or some shi.t like that, they never play for their teams again and they grow very slow, is that the case, just make the other changes.

and so on. this way you will not have the teammate frustation..

 

[Limphy]

ok, this game is weird

i started a new Secondary striker a couple days back.. don't remember exactly what i did, but i managed to get a pretty fast, and overall solid player (63 overall, i think) with speed merchant... naturally, i got picked by VVV (dutch league), who have no need for an SS, so i spend the first two months as a late sub playing either a RW on both sides and a CF occasionally (i really don't get why a team who doesn't even require your position would bother signing you/ruining your early years, but never mind..) ... the thing was, i was getting amazing ratings!?

I didn't pay much attention to the role i was supposed to play, i lost a decent amount of balls (more than usually, when i'm playing carefully and try to be a 100% flawless), but i was in the middle of ''the action'' most of the time ... the result? I got two 8.0 ratings straight up, without even scoring or assisting! otherwise, i was getting 7.0 -7.5 ALL THE TIME! I think i got a 6.5 once, but that's it..

needless to say, i became the interest for all the top teams, and as soon as i was able to change the manager, i made contact with Chelsea and Barcelona (both supposedly had ''high'', over 90% requirement for my player, and have the most training points) ... as expected, they both went into further negotations with my manager ...

... i kept playing well (constantly above 7.0), and i was sure to leave my current team by january (my previous player got signed by chelsea during the first half season, despite having both lower overall and player ratings (60 and 6.7) ... i was wrong ... despite showing great interest and myself playing brilliantly, both teams failed to make the deal with my manager about three times each ... i then tried arsenal (also high requirement), and the same thing happened again ... it's past january now, at it seems i'll have to spend the season at VVV, despite clearly being of great interest to almost every A-ranked team out there.. WTF?

also, on an unrelated story, another ''weird'' thing happened today... our team got a free kick about 40m away from goal ... our player sends the ball into the box, where another of my team-mates and an opposing defender both jumped for it.. our guy apparently got it, and made it go wide of goal ... during that whole time i came running from the deep and managed to just head the wide-going ball into the net from a pretty steep angle ... A GOAL!

Surprisingly, the following animation started showing the dude who jumped for the ball (and in a way, assisted my goal) ... i thought it was unusual since the animation always focuses on the scorer ... and then, his name pops up at the bottom of the screen along with the words: ''goals scored: 1'' ... WHAT!? ... i then went through the replay about a dozen times, and there was no mistaking it ... the ball went about 2 meters wide of goal, until i changed it's direction by almost 180° and sent it on the other side of the goal ... yet the game credited him? I wasn't even annoyed, it was hilarious

 

[Limphy]

ah, here we go again...

as mentioned, i failed to transfer during the half season despite playing really well, so i'm stuck with VVV for the rest of the season..

needless to say they're not the best team, but at least they managed to offer some support enabling me to play well ... until the famous second half-season, that is..

as with every single player so far, the team suddenly became incapable of breaking through the middle pitch and lead the attack ... their defense is no better .. we were 3rd in december, we're already 8th in the start of february.. i basically have to demand the ball all the time, just to make sure my team mates don't run into an opponent or just smack a long ball forward where no one is waiting and waste possession. the opponents obviously playing better than ever ... suddenly, i can't even get past one defender, whereas i was able to turn 2 or 3 players at the same time on quite a few occasions not yet a month ago. All of the sudden, i keep getting 6.5 despite trying (and frustrating) twice as hard as before ... i can't even fulfill a simple expectations of getting 3 shots on goal during the match as i simply don't get enough chances being forced to play a midfielder in order to drive on the attack... another career tainted, as usual ... not enjoying myself (but can't stop playing for some reason?)

i really don't get it, though.. why make the team so bad? And if it's a must, why make/keep the other teams better? ... it's neither enjoying, nor realistic .. just an easily fixable flaw that would make the experience SO MUCH better, imo ... but what do i know, right?

 

[fluido82]

also, the problem can be related with condition/fitness. Many gamers don't know the way it works:

http://pesmastery.com/2010/10/pes-2011-condition.html

So, according to this, it can be a vicious or virtous cycle.

For example, I had 5 of condition/fitness but most of the times, I had red or yellow arrow because my performance. And the same for the rest of my team (barsa).

