PES 2018 PlayStation & Xbox Discussion Thread

No need to apologise guys, I think PC guys come into this thread because the gameplay discussion tends to reside here. No probs.

I'm curious, by the way.. in what situations you think the game wouldn't benefit more from a "looser" ball?
Well, for me, the things PES does best are served by the model they use (no error) - though I'm playing devil's advocate a little.

For me, PES is designed to be a highlights package, and is designed to flow (I've read lots of reviews that hold up the flow of PES as its best feature). What highlights package is 50% players misplacing passes? You can't recreate the success rate you see in highlights with both sides misplacing lots of passes (maybe you can if you play on manual and you're good, but the AI never plays on manual - i.e. its passes are always on a "perfect path" - due to the way the game works).

They have to simulate a highlights package - if you don't, it'd be like playing the first 10 minutes of an actual football match, then stopping. Every game would be 0-0!

"What about FIFA?" Well, FIFA has pass error etc. but there's less in 18 than ever, and playing with sliders just results in the AI suddenly playing shorter, safer passes, or kicking every attempted cross out of play. So, I think even those devs are trying to go down the path of "flow".

There's definitely a middle ground to be had, but no game is aiming for that at the moment. To me, both games are about action, and I'm worried it'll never go back.
 
No need to apologise guys, I think PC guys come into this thread because the gameplay discussion tends to reside here. No probs.


Well, for me, the things PES does best are served by the model they use (no error) - though I'm playing devil's advocate a little.

For me, PES is designed to be a highlights package, and is designed to flow (I've read lots of reviews that hold up the flow of PES as its best feature). What highlights package is 50% players misplacing passes? You can't recreate the success rate you see in highlights with both sides misplacing lots of passes (maybe you can if you play on manual and you're good, but the AI never plays on manual - i.e. its passes are always on a "perfect path" - due to the way the game works).

They have to simulate a highlights package - if you don't, it'd be like playing the first 10 minutes of an actual football match, then stopping. Every game would be 0-0!

"What about FIFA?" Well, FIFA has pass error etc. but there's less in 18 than ever, and playing with sliders just results in the AI suddenly playing shorter, safer passes, or kicking every attempted cross out of play. So, I think even those devs are trying to go down the path of "flow".

There's definitely a middle ground to be had, but no game is aiming for that at the moment. To me, both games are about action, and I'm worried it'll never go back.

Gotcha. Very clear explanation, thanks.

I hope, tho, that sometimes not so far away in the future somebody will be able to represent that sweet middle ground we all seems to miss.
 
I'm not really an expert on the field so I don't have any real idea whatever sliders are possible or not at the actual state of things.. however, leaving this topic aside for a moment, if we want to head towards a simulation, or just a better game all along, the ball NEEDS to become a much more separate entity than is it right now at least imho. Errors and unpredictability are more or less what makes a soccer game random and varied, so worth to be played all the years. At least for me it always has been like that, I've devoured chapters in which there was a lot of randomness and different situations (even objectively, all along bad ones like Pes 2009) and left aside the ones more on "binaries".But maybe it's just my experience.

I'm curious, by the way.. in what situations you think the game wouldn't benefit more from a "looser" ball?
The controls/mechanics really need changing for there to be a truly free ball.

Except for aerial challenges, the ball is always under "ownership" of one player and they alone can perform actions with the ball. If you see an opponent take a heavy touch that you'll get to first, you can't directly pass the ball with your first touch; you need to tackle first and then pass because the game's logic still had them as the player in possession...

Or the other way around when you over run the ball and you know you're going to get tackled, but you have to just watch all of the animations play out of your player still charging after the ball and inevitably losing it, when you wanted to back off a bit and time a block tackle. Not possible because you were "in possession" according to the game.

There are loads of situations where these mechanics make the game feel very on-rails, and I don't think much progress can be made with the ball feeling like a separate entity while the controls stay like this.
 
because the game's logic still had them as the player in possession...
There's a similar logic in play when the referee doesn't award a foul.

