I have been playing my first masterleague as Napoli, and I started on regular. By Jan/Feb of the season I was cruising (they have a pretty good team + purchases), easily thumping 5 goals against poorer sides. So I thought, regular is too easy, up it to professional. But the problem with professional is, it's too hard! I remember there was never much distinction between top player and professional (in fact me and my mates used to say professional was harder because the CPU attacks more on top player, leaving space open). Once you're on professional, the worst team in the league is practically as good as the best (Inter, Real) is on regular.
I did used to play older PES on top player but you really needed to pick a halfway decent team. And there's always been a problem I noticed with the game. Upping the difficulty doesn't really make it any more 'realistic' per se or the opposition 'harder' in that they're creative. All it does is make their defense infuriatingly efficient. They don't make mistakes or leave space open, and their tackles come in too quickly, you can't anticipate them. The animation is too fast. Anybody who plays football knows that when you're faced with a defender you play close attention to his movement, because if he commits too early you can pass him. But it seems you can't realistically anticipate on PES with this tiny little players on your computer screen.
So basically, since their defense is so competent, all the CPU's tactic is to absorb your attack and then counter. That's it. And they inevitably bundle in some goal under dubious circumstances after you've lost the ball pressing all your men forward. The problem is, you can never really organize your defense as efficiently as the CPU, so you're always vulnerable to the counter. The problem with regular is that it sucks all the fun out when you thrash the computer every time, but on professional upwards they become annoyingly good at defending.
What do you think? How do you cope on higher difficulties?
My tactics for scoring on regular were mainly waiting for the right moment for a lofted through ball over the top (usually at an angle) to stretch defence or get straight in on goal, or going wide and crossing low. Once you've got good players the latter results in a goal like 80% of the time because the CPU doesn't really defend the wings well. What tactics work well to ensure goals on higher difficulties? I found I could use a lot of the dribbling skills on regular but on professional they close down so quick you just have to pass before you can pull it off on the controller.
I did used to play older PES on top player but you really needed to pick a halfway decent team. And there's always been a problem I noticed with the game. Upping the difficulty doesn't really make it any more 'realistic' per se or the opposition 'harder' in that they're creative. All it does is make their defense infuriatingly efficient. They don't make mistakes or leave space open, and their tackles come in too quickly, you can't anticipate them. The animation is too fast. Anybody who plays football knows that when you're faced with a defender you play close attention to his movement, because if he commits too early you can pass him. But it seems you can't realistically anticipate on PES with this tiny little players on your computer screen.
So basically, since their defense is so competent, all the CPU's tactic is to absorb your attack and then counter. That's it. And they inevitably bundle in some goal under dubious circumstances after you've lost the ball pressing all your men forward. The problem is, you can never really organize your defense as efficiently as the CPU, so you're always vulnerable to the counter. The problem with regular is that it sucks all the fun out when you thrash the computer every time, but on professional upwards they become annoyingly good at defending.
What do you think? How do you cope on higher difficulties?
My tactics for scoring on regular were mainly waiting for the right moment for a lofted through ball over the top (usually at an angle) to stretch defence or get straight in on goal, or going wide and crossing low. Once you've got good players the latter results in a goal like 80% of the time because the CPU doesn't really defend the wings well. What tactics work well to ensure goals on higher difficulties? I found I could use a lot of the dribbling skills on regular but on professional they close down so quick you just have to pass before you can pull it off on the controller.