So if you are winning and having great performance, making goals and assits, you will have better condition and therefore, you will be avaible to play better and so on..

But if your team is loosing and having poor performance, you will have bad condition and therefore, you will struggle even more..

This is different online where there is no tracking for performance like there is no tracking for fatige.

there, most of the times I have green arrows, few times yellow, blue, and rarely a red card because there is no tracking for performance like in single player. So the condition stat is relevant for the probability of having a better arrow.

 

[fluido82]

do you notice the diference in teams when they change of strategy? like when some team is loosing and it change to a more offensive/attacking system, or if they are playing home or away or against a more powerful team, an so on. the problem can be related with many things..

 

[dan80]

I think if your playing bad then the team plays bad, i just think its random one miniute the team can play really well then they cant pass a ball 3 yards without losing possesion even good players with decent ablity just loose everything, all when the game says so, random or just scripted.

 

[ElTreado]

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that's suffering on BaL this year. I started out with Heracles in Eredivisie, and they were terrible. AI teammates trying to run through 3 players when there were people wide open for passes, not moving the ball around properly, making terrible defensive decisions, and a load of other things that added up to a nightmare season for me. 2nd year, I moved to Bordeaux, reasonably decent team (I thought), so hopefully things would fare a bit better. How wrong was I!!! They were terrible as well, getting outplayed game after game even by some of the worst teams in the league. In the end - as much as it shamed me to - I had to drop the difficulty level, coz it was just ridiculous...my teammates were useless, and my own player was still too poor, stats-wise, to make things happen on his own.

It seems as though when you raise the difficulty, the opposition get better in relation, but your own teammates' AI stays at the same retarded level. It's so frustrating, as I want to challenge myself at the highest levels, but can't do that when the gameplay is such a mess because the AI is completely unbalanced. I've just started a game on Superstar to see if that is any better than the other levels. Although my guy struggles to make an impact in matches, I won't mind, as long as the rest of the team is capable of carrying me a bit, rather than it having to be the other way around. Not sure if anyone can vouch for it being any more realistic and balanced on this level?

 

[Limphy]

^it's not. definitely not more realistic or balanced on superstar level! More frustrating, if anything

i'm not trying to go on another rant (though having just nearly lost my nerves with BaL, i suppose i'm inclined to rant a little ) but the playing seems far from balanced, and realism shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as BAL 2012.

For instance ... even if you somehow overcome the fact that defenders just seem to run faster than you and can even catch up to your player in full sprint (mine has 92 dribble speed, yet can't seem to outrun anyone on the pitch!?) their ways of ''stopping'' the attacks just ruin everything for me. Their horrendous tackles come flying at me as soon as i get the ball - it's a struggle just get unfouled past midfield - and i'm a CF! Seriously, i've started studying replays and most of the time, they dont even graze the ball, yet the ref does nothing!? On the other hand, my team backtracks in front of the opponents all the way to the penalty spot, then stand there and wait to get dribbled. Which is almost understandable considering the fact a whistle is blown at nearly every contact made with the computer's team. I'm sure that's far from a balanced game, but to consider it ''realistic'' is straight up ridiculous!

I won't go in great details of the fact i just became captain of Liverpool FC at 21 (dumb), yet suddenly i'm back to begging my teammates for passes and manually timing them in order to get anything out of the attack (even dumber), but STILL getting subbed 50-60 minutes in despite my stamina gauge being as full/empty as anyone else's and my rating 0.5 better than the second best rated player who played the entire match (he had 6.0!?!) ... realistic!

Another thing bothering me about the game's ''realism'' is the form.. i get it, a team that loses games, loses form, and your player shouldn't be any different. But i think Konami forgot to take MY form into consideration.

let me elaborate:
i, personaly, lose with my the team. I also get defeated, and my psyche also suffers for it. And when defeats keep on coming, i get more and more frustrated and i that certainly greatly effects my playing - my player's performance. But by lowering my player's abilities to enforce this ''realism'' i basically get a double portion of the negative effect which makes it twice as hard to overcome this ''slump'' and therefore twice as frustrating and difficult to keep playing.. just my thoughts

 

[dan80]

^ Agree, this mode is not realistic at all it just seems broke all of the time, i still don't know why i play it maybe im expecting something amazing to finally happen when i reach a good overall but im a 94 and still can play like total crap ive heard ive gotta wait till im in my 30s for things to change like getting player cards and my stats going up, when technically once you hit your 30s things start to go down, but then again this is BAL so anything unrealistic is possible.

