Major Flaws in Transfer System & Budgeting?

[JMP2016]

Hi everybody, new member to the forum...

I would like to discuss the new Transfer Budget and Salary Budget in Master League to see what experiences other players have had with it.

I excitedly got PES after work a month or so after release, updated all unofficial kits and included my beloved York City in the Championship, and prepared to face Master League mode (with the PES default players for added challenge).

For the first 2 or 3 seasons I found the new budgeting system excellent and a more realistic way to approach the game. Making shrewd decisions, thinking every transfer offer through against money offered, the players salary ect... and the same when buying players. Weighing up the pros and cons of signing players on loan.

It was a very enjoyable experience. In the first season I snatched promotion to the Premier League, followed by a narrow 7th placed finish to gain entry to the Europa League.

So my initial reception to the new budget system was very very positive... however, I have just finished the 2022/2023 season, on superstar, no.1 rated club, won champions league, premier league and the F.A Cup but I find myself with 16 players, a transfer budget of £286,000,000 but a salary budget of -£49,300,000.

Now this has been a problem which has gradually got worse over the past 3 seasons or so... I found myself with a very strong core squad of players and 7 substitutes. But as their stats hit the 90 mark, and my subs stats hit around the 85-89 mark, their contract demands went through the roof also (which is a fair reflection of real life). But yet the money that I would receive at the end of every season would stay consistent (roughly +£6,000,000 to my wage budget). So despite going from Europa League and rank 150 in the world, to world beaters and rank 1 in the world, this has not been reflected. After selling 2 high earning players to balance the books (putting myself down to the minimum 16 players), contracts were extended automatically throwing me back into negative wage funds, and unable to sign any players despite possessing £200,000,000+ in the transfer budget.

One way this could be fixed would be to implement a slider option whereby you can decrease transfer budget to increase salary budget (I believe FIFA has this system in place also). The past 2/3 seasons have been somewhat ruined as I have unable to add or remove any players from my squad because of this and it has grown somewhat frustrating.

This post has turned much longer than anticipated but I must also address the (frankly broken) transfer system itself. The transfer system seams to operate at both ends of the spectrum for unrealistic and plainly unfair transfer system. On the one hand in my second season I was able to Loan M. Rashford for a couple of million and then sign him for around £12.5 million (a transfer which would be ludicrous now). But at the other end I have found that teams will offer you a pittance of money for a player 95% of the time, yet expect so much in return if you bid for one of their players.

The best 2 examples I can think of this is when I signed Donnarumma from AC Milan, this transfer itself took nearly a full season to negotiate to get what I deemed a fair price and contract length. In the end, a young Donnarumma rated 85 cost me £48,000,000 and signed for 2.5 years. Since signing the goalkeeper, I consistently have offers ranging from £20,000,000 - £28,000,000 even as his rating has climbed to 94, and has been tied down to a long contract.

Secondly, I always create an English second striker (SS), and start him at age 16, and rated 75. He is now rated 92, and has a team role of Legend. Again, offers regularly come in and I thought they were a little bit fairer now. They usually are between £40,000,000 to £60,000,000. However, frustrated by my teams predicament and fancying a new challenge, I left to go to Real Madrid where they had a substantial wage and transfer budget. I bid for this player (who incidentally had a £51,000,000 bid shortly before I left), and I had the message saying there had been an update in negotiations, I thought excellent, can't be too bad......... £360,000,000. With a 10% chance of decreasing transfer fee.

I have found this all the time with PES 2017, teams will bid around or even sometimes under Market Value for a player, even if he's been playing brilliantly, scoring, getting high ratings ect. Yet shoe on the other foot they have ridiculous demands. On a side-note, I have found some player development with my players to be somewhat ridiculous... If any body cares enough I could post a screenshot to show my player ratings. Case in point is C. Humphreys, signed as a free agent at 18 in my first season, rated 72 I believe, now 95 rated...

Again, this post has gone on way longer than intended... although I only signed up as I felt compelled to express my feelings. I love PES and Master League, don't get me wrong but just a few frustrations have crept in.

If you've managed to read this far I'd be interested to know your opinions and experiences.

Thanks!!

 

[Kazuki_Ito]

Hi everybody, new member to the forum...