The way the AI defending works, it's either "win ball" or "commit foul". If the defender goes for "win ball", even if you end up getting clattered, it doesn't matter because the referee isn't even looking, in essence.

If the defender doesn't "know" he's going to commit a foul, the game will never consider his action to be a foul. (I can't think of any better way of explaining it, hopefully it's adequate to communicate what I mean...)

Whereas a human player doing it - there's no millisecond-perfect timing with button-presses, and no knowledge of intent from the game. So it's a foul.
 
The development team struggled with the transition from ps2 to Ps3 which made 2008 the worst game in the series unfortunately, if the blame is on konamis managers than what role is kei musadas, I wouldv assumed it’s his responsibility for what is and isn’t allowed in the game, but as you said maybe kei wants sim elements in the game but the upper hierarchy won’t allow, but then let me ask you this, why is adam going to Japan to work more closer with the dev team if in the end the bosses won’t allow sim elements in the game, doesn’t make any sense.
I don't know why Adam is going to Japan, probably because they want a more direct communication between the West branch and dev team...

Anyway what makes you think Adam is going there to help the the team develop a more simulative game? Every time i talked to him on twitter about reducing passing assistance he told me he disagreed because Pes needs to be as inclusive as possible reaching casual fans too. Let me tell you, he is not one of us, hardcore fans.
 
No need to apologise guys, I think PC guys come into this thread because the gameplay discussion tends to reside here. No probs.


Well, for me, the things PES does best are served by the model they use (no error) - though I'm playing devil's advocate a little.

For me, PES is designed to be a highlights package, and is designed to flow (I've read lots of reviews that hold up the flow of PES as its best feature). What highlights package is 50% players misplacing passes? You can't recreate the success rate you see in highlights with both sides misplacing lots of passes (maybe you can if you play on manual and you're good, but the AI never plays on manual - i.e. its passes are always on a "perfect path" - due to the way the game works).

They have to simulate a highlights package - if you don't, it'd be like playing the first 10 minutes of an actual football match, then stopping. Every game would be 0-0!

"What about FIFA?" Well, FIFA has pass error etc. but there's less in 18 than ever, and playing with sliders just results in the AI suddenly playing shorter, safer passes, or kicking every attempted cross out of play. So, I think even those devs are trying to go down the path of "flow".

There's definitely a middle ground to be had, but no game is aiming for that at the moment. To me, both games are about action, and I'm worried it'll never go back.

Good point about the highlights package. I think it's pretty evident when most goals in PES are scored showing a replay that goes into "slow-motion" right before the player who scored receives the ball. It's again taking the moments that should be rare, and forced into the common environment of a PES match. Football is beautiful because it's like life; it's not perfect, it's not pretty, but the goal is pursuing happiness. When it is pretty, then those moments stick out for years and years. In its current state, PES has too many of those supposed to be rare moments, so it becomes samey and boring unfortunately.
 
I don't understand that point of view with sports games, making them like a "highlight reel"... When everything is a highlight, nothing is.

Of course you need to speed things up and include enough action in 10-20 minutes compared to the real 90, but just the fact the game is shorter should naturally increase the urgency and affect gameplans enough to compensate somewhat for that.
 
If the defender doesn't "know" he's going to commit a foul, the game will never consider his action to be a foul. (I can't think of any better way of explaining it, hopefully it's adequate to communicate what I mean...)

Voilá!
You just put into words what I felt and didn't even know until now.
 
I don't know why Adam is going to Japan, probably because they want a more direct communication between the West branch and dev team...

Anyway what makes you think Adam is going there to help the the team develop a more simulative game? Every time i talked to him on twitter about reducing passing assistance he told me he disagreed because Pes needs to be as inclusive as possible reaching casual fans too. Let me tell you, he is not one of us, hardcore fans.

Yeah that’s what I thought and why iv lost interest in the game, very sad to hear, reasons why podcasters have quit too, don’t understand why they can’t have more error in pass/shoot in higher difficulty levels, it’s a shame they don’t have balls like FROM software that created dark souls series, imagine how many people requested to make that game very easy to cater the casuals, there response, they made the game harder, respect to them.
 
