Combinations to a tougher AI

The idea of this thread is for you to summarize the combination of Tools, Tactics and Attributes that makes the AI play more proactively and be a smarter and harder opposition (PES 2014).
I know there are many posts about this throughout the FORUM, but I thought it would be a good idea to reorganize and concentrate that information in one thread, so people can easily access, test and compare the output.


Basically the relevant questions would be:

1. Which version of official patch are you using?

2. Which versions (if any) and combinations, of these tools and patches:
- Fileloader;
- Yair or Nesa?
- Other...

3. Which global Team Style settings (Player Support, Compactness, A/D Awareness, etc.)?

4. Which global settings for Player's attributes?



Note: don't forget to post the whole combination of these itens that best match the subject of this thread.

1. 1.16 (1.13 arguably better)
2. none
3. I changed Team Strategies according to these guidelines;

Strategy #1 - Mainly sticking to numbers from 7 to 13. Some exceptions were made for big teams who generally play offensive off the bat. I also set Compactness to the lower regions within the limits of the default strategy (Long Ball, Possession etc). Preferably 10 to 12.

Strategy #2 - Made these into either "park the bus" or "Deep lying Counter" strategies. A few exceptions were made for big clubs who I made a tad more possession based, but in all honesty it's the big club's weakness so I think I'll just make them counter as well. I also made all 4-3-3 formations into 4-5-1 variants, pulling the wider strikers down as SMF for more defensive duty. Preferably Compactness at 8 or 7.

Strategy #3 - Made sure all of these were offensive enough to pose a threat. SMF's pushed up as Wingers, more Pressing (15+), higher Compactness (13+) and so on. Too much emphasis on possession here will limit the team's effectiveness against human opponents as possession is generally a weakness due to the game's AI.

4. Global Player Edits;

ALL:
Wrong foot usage -2
Defensive Awareness +5
Ball Winning -5
Low Pass -5
Lofted Pass -5

GK:
Goalkeeping +5
Saving +5

SS/CF/WF/SMF/AMF:
Acrobatic Finishing (Just for some extra action and spice, and it works!) **Highly optional

Notes:
On a general level these modifications will make the AI teams act differently depending on the situations. If they score first it will become a massively different game than if you score first, for example. You also get the feeling that they attack with more men than usual once switching to the attacking strategy, since I've basically made sure they actually have more men forward in those cases.

I've also avoided formations with 3 defenders, particularly in Strategy #1, because they are extremely easy to exploit. I have made them into 5-3-2 formations with offensive backs instead, which isn't ideal but better than default. I've edited player positions when needed to make starting line-ups compatible. *As a result I no longer beat Juventus and Chile with two digits whenever I wish to, for example. I have kept 3-5-2 as Strategy #3 for those teams who play that formation in real life and it's harder to exploit, for some reason, towards the end of a match when the AI is chasing a goal. The passing nerf ensured that there's a big difference between the bigger teams than the medium and smaller. There are a lot more passing mistakes going on which makes tiki-taka pretty hard with weaker teams and long passes are often inaccurate. This severely reduced my scoring ration at least, and made the game much harder imo.

I have also made a lot of individual changes to players which are too many to mention here, but I've made sure that Zlatan, Messi, C.Ronaldo, Falcao and so on are leading the scoreboards across the world. The main changes consist of Form (7 or 8), More balance (+3 to 5+ where appropriate) and more Tenacity (80+). I've focused more on what works with the game than what looks "realistic" in relation to other players' abilities to be honest.

I've also boosted several of the players who had some kind of breakthrough in the WC, using PSD, FIFA, FM and my own assessment as guidelines.


PS. You should build the database according to what team you intend to play with. If you intend to play with Barcelona, you should make most teams much more strategically careful than if you plan to play with Everton, for example. Since I don't play with one particular team but generally play with "the second best" teams, I've built my database according to that. I never play with Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munchen.

Thanks, ZerotheHero.

I'm still playing the 1.00 version of the game, because despite of the bugs/flaws, it still hits me as the hardest when you're challenging the AI.

But I did try some of your strategies and player edits, the result was satisfactory. The AI is indeed playing more human-like and I could notice more variation on his game.

Will try to do some specific modifications on team strategies and tests on player's attributes. Also, it's always important to mention that the Game Speed is still a factor: you set it higher, and the AI will play more aggressively.

I've tried nesa24's mods lately as well, they work hand in hand with my tweaks. Particularly the catch-up removal tool is a welcome change. I can't say that catch-up is completely removed but it's much less annoying, and it seems to affect both AI and human player.

If you just want a tougher AI to play against, boost the whole database's Tenacity. Take it step by step +5 at the time until you're satisfied. It's your own team's Tenacity that decides how hard the AI is to play against, not the other way around which would be more logical.

ZeroTheHero said:

If you just want a tougher AI to play against, boost the whole database's Tenacity. Take it step by step +5 at the time until you're satisfied. It's your own team's Tenacity that decides how hard the AI is to play against, not the other way around which would be more logical.

Click to expand...

This means that, on the contrary, if I lower the level of tenacity, can I increase the difficulty in the game?

Because I'm not very good player, but at the amateur level, the movements of the CPU are ridiculous, while at the professional level is too difficult for me.

No, if you increase the Tencity of the database the difficulty will increase since your teams players are a part of the database. If you want an easier game, decrease the Tenacity. I can't see any good reason to want it easier than it already is though.

If you increase Tenacity by 5 or 10 and play on Regular it should be a decent game. Remember that the first two matches in a new ML is usually piss easy regardless of difficulty setting. I don't know why that is, it have always been that way.