I would like to discuss the new Transfer Budget and Salary Budget in Master League to see what experiences other players have had with it.

I excitedly got PES after work a month or so after release, updated all unofficial kits and included my beloved York City in the Championship, and prepared to face Master League mode (with the PES default players for added challenge).

For the first 2 or 3 seasons I found the new budgeting system excellent and a more realistic way to approach the game. Making shrewd decisions, thinking every transfer offer through against money offered, the players salary ect... and the same when buying players. Weighing up the pros and cons of signing players on loan.

It was a very enjoyable experience. In the first season I snatched promotion to the Premier League, followed by a narrow 7th placed finish to gain entry to the Europa League.

So my initial reception to the new budget system was very very positive... however, I have just finished the 2022/2023 season, on superstar, no.1 rated club, won champions league, premier league and the F.A Cup but I find myself with 16 players, a transfer budget of £286,000,000 but a salary budget of -£49,300,000.

Now this has been a problem which has gradually got worse over the past 3 seasons or so... I found myself with a very strong core squad of players and 7 substitutes. But as their stats hit the 90 mark, and my subs stats hit around the 85-89 mark, their contract demands went through the roof also (which is a fair reflection of real life). But yet the money that I would receive at the end of every season would stay consistent (roughly +£6,000,000 to my wage budget). So despite going from Europa League and rank 150 in the world, to world beaters and rank 1 in the world, this has not been reflected. After selling 2 high earning players to balance the books (putting myself down to the minimum 16 players), contracts were extended automatically throwing me back into negative wage funds, and unable to sign any players despite possessing £200,000,000+ in the transfer budget.

One way this could be fixed would be to implement a slider option whereby you can decrease transfer budget to increase salary budget (I believe FIFA has this system in place also). The past 2/3 seasons have been somewhat ruined as I have unable to add or remove any players from my squad because of this and it has grown somewhat frustrating.

This post has turned much longer than anticipated but I must also address the (frankly broken) transfer system itself. The transfer system seams to operate at both ends of the spectrum for unrealistic and plainly unfair transfer system. On the one hand in my second season I was able to Loan M. Rashford for a couple of million and then sign him for around £12.5 million (a transfer which would be ludicrous now). But at the other end I have found that teams will offer you a pittance of money for a player 95% of the time, yet expect so much in return if you bid for one of their players.

The best 2 examples I can think of this is when I signed Donnarumma from AC Milan, this transfer itself took nearly a full season to negotiate to get what I deemed a fair price and contract length. In the end, a young Donnarumma rated 85 cost me £48,000,000 and signed for 2.5 years. Since signing the goalkeeper, I consistently have offers ranging from £20,000,000 - £28,000,000 even as his rating has climbed to 94, and has been tied down to a long contract.

Secondly, I always create an English second striker (SS), and start him at age 16, and rated 75. He is now rated 92, and has a team role of Legend. Again, offers regularly come in and I thought they were a little bit fairer now. They usually are between £40,000,000 to £60,000,000. However, frustrated by my teams predicament and fancying a new challenge, I left to go to Real Madrid where they had a substantial wage and transfer budget. I bid for this player (who incidentally had a £51,000,000 bid shortly before I left), and I had the message saying there had been an update in negotiations, I thought excellent, can't be too bad......... £360,000,000. With a 10% chance of decreasing transfer fee.

I have found this all the time with PES 2017, teams will bid around or even sometimes under Market Value for a player, even if he's been playing brilliantly, scoring, getting high ratings ect. Yet shoe on the other foot they have ridiculous demands. On a side-note, I have found some player development with my players to be somewhat ridiculous... If any body cares enough I could post a screenshot to show my player ratings. Case in point is C. Humphreys, signed as a free agent at 18 in my first season, rated 72 I believe, now 95 rated...

Again, this post has gone on way longer than intended... although I only signed up as I felt compelled to express my feelings. I love PES and Master League, don't get me wrong but just a few frustrations have crept in.

If you've managed to read this far I'd be interested to know your opinions and experiences.

Thanks!!

I've played about 4 and a half seasons and am now in the Prem with Arsenal having started with default players in Div1. I already can see that salary budget is much more of a hindrance to me than transfer budget. Hence I went down to a squad of 18 and have only recently got it up to about 21 with some young players and regens.