No need to apologise guys, I think PC guys come into this thread because the gameplay discussion tends to reside here. No probs.


Well, for me, the things PES does best are served by the model they use (no error) - though I'm playing devil's advocate a little.

For me, PES is designed to be a highlights package, and is designed to flow (I've read lots of reviews that hold up the flow of PES as its best feature). What highlights package is 50% players misplacing passes? You can't recreate the success rate you see in highlights with both sides misplacing lots of passes (maybe you can if you play on manual and you're good, but the AI never plays on manual - i.e. its passes are always on a "perfect path" - due to the way the game works).

They have to simulate a highlights package - if you don't, it'd be like playing the first 10 minutes of an actual football match, then stopping. Every game would be 0-0!

"What about FIFA?" Well, FIFA has pass error etc. but there's less in 18 than ever, and playing with sliders just results in the AI suddenly playing shorter, safer passes, or kicking every attempted cross out of play. So, I think even those devs are trying to go down the path of "flow".

There's definitely a middle ground to be had, but no game is aiming for that at the moment. To me, both games are about action, and I'm worried it'll never go back.
However in Pes i see more realistic pass completion from cpu like 83-84%(although this year they made this stupid thing and removed % and now you can only see how many passes were made and how many were succesfull and not % but you can still figure out that it's in the 80's) where in Fifa even low teams have most of the time 92-94% even when i play with 58 pass error.I still see in Pes the cpu play high balls or low and their player won't catch the ball and it goes out.
 
However in Pes i see more realistic pass completion from cpu like 83-84%(although this year they made this stupid thing and removed % and now you can only see how many passes were made and how many were succesfull and not % but you can still figure out that it's in the 80's) where in Fifa even low teams have most of the time 92-94% even when i play with 58 pass error.I still see in Pes the cpu play high balls or low and their player won't catch the ball and it goes out.
pass error in fifa is not the only slider that affects the % first touch and pass speed also affect accuracy. I don't see many above 85% AI passing on both world class and legendary
 
pass error in fifa is not the only slider that affects the % first touch and pass speed also affect accuracy. I don't see many above 85% AI passing on both world class and legendary
Yeah i know i also put first touch error 65 and pass speed around 35 to be more realistic.Sometimes it's good around 85% which is fair but other times i see 92-93%.Always on Legendary.
 
However in Pes i see more realistic pass completion from cpu like 83-84%(although this year they made this stupid thing and removed % and now you can only see how many passes were made and how many were succesfull and not % but you can still figure out that it's in the 80's) where in Fifa even low teams have most of the time 92-94% even when i play with 58 pass error.I still see in Pes the cpu play high balls or low and their player won't catch the ball and it goes out.
High through ball error contributes the most in the pass error %
 
Yeah that’s what I thought and why iv lost interest in the game, very sad to hear, reasons why podcasters have quit too, don’t understand why they can’t have more error in pass/shoot in higher difficulty levels, it’s a shame they don’t have balls like FROM software that created dark souls series, imagine how many people requested to make that game very easy to cater the casuals, there response, they made the game harder, respect to them.

From is a great software house, they have a vision, they know how to develop their games, they knew when to stop miliking the franchise. In fact they decided to wait years to have a fresh new start when the games became to feel stale.

KONAMI should do the same with Pes. A fresh new start, doesn't matter if that means a year or two without Pes. At current state Pes is too much compromised even at its basic gameplay level to hope they will manage to revolutionize it in just one year. I really think instead KONAMI chose the money way, they don't care if the series is becoming a conglomerate of several half assed ideas and modes, they just want the dev team to release the yearly Pes. As long as they still manage to earn money from it through Myclub it's all good to them.
 
I don't think passes completion/errors should be the right thing to observ, when you modify stats...
But how the key passes are done, how dangerous they are, how a player performs a first touch pass. That's how it should works normally, i don't know if it's the case... But having too much randomness (or errors) in passes without understanding what's the true reason could be a game killer in terms of sensations.

