(EDIT: I actually said I was "somewhat world-class", I guess it's wrong to admit you are quite good. I might be a case of big fish in a small pond, but I've played in other countries and held my own. I guess someone felt threatened, how childish.)
I play master league co-op regularly and also compete in friendly tournaments all the time. PES is about gameplay, about quick reaction, precision and decision making.
I always play in the hardest difficulty settings and do rather well in my tournaments (I usually crush them!).
I've been playing for a long time and these are some bugs or issues that I feel should be corrected or at least considered and discussed.
These are my suggestions, some things I agree with have already been posted by others or addressed by KONAMI, so I felt there was no need to repeat them here (such as the invisible wall on throw-ins).
**** Control ****
1. Bring back the old “Manual” control system.
2. When you close down on an attacking opposing player, and you want to pressure them by pressing and holding ‘X’, your player inexplicably and automatically goes behind the attacking player and disrupts your run to close him up.
3. Lobbing the keeper is broken on PES2009, 2008’s lob mechanic was better.
4. Players should slide like I instruct them to, not always towards the ball (or player’s feet...)
5. When I press the shoot button the player should rather try to take a shot (a volley) instead of squatting and softly heading the ball, or diving to his own feet and slowly heading the ball.
6. The manual pass is in general too unrealistically soft and slow, it’s slower setting should be considerably higher, the past must be faster, stronger.
**** Gameplay - AI ****
1. The ball goes over the defenders an they freeze or slowly turn allowing for the forward to quickly out run them. They shouldn’t turn towards the ball if I’m still pressing them to run forwards to collect it after it lands.
2. Players sometimes have ridiculous reaction times, like when the ball just grazes next to them and they don’t even react.
3. Reach in animations need to be timed better, as they are they often cause to actually miss an interception.
4. Goalkeepers need to worry more and sprint towards deflected shot or passes, in order to prevent a corner kick or even a striker from benefiting from the lose ball.
5. Goalkeepers forget to mind the closest goal post when rushing out to close-in on an advancing striker. This is Goalkeeping 101.
6. Everything the Triangle button does needs tuning. The keeper coming out I explained above, the through ball needs a power bar and needs to follow the receiving player’s run, better. The air though ball needs to go deeper, a power bar would fix this. Also when you press triangle for a vertical pass it should precisely set up the ball so that it intercepts the in-rushing (receiving) player, currently it either send the ball too long or to another player of it just leaves it there, so slowly that it is almost motionless, easy for a defender to pick up.
7. Passing headers are very inaccurate, they need to be more dependable. This happens also because your teammates tend to gather round the ball and chase it, instead of setting themselves to cleanly receive a header pass.
8. Currently you change player by selecting the one you need by pressing L1 and “pointing” to the player you want. This often causes defences to split open because you need to run in a different direction than the one you use to select the defender. This needs to be assisted taking into account proximity to the ball and trajectory of the ball, so that only L1 changes players and your movement keys don’t play any part with the changing player process.
9. When you take out players from the wall, while defending a free kick, they show up way behind the rest of the players. Doing so at the last second, effectively annuls any off-side trap attempt your defence had.
10. Offsides are usually wrongly called, just by a defender’s boot or leg. This should be taken into account.
11. Offsides and fouls are often whistled too soon and interrupt the chance of following up with the play or even launch a counter-attack.
12. Passive offside needs to be taken into account. Specially if you intercept a pass an you have a clear opportunity to break out a counter attack.
13. Pass the ball to the player closest in the general direction I point to, not to the player that "should be there" (player's position). This is specially noticeable when in attack on the other team's box.
**** BAL ****
1. The ability to take a “loan” transfer from a different .bal savegame into your team, this to play 2 player (or even more) Co-op with another friend in BAL.
2.The special camera for BAL is useless. When it rotates it changes your movement axis’ on the run and it’s impossible to control a run and it’s downright nauseating when you cross the midfield. It needs to be fixed on the players back and zoom in and out and pan depending on where on the pitch you are.
3. Your teammates need to be more create when passing the ball, they rarely lob the ball, or send a through pass your way, and crosses are almost non existing from them. When you call for the pass they should better read your run and the opposing player’s position and runs.
4. You trophies and awards (top scorer) should be more important when attracting offers from other clubs.
**** Edit Mode ****
1. Bring back the option to create a new player based on a copy of an existing player. And even expand it to “Copy/Paste” looks and “Copy/Paste” attributes.
2. For the Master League or just creating a team in general, give us decent templates in order to create top notch, team crests and uniforms. Team logos created with the in-game editor usually look like cheap knock offs.
**** Presentation ****
1. Use some match-day or sports cast presentation elements, such as: Man of The Match, maybe complete with an interview. Goal (or Play) of the Game, and have it commented while it replays.
2. When viewing all the games in the Calendar, let us see some game information about that game when we select it, such as scorers, and stats for the game.
3. “Best of” (Africa, North America, Europe, Passers, etc.) teams are fun, but they should have proper uniforms, they look cheap on generic kits.
4. The pitch and grass should variate in look, feel, quality and size. Dry pitches, snow covered, damp. Depending on the season (calendar date) and location. And the ball should react accordingly.
5. The coach of the team should be editable as a player, in terms of looks at least, so that he looks good in cinematics.
6. More and better animations, even custom to the event just won or lost.
7. Camera presets should have adjustable properties such as height, zoom and such.
8. More international leagues, such as Brazil, Mexico would provide for more scouting options in the Master League.
9. In the master league, I don’t like having to go back 4-5 screens to take a player out of the “transferable” list in order to return 4-5 screens and then negotiate for a player swap.