I have two or three players in the mid to high 90's OVR and right now I'm just about managing my budgets ok. It will be interesting to see though if I develop quite a few players into the mid 90's if their salary demands will skyrocket like you have said.

I wonder how much play testing of ML is done before launch. It could be possible that they hadn't run a game long enough to encounter the situation that you find yourself in. It definitely seems broken and in need of some tweaking.

Until now I've lived with the fact that you can move money between salary budget and transfer kitty but it did lead to me 'abusing' the loan system because I could afford large loan fees but not the wages - which were paid by owning clubs. It's a bit like they thought it would make it too easy if you could move money between budgets but if fact it just leads to the unrealistic situation you're in where you have a massive transfer budget but no salary budget.

I noticed also that the average player contract length seems to be very short compared to real world. Often the default contract length is like one or two seasons for players between like 20yrs and 27yrs where in RL the norm is for 4-5 year contracts. Not sure if, again, this is to add difficulty but it gets a bit annoying where every season you have to renegotiate contracts and you constantly have loads of players almost running out of contract.

 

[JMP2016]

I've played about 4 and a half seasons and am now in the Prem with Arsenal having started with default players in Div1. I already can see that salary budget is much more of a hindrance to me than transfer budget. Hence I went down to a squad of 18 and have only recently got it up to about 21 with some young players and regens.

I have two or three players in the mid to high 90's OVR and right now I'm just about managing my budgets ok. It will be interesting to see though if I develop quite a few players into the mid 90's if their salary demands will skyrocket like you have said.

I wonder how much play testing of ML is done before launch. It could be possible that they hadn't run a game long enough to encounter the situation that you find yourself in. It definitely seems broken and in need of some tweaking.

Until now I've lived with the fact that you can move money between salary budget and transfer kitty but it did lead to me 'abusing' the loan system because I could afford large loan fees but not the wages - which were paid by owning clubs. It's a bit like they thought it would make it too easy if you could move money between budgets but if fact it just leads to the unrealistic situation you're in where you have a massive transfer budget but no salary budget.

I noticed also that the average player contract length seems to be very short compared to real world. Often the default contract length is like one or two seasons for players between like 20yrs and 27yrs where in RL the norm is for 4-5 year contracts. Not sure if, again, this is to add difficulty but it gets a bit annoying where every season you have to renegotiate contracts and you constantly have loads of players almost running out of contract.

I too considered whether or not they play tested the ML for multiple seasons. I do not think I'm ridiculously far in and it has been a growing issue for the last few seasons the financial state I'm in. I'm not sure how many players get this but I find myself getting attached to players and do not want to sell them on, and I also only like signing young players who are developing. This may have seen me adding to an already flawed system... Perhaps they thought it'd be too easy for players to allow them to pick and change their salary-transfer levels but we will have to simply wait and see if it is addressed in PES 2018

Alongside bringing in a few loan signings, I also abused bringing Youth Players through also (ironically when I had a fairly good Wage Budget and needed a bit more in my Transfer Budget). As I signed all the youth players who were fairly highly rated that I didn't need, place them on the transfer list and by transfer deadline day would have brought in an extra £20,000,000-£40,000,000 to sign any remaining targets on the last day.

Your point about contract lengths is also spot on and one point I overlooked to raise in my original post. I found that players who were at ages where they would be signing long term contracts IRL insist on One Year deals, and would only budge to a maximum of 1.5 or 2 year contracts. This proved a double edged sword for me, I'd keep the young players I had grown attached to and were developing, but as they had increased from say, 83 OPR to 90 OPR, then their contract would naturally increase by millions... when this happens a few times every season and I do not move them on, then I end up in the situation I am in when I cannot alter budgets!