Stats shouldn't be effective in the "randomness" way, let's that to the physics, but more in a logical way. Like passes speed or whatever else added. I know that in previous PES, stats was more relative to that: dribbling accuracy for example, was simply relative to how many time a players touches the ball on a certain perimeter, so it's easier for him to keep it. There was never any "errors" like you've said.

If a player makes a dribbling, passing, or shooting error, it should be because you wanted to makes more than he is able to do by rushing it, with bad timing or whatever else. That's how in older PES, some good players was able to win with very lower teams: because they feels what to do with some bad rated players, and for that you need to play very basically but trying to be effective.

With too much randomness, it's an open bar to scripting, and you all know that.

It's still a game, and in a game it's not that hard to makes 10 minutes of simple passes, without trying anything dangerous, with nothing results, in my opinion. After that i don't think that stats doesn't matter at all, i personnally performs a way better play with some players than others, and feel the difference in a contextual way... But how the CPU plays or use players stats, that's another thing to discuss about.
 
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My longest buildup so far


I just don't get how this game allows easy [] and X defending. Look at the beginning the clip, where I had to perform a shit ton of deft touch and body blocking to keep the ball, just to get away from my opponent who is holding a single button to defend all this time. Defending in PES, for a lot of people, is just a game of whack-a-mole. This encourages everyone just trying to kick the ball to your defender with a poor pass and hoping to win the ball back in your box.

That's why I never put any value when someone shows goals that involve discontinuous passing, it's just too easy to win the ball back, even in 18. The game is slower and it's a bit more possible to play around the press. But still, no one deserves the ball back from holding a single button. For this reason, I always will prefer to see players who score without losing the ball a single time during the process. That to me marks a higher level of play, and it's been that way since there was PES
 
My longest buildup so far


I just don't get how this game allows easy [] and X defending. Look at the beginning the clip, where I had to perform a shit ton of deft touch and body blocking to keep the ball, just to get away from my opponent who is holding a single button to defend all this time. Defending in PES, for a lot of people, is just a game of whack-a-mole. This encourages everyone just trying to kick the ball to your defender with a poor pass and hoping to win the ball back in your box.

That's why I never put any value when someone shows goals that involve discontinuous passing, it's just too easy to win the ball back, even in 18. The game is slower and it's a bit more possible to play around the press. But still, no one deserves the ball back from holding a single button. For this reason, I always will prefer to see players who score without losing the ball a single time during the process. That to me marks a higher level of play, and it's been that way since there was PES

Come on dude... I read your post for 3rd time and.. sorry but that is BS. If you just pressing X and [] most of the time, you are fucked up. A.I will destroy your easy, The human opponent will destroy you with easy and fast direction change or feint. Yes, sometimes its work, but most of the time you need to do much more with the correct position and R2 and super cancel move.
 
Come on dude... I read your post for 3rd time and.. sorry but that is BS. If you just pressing X and [] most of the time, you are fucked up. A.I will destroy your easy, The human opponent will destroy you with easy and fast direction change or feint. Yes, sometimes its work, but most of the time you need to do much more with the correct position and R2 and super cancel move.

Yeah tell me [] and X isn't auto centering tool here:

 
and turn around in a circle without being able to take it away because he holds X.
Yeah tell me [] and X isn't auto centering tool here:

So .... !? What do i need to see in this video? That dude fails with a manual pass? Of course. Even its prove my point. He starts holding X after that and you can easily keep the ball hole game because he automatically chases the ball around you.
giphy.gif
 
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Well yeah I can do maybe 100x 360 turns I guess this is the perfect representation of football it's just a continuous tail chase if none of us stop we can even run down the clock 90 minutes with it innit nice?

I read your post 3 times being dramatic doesn't add anything to the discussion
 
and turn around in a circle without being able to take it away because he holds X.
So .... !? What do i need to see in this video? That dude fails with a manual pass? Of course. Even its prove my point. He starts holding X after that and you can easily keep the ball hole game because he automatically chases the ball around you.
giphy.gif
Fundamental of defending isnt there. There is no animations for holding, body check the dribbler and no effort to cut passing lane/intercept passes. I hope they improve the defending next year
 
Well yeah I can do maybe 100x 360 turns I guess this is the perfect representation of football it's just a continuous tail chase if none of us stop we can even run down the clock 90 minutes with it innit nice?