I play master league co-op regularly and also compete in friendly tournaments all the time. PES is about gameplay, about quick reaction, precision and decision making.
I always play in the hardest difficulty settings and do rather well in my tournaments (I usually crush them!).
I've been playing for a long time and these are some bugs or issues that I feel should be corrected or at least considered and discussed.
These are my suggestions, some things I agree with have already been posted by others or addressed by KONAMI, so I felt there was no need to repeat them here (such as the invisible wall on throw-ins).
**** Control ****
1. Bring back the old “Manual” control system.
2. When you close down on an attacking opposing player, and you want to pressure them by pressing and holding ‘X’, your player inexplicably and automatically goes behind the attacking player and disrupts your run to close him up.
3. Lobbing the keeper is broken on PES2009, 2008’s lob mechanic was better.
4. Players should slide like I instruct them to, not always towards the ball (or player’s feet...)
5. When I press the shoot button the player should rather try to take a shot (a volley) instead of squatting and softly heading the ball, or diving to his own feet and slowly heading the ball.
6. The manual pass is in general too unrealistically soft and slow, it’s slower setting should be considerably higher, the past must be faster, stronger.
**** Gameplay - AI ****
1. The ball goes over the defenders an they freeze or slowly turn allowing for the forward to quickly out run them. They shouldn’t turn towards the ball if I’m still pressing them to run forwards to collect it after it lands.
2. Players sometimes have ridiculous reaction times, like when the ball just grazes next to them and they don’t even react.
3. Reach in animations need to be timed better, as they are they often cause to actually miss an interception.
4. Goalkeepers need to worry more and sprint towards deflected shot or passes, in order to prevent a corner kick or even a striker from benefiting from the lose ball.
5. Goalkeepers forget to mind the closest goal post when rushing out to close-in on an advancing striker. This is Goalkeeping 101.
6. Everything the Triangle button does needs tuning. The keeper coming out I explained above, the through ball needs a power bar and needs to follow the receiving player’s run, better. The air though ball needs to go deeper, a power bar would fix this. Also when you press triangle for a vertical pass it should precisely set up the ball so that it intercepts the in-rushing (receiving) player, currently it either send the ball too long or to another player of it just leaves it there, so slowly that it is almost motionless, easy for a defender to pick up.
7. Passing headers are very inaccurate, they need to be more dependable. This happens also because your teammates tend to gather round the ball and chase it, instead of setting themselves to cleanly receive a header pass.
8. Currently you change player by selecting the one you need by pressing L1 and “pointing” to the player you want. This often causes defences to split open because you need to run in a different direction than the one you use to select the defender. This needs to be assisted taking into account proximity to the ball and trajectory of the ball, so that only L1 changes players and your movement keys don’t play any part with the changing player process.
9. When you take out players from the wall, while defending a free kick, they show up way behind the rest of the players. Doing so at the last second, effectively annuls any off-side trap attempt your defence had.
10. Offsides are usually wrongly called, just by a defender’s boot or leg. This should be taken into account.
11. Offsides and fouls are often whistled too soon and interrupt the chance of following up with the play or even launch a counter-attack.
12. Passive offside needs to be taken into account. Specially if you intercept a pass an you have a clear opportunity to break out a counter attack.
13. Pass the ball to the player closest in the general direction I point to, not to the player that "should be there" (player's position). This is specially noticeable when in attack on the other team's box.
**** BAL ****
1. The ability to take a “loan” transfer from a different .bal savegame into your team, this to play 2 player (or even more) Co-op with another friend in BAL.
2.The special camera for BAL is useless. When it rotates it changes your movement axis’ on the run and it’s impossible to control a run and it’s downright nauseating when you cross the midfield. It needs to be fixed on the players back and zoom in and out and pan depending on where on the pitch you are.
3. Your teammates need to be more create when passing the ball, they rarely lob the ball, or send a through pass your way, and crosses are almost non existing from them. When you call for the pass they should better read your run and the opposing player’s position and runs.
4. You trophies and awards (top scorer) should be more important when attracting offers from other clubs.
**** Edit Mode ****
1. Bring back the option to create a new player based on a copy of an existing player. And even expand it to “Copy/Paste” looks and “Copy/Paste” attributes.
2. For the Master League or just creating a team in general, give us decent templates in order to create top notch, team crests and uniforms. Team logos created with the in-game editor usually look like cheap knock offs.
**** Presentation ****
1. Use some match-day or sports cast presentation elements, such as: Man of The Match, maybe complete with an interview. Goal (or Play) of the Game, and have it commented while it replays.
2. When viewing all the games in the Calendar, let us see some game information about that game when we select it, such as scorers, and stats for the game.
3. “Best of” (Africa, North America, Europe, Passers, etc.) teams are fun, but they should have proper uniforms, they look cheap on generic kits.
4. The pitch and grass should variate in look, feel, quality and size. Dry pitches, snow covered, damp. Depending on the season (calendar date) and location. And the ball should react accordingly.
5. The coach of the team should be editable as a player, in terms of looks at least, so that he looks good in cinematics.
6. More and better animations, even custom to the event just won or lost.
7. Camera presets should have adjustable properties such as height, zoom and such.
8. More international leagues, such as Brazil, Mexico would provide for more scouting options in the Master League.
9. In the master league, I don’t like having to go back 4-5 screens to take a player out of the “transferable” list in order to return 4-5 screens and then negotiate for a player swap.