 

[david_bueno]

I too considered whether or not they play tested the ML for multiple seasons. I do not think I'm ridiculously far in and it has been a growing issue for the last few seasons the financial state I'm in. I'm not sure how many players get this but I find myself getting attached to players and do not want to sell them on, and I also only like signing young players who are developing. This may have seen me adding to an already flawed system... Perhaps they thought it'd be too easy for players to allow them to pick and change their salary-transfer levels but we will have to simply wait and see if it is addressed in PES 2018

Alongside bringing in a few loan signings, I also abused bringing Youth Players through also (ironically when I had a fairly good Wage Budget and needed a bit more in my Transfer Budget). As I signed all the youth players who were fairly highly rated that I didn't need, place them on the transfer list and by transfer deadline day would have brought in an extra £20,000,000-£40,000,000 to sign any remaining targets on the last day.

Your point about contract lengths is also spot on and one point I overlooked to raise in my original post. I found that players who were at ages where they would be signing long term contracts IRL insist on One Year deals, and would only budge to a maximum of 1.5 or 2 year contracts. This proved a double edged sword for me, I'd keep the young players I had grown attached to and were developing, but as they had increased from say, 83 OPR to 90 OPR, then their contract would naturally increase by millions... when this happens a few times every season and I do not move them on, then I end up in the situation I am in when I cannot alter budgets!

The option to alter transfer budget and players budget salary has been present in FIFA for quite a bit.
The team at Konami in charge of developing or updating or upgrading PES every year, should indeed cross check their competitor when it comes to a game's aspects and options but I doubt they have someone doing that, nonetheless, I doubt they have someone testing a team so far ahead in the ML (year 2022-2023). A slider... that was the only thing needed which for them was either too much work to add or worse... I am pretty sure they didn't even think about it.

I'd hope this could be a simple fix that could be patched with an update but unfortunately, I don't see this issue being fixed until PES 2018.

 

[DunkLFC]

I think the short contracts is an easy (lazy) way to simulate the fact that players renegotiate their contracts every couple of years irrespective of the length of their contracts. So having to offer them more money every couple of years is realistic, but implemented incorrectly. Have they been lazy or have they tried to keep the game simple for the general public?

I'm glad there is no slider for transferring cash between the budgets, as that isn't how football clubs work. Implementing that would make the game less realistic. eg Look at Arsenal now. As a club they try to keep the salary costs from spiraling even though they have plenty of cash. Also, giving you control to pass money across would open the game up to very easy abuse. eg You could take on free players, sell them on for profit and then pass that transfer money profit over to the salary budget.

Essentially, the proper fix for the problem is to properly calculate each of the respective budget figures, so that you don't get a weird disparity.

One very simple solution to the TC's issue of a huge transfer budget but poor wage budget would be for the club to decide that the success gained now means that a stadium upgrade could be performed. That would remove cash and one season later, you could have 20,000 extra seats at the stadium and the club would be happier paying the players more.

Of course, the other thing to consider is that no club on the planet can afford an entire first team of Ronaldo rated players with Coutinho rated players filling the subs bench. So is the real problem that the game lets your players progress too much? And the way they have chosen to try and keep the challenge going is to force you to let some of your expensive stars go?

A question for the TC : Are you not winning every match by 10+ goals with the squad you listed? I was, when I had a squad with about 2 players in the low 90's playing PES 2016 (on Superstar). The rest of my team were averaging about 84.

 

[Willocrew]

Is it possible to just release the guy and resign him immediately at a lower wage? I used to do that in pes2016.

 

[JMP2016]

I think the short contracts is an easy (lazy) way to simulate the fact that players renegotiate their contracts every couple of years irrespective of the length of their contracts. So having to offer them more money every couple of years is realistic, but implemented incorrectly. Have they been lazy or have they tried to keep the game simple for the general public?

I'm glad there is no slider for transferring cash between the budgets, as that isn't how football clubs work. Implementing that would make the game less realistic. eg Look at Arsenal now. As a club they try to keep the salary costs from spiraling even though they have plenty of cash. Also, giving you control to pass money across would open the game up to very easy abuse. eg You could take on free players, sell them on for profit and then pass that transfer money profit over to the salary budget.

Essentially, the proper fix for the problem is to properly calculate each of the respective budget figures, so that you don't get a weird disparity.

One very simple solution to the TC's issue of a huge transfer budget but poor wage budget would be for the club to decide that the success gained now means that a stadium upgrade could be performed. That would remove cash and one season later, you could have 20,000 extra seats at the stadium and the club would be happier paying the players more.