I read your post 3 times being dramatic doesn't add anything to the discussion

I'm dramatic !? I'm not the one who complains about a football video game that if you hold a button it does or does something. Yes, it's video game. Yes, you should press a button to do something, the whole discussion was that you say that this button hold is too effective, I say NO is not!
 
Fundamental of defending isnt there. There is no animations for holding, body check the dribbler and no effort to cut passing lane/intercept passes. I hope they improve the defending next year

I'm pretty sure [] and X makes no difference who you put on the field to defend as well. When you use [] and X to defend, ball winning stats and defending prowess makes no difference. A forward can chase after the ball with the same intensity and tightness, as a world class defender. In this video, that's exactly what we have. A forward chasing the ball like a homing missile. It wouldn't be more or less effective if you put an actual world class defender as there. Stats just get flattened. Speed is the only thing that matters.

I think this posts breaks it down well too:

I agree that less automation on defence is generally better for multiplayer, but IMO there is still too much in some areas and not enough in others.

Tackling is still insanely easy/automated, just hold sprint+pressure and the player will home in on the ball and time the tackle with no other input at all. Holding CPU pressure that player will do the same. Too easy... They either need to make it so just holding these buttons causes reckless/intentional fouling, or tone down their ability to take the ball. Even in the last FIFA I played, these pressure buttons only do enough to contain, you still need to press a tackle button to time the tackle and take the ball (unless the opponent runs straight into you).

Despite that, the other 8/9 outfield players not controlled by you or being instructed to press are totally braindead idiots who do nothing except somewhat follow their position on the teamsheet with no regard for the ball. The AI for them is so simplistic, they seem to have a binary state for "team in possession" and that's all that matters. This is evident with the typical goal where a defender gets a touch but it stays with the attacker - as soon as the defender makes the touch the rest of the defensive players stop covering, spread out or bolt up the pitch expecting a pass when the team doesn't even have the ball. This is why I can only really tolerate co-op play because at least you have a human to override another of the ridiculously dumb CPU players on your team.

The game still doesn't treat the ball as a seperate entity.
 
I'm pretty sure [] and X makes no difference who you put on the field to defend as well. When you use [] and X to defend, ball winning stats and defending prowess makes no difference. A forward can chase after the ball with the same intensity and tightness, as a world class defender. In this video, that's exactly what we have. A forward chasing the ball like a homing missile. It wouldn't be more or less effective if you put an actual world class defender as there. Stats just get flattened. Speed is the only thing that matters.

I think this posts breaks it down well too:
Pretty much spot on. personally i like the defending in fifa18 more than pes18. Its not easy but a bit more realistic imo. My idea is to have separate command for contain and outright pressure during defending. For example holding [ ] button will make the defender contains the ball carrier while double tapping the [ ] button and holding it will make the defender go for the ball quickly.
 
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Anyone playing the ML have an issue with missing clear cut chances? Playing on superstar in serie b but i have a very good cf with 84 finishing but it seems to almost always go wide when i aim for the corners even from 6 yards? Im using basic shooting

My team spirit is at 66 and im mid table I find im losing a fair few games because of missed chances some games ill have 11 shots 1 on target either my controllers broke, im crap, or its scripting due to low TS any ideas?
 
I think it's because of basic shooting - it seems to literally aim at the post on the side of the goal you choose even from easy chances at close range, rather than comfortably inside the post.

You can get things like this happen on basic;
https://streamable.com/akp38

I like advanced but end up missing too many when I need to react to a rebound etc so I'm sticking to basic in online play... But find it to be pretty unsatisfying - shooting overall on this game is a weak point on all settings.

Easy way to score more often is use the L1 chip, once you get the timing down the keepers just don't save it, a bit cheesy though.
 
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