Time Setting > Difficulty Setting?

[kashik]

Until today, I had been on a pretty bad run of results in PES. If I was winning, it was just barely, and I was having a hell of a time having any meaningful possession; I was just having a really hard time enjoying the game. I thought it must've been because I had barely played in the last two months and I had gotten rusty. Today I realized one setting change a while back made all the difference.

Prior to today, in my attempts to rediscover my past form, I decided to drop the difficulty. I usually play on top player, so dropping down to professional should surely have me dominating again. After playing a number of games, I had to check if maybe the difficulty setting didn't save because the results were just the same and the cpu playing nearly identical as in top player. I was really confused with what was going on. It wasn't this hard before was it? I hadn't gotten that ****, had I?

I began to wonder, was the computer making shockingly bad Ligue 1 teams into super teams to balance out the fact I had made some beastly transfers to my team? Fifa does this, so it was very possible. I played a few more games trying to bench certain players to see if it had an effect, but it was still the same.

Today, I began to consider the possibility that time may be playing a role. Fifa will try to limit your goals per minute stat from getting ridiculous in longer games, so maybe PES does that too?

I dropped from 15 minutes games back to the 12 minute matches I had been playing since release. Bingo. In the very next match I was absolutely crushing again. The cpu was no longer tearing me apart with sub-70 rated players, and I could actually push the cpu off the ball. I was back! The first result in professional? 6-2. It was finally a legitimate result for a superstar attacking team against a bottom half of the table team.


So in case anyone out there has been frustrated at one time or another with seemingly **** teams going superstar on you, give your time setting a look. In my experience it seems that time may play a bigger role in perceived difficulty than the difficulty setting itself.

Looking towards 2016, I hope Konami can find ways of maintaining realistic score lines/stats other than buffing the cpu.