Of course, the other thing to consider is that no club on the planet can afford an entire first team of Ronaldo rated players with Coutinho rated players filling the subs bench. So is the real problem that the game lets your players progress too much? And the way they have chosen to try and keep the challenge going is to force you to let some of your expensive stars go?

A question for the TC : Are you not winning every match by 10+ goals with the squad you listed? I was, when I had a squad with about 2 players in the low 90's playing PES 2016 (on Superstar). The rest of my team were averaging about 84.

You raise some valid points that I had not considered, in particular that no side could possibly expect a full-11 of near-Ronaldo ability players to be realistically affordable, even if you're the best club in the world.

Whilst your point makes sense, within the parameters of PES and the transfer budget to salary budget deficit and common sense it should be possible. Consider that I have not bought any new players in around 3-4 years, yet have a staggering transfer budget to do so, if even a 1/4 of this money were made available to the salary budget then I could easily afford all wages and then some... Perhaps even in the real world if this situation had risen then the board of a club who consistently win all competitions they're in, have a relatively small squad of world class players then I believe they would consider altering budgets between transfers and salaries to suit this. That being said though, I completely see the logic in what you've said and I concede that I have not helped myself but I believe it's a system which does need some work regardless (which I'll explain in next paragraph...).

I actually left York City and the team I'd built as it was frustrating to carry on, I joined Atletico Madrid and after a few games thought I would go and see what formation the new York manager was using. Low and behold there was 7 new players all rated 85-90 and no players sold. I 'transfer requested' to go back to York City and in the January transfer market moved back... with a new transfer budget of 160,000,000 and wage salary budget of 280,000,000. Which makes absolutely no sense at all, so regardless of any short-sighted dealings at the club which I made, it clearly is still a flawed system.

*side note, yes, I do find myself winning games ridiculously easily more often than not. Only against Liverpool or Rival Teams do I seem to concede and these are often very questionable goals that do seem somewhat scripted.

 

[JMP2016]

Is it possible to just release the guy and resign him immediately at a lower wage? I used to do that in pes2016.

Because I only had 16 players the game wouldn't allow me to release any players, and because my wage budget was negative it wouldn't let me sign any new players.

Got myself into a right corner!!

 

[Willocrew]

Because I only had 16 players the game wouldn't allow me to release any players, and because my wage budget was negative it wouldn't let me sign any new players.

Got myself into a right corner!!

Daaam. It's like the club has gone into bankruptcy/administration. Lol.

I wonder what happens when one of the 16 player's contract expires? Does the game force him to be a slave? Take one for the team and find out!

 

[DunkLFC]

I actually left York City and the team I'd built as it was frustrating to carry on, I joined Atletico Madrid and after a few games thought I would go and see what formation the new York manager was using. Low and behold there was 7 new players all rated 85-90 and no players sold. I 'transfer requested' to go back to York City and in the January transfer market moved back... with a new transfer budget of 160,000,000 and wage salary budget of 280,000,000. Which makes absolutely no sense at all, so regardless of any short-sighted dealings at the club which I made, it clearly is still a flawed system.

Hah, so they coded the game to make things possible for the game to continue with any squad it takes over and you have inherited that.

*side note, yes, I do find myself winning games ridiculously easily more often than not. Only against Liverpool or Rival Teams do I seem to concede and these are often very questionable goals that do seem somewhat scripted.

I dropped my PES 2016 ML like a stone once I realised this was happening. Fortunately for me it was shortly before PES 2017, so it didn't matter. The game does need to include some sort of mechanic to challenge us or it would get boring. But yeah, not the way it currently does it.

Because I only had 16 players the game wouldn't allow me to release any players, and because my wage budget was negative it wouldn't let me sign any new players.

Got myself into a right corner!!

Yikes! That's bad.

Daaam. It's like the club has gone into bankruptcy/administration. Lol.

I wonder what happens when one of the 16 player's contract expires? Does the game force him to be a slave? Take one for the team and find out!

Kerrrrash! Could be done by saving the current position and then whizzing through a season in "coach mode" to the end to see what happens.

 

[Pop Alexandra]

Thanks for the all the info! I never got that deep into transfer pricing, but I have considered working with this Romanian company. Do you know anything about it?