 

[ElTreado]

well, after 8 or so games of my BaL (playing for AC Milan) on Superstar difficulty, it's been put back down to an easier level again!...teammates are still useless, and I just couldn't impose myself on matches, no matter how hard I tried (96 pass accuracy, and I'm still lucky if a 10 yard pass actually makes it to the intended target).

Week after week of struggling against every team we faced, getting outplayed at home by teams in the bottom 6 in the league. At one point we were 1-1 with Fiorentina in the last minute of a league game, and their keeper came up for a corner and scored the winner with a free header from 8 yards out...why would he even be up there in the first place, and where was our defence???

Final straw was playing AEK Athens in a training match. I hoped it was my chance to really have a bit of freedom and really stamp my authority on a game against a weaker team (no dispespect to AEK)...ended up AEK had most of the possession, and we never even got close to breaking their defence down in the whole 90 minutes, and I spent most of the time I was on the pitch either getting easily dispossessed, or dumped on my arse for no free kick.

I've always loved this game mode since it was introduced, but this year's effort is downright terrible. I'm sick of either spending game after game, watching my team get torn apart by opponents they should be beating, or having to play it on too easy of a level, just so I can actually touch the ball more than twice and manage to pass to someone on my own team

 

[dolcem]

I think I may know why these problems are occurring. It's the difficulty level.

I'm not the best at video games, especially now that I've relatively recently started using controllers instead of the keyboard (a necessity now that the games have 360 degree movement) as I never owned a console as a kid and wasn't good with controllers. So I'll admit that in the soccer games I've owned (always on the PC, PES 6, then PES 2009, then FIFA 11, now PES 2012) I usually play on the second highest difficulty level or the highest.

I found this year's PES to be extremely frustrating. Although some aspects of it are great, there are a lot of things wrong with it that really hold it back. A lot of the stuff I can't put my finger on but mostly it's the passing. I have the setting on assisted (one bar) but often times it does through balls when I don't want a through ball. Passes towards the sidelines are inexplicably kicked out of bounds. And every through ball is kicked way too far ahead of the player. But most of all, I'm amazed at how often passes end up going to the wrong player.

Anyway, so on this year's PES I play on Professional and even that is probably too hard...I found the BAL mode really difficult (even when I played well I couldn't get a high rating) so I tried it on Regular.

At the beginning of the season my ratings weren't so good so I missed my chance to get in the starting lineup. After that I'd come off the bench (when I had a red arrow, or towards the end, sometimes with an orange) and I started to do well. At the end of the season I had an average rating of 6.8 (by far the best on my team) but only 9 appearances in 30 league games! I was surprised at how little I played.

Even though my contribution was small, we finished in 2nd place. And I was GIL VICENTE in the Portuguese league. GIL VICENTE! My teammates were pretty good and we always managed to win games.

So I think it has to do with the difficulty level. The quality of your AI teammates depends a lot on the difficulty level...on lower levels, they are way better than they should be. On higher levels, they are way worse than they should be.

 

[Sabatasso]

There is a massive change in difficulty once your player reaches 75 overall rating, and an added overall gamespeed increase as well. If you previously played at gamespeed 0, it's effectively +1 the second you reach 75 overall rating. You can "counter" the effect for a while by setting it at -1, making it effectively 0. But once your player is in the mid 80's, the gamespeed is effectively +2 even if you set it at -2.

Stupid yes... I never accused Konami of being overly smart in their technical department.

EDIT: This basically means that you can only grind out three or four fun season of BAL before it all turns into a meth fueled mayhem. That's also assuming you get straight into the first team, basic rule of thumb to do so is to go for a player with 8 form.

 

[itsame]

Meh, ive found it plays a good fair game on pro difficulty.

First season is always difficult till you get your teamwork rating up, no matter how hard you call for the ball they jsut play stupid balls to bad wingers. Then once you hit about 60 teamwork you can run the team.

Put it this way i started with a 56 OVR rated AMF and by season 3 im rated 82 OVR. Investing in skill bonuses and good boots should help, also extra positions/skills.