Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo #1 Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

I edited my team's tactics, pulling the back line back as far as it would go positionally AND setting the defensive line height to 0. The CPU was still lobbing balls over them, my defenders just wouldn't stay back far enough it seemed. Starting to think it's either the CPU team's attack tactics that need editing, or their individual "lobberoony" ratings or something.

Regardless, this demo is unputdownable, wow what a football game. Eagerly checking my mailbox every day to see if my pre-order has arrived yet.

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

And if one placed comparison shots of both games beside the real thing, I'm guessing FIFA's over-saturated colors would look closer to life-like. Colors in life are not as dull and dead as they are in PES.

Just now watching Mexico/Swiss game, Olympics. I have the broadcast on one laptop, side-by-side with my laptop with the PES 2013 demo running. I was wrong. PES colors and stadium lighting is much closer to real-life, practically spot on actually.

[Cavani161]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

The demo IS already doing that. The game itself might even be better, fingers crossed they don't decide to "tinker".

I believe there is a second demo coming out. Which means they will be taking feedback from the first demo, then fixing issues and sending out the second one for everyone to play.

[spartansocc12]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

"One thing I didn’t see enough is the differentiation in each team’s playing style, especially at 0-0. To be fair, it’s always hard to judge based on a five minute game, where possession stats can get really skewed. But still, playing as England against Germany, in the higher difficulties, I’d like to see the CPU press the issue a bit more. After a goal is scored, however, things get better. The AI pushes its team forward to go for a goal, or marshals everybody back to defend a lead."

This is my major gripe with the game. It just does not feel different enough when playing against different computer opponents. The possession by the computer is atrocious at times. It is disheartening to see the computer give up the ball so easily especially after they just won back possession after not having the ball for a while.

This happened on the Superstar difficulty. In 2012 the computer would never deliberately play keep away. Unfortunately in 2013 this style of play by the CPU seems to be missing again. Neither in the 2012 version nor this demo have I seen the computer complete 5 passes in a row before completing an attack or losing the ball. That is quite poor considering good possession teams should be able to complete many more in a row. It would be one thing if my defense was exposed, but most of the time this is not the case and as a result interceptions come too easily. This is on the hardest difficulty mind you.

Come on Konami! Fix this! Aside from that you have a game with great potential!

[RoyceDa59]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

"One thing I didn’t see enough is the differentiation in each team’s playing style, especially at 0-0. To be fair, it’s always hard to judge based on a five minute game, where possession stats can get really skewed. But still, playing as England against Germany, in the higher difficulties, I’d like to see the CPU press the issue a bit more. After a goal is scored, however, things get better. The AI pushes its team forward to go for a goal, or marshals everybody back to defend a lead."

This is my major gripe with the game. It just does not feel different enough when playing against different computer opponents. The possession by the computer is atrocious at times. It is disheartening to see the computer give up the ball so easily especially after they just won back possession after not having the ball for a while.

This happened on the Superstar difficulty. In 2012 the computer would never deliberately play keep away. Unfortunately in 2013 this style of play by the CPU seems to be missing again. Neither in the 2012 version nor this demo have I seen the computer complete 5 passes in a row before completing an attack or losing the ball. That is quite poor considering good possession teams should be able to complete many more in a row. It would be one thing if my defense was exposed, but most of the time this is not the case and as a result interceptions come too easily. This is on the hardest difficulty mind you.

Come on Konami! Fix this! Aside from that you have a game with great potential!

That is sad to hear but that was my problem with last years too I was hoping that was fixed but I guess not maybe this will be fixed for Demo 2, I hope so.

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

That is sad to hear but that was my problem with last years too I was hoping that was fixed but I guess not maybe this will be fixed for Demo 2, I hope so.

Since Konami removed individual player tactics/assignments a few years back, the game has lost much of its customization potential. After months of experimenting and testing, I was finally able to get CPU teams in FIFA 12 playing differently, and one reason had to do with the ability to customize each CPU player's attack/defend assignments.

I love a lot about the gameplay in the PES demo, the most sim-football experience ever IMO. But after playing around with ratings and formation edits, I can already see there's probably very little one can do about getting teams to play much differently than they already do. I don't believe there are enough tactic and formation modifiers in the game to compensate for the individual player customization options they removed from the game three years ago. (And last year as well BTW when they removed additional and IMO critical player ratings from the game.)

[RoyceDa59]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

Since Konami removed individual player tactics/assignments a few years back, the game has lost much of its customization potential. After months of experimenting and testing, I was finally able to get CPU teams in FIFA 12 playing differently, and one reason had to do with the ability to customize each CPU player's attack/defend assignments.

I love a lot about the gameplay in the PES demo, the most sim-football experience ever IMO. But after playing around with ratings and formation edits, I can already see there's probably very little one can do about getting teams to play much differently than they already do. I don't believe there are enough tactic and formation modifiers in the game to compensate for the individual player customization options they removed from the game three years ago. (And last year as well BTW when they removed additional and IMO critical player ratings from the game.)

Very true, they have attack/defence awareness but last year I hardly could tell the difference when I altered it. It is really a shame but did any of you notice some lopsided possession stats using the demo modifier for the PC.

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

It is really a shame but did any of you notice some lopsided possession stats using the demo modifier for the PC.

Royce, I had an couple of comments, but deleted them because I really need to run some tests before jumping to any conclusions about PES. I haven't played the game for a couple of years, so it could be some things have changed with the tactics customization options, we'll see.

EDIT: Well after some test edits and playing some games last night and this morning, it appears the CPU tactics setup possibilities are in fact extremely limited. Regardless of settings, the CPU seems to play a relentless attack game. Getting the CPU to play a possession game seems impossible to program. I was able to set things up so the CPU would once in a while make a few back passes in their end, but that was it.

Much different from FIFA 12 where, through a combinaton of team tactics edits and individual player tactics edits, it's possible to set things up so that CPU teams play a strictly possession game for example. They'll literally pass the ball around for minutes at a time and will often end up with only one or two shots on goal per half. I've gotten to the point with that game where I've had to ease off on the CPU tactics settings, otherwise I spend the entire game just watching the CPU pass the ball around in their half of the pitch. Not very exciting lol.

At this point I'd say spartansocc hit the nail on the head with his demo concerns.

[RaptorMania]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

Haven't bought a PES game since the ps2 days, this demo is fantastic and I just might buy the full game depending on how the final product is. The game plays really well and the gameplay is just great. I will most likely get it for PC if the demo looks good on my laptop, much more mods are available on PC.

[ezio]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

The demo is so much better than the last copuple of years efforts. Looking forward to the second demo. Hopefully not too much changes.

[spartansocc12]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

Konami has done an excellent job of handling individual player controls. This is not something they really need to work on. The passing, shooting, tackling, running, positioning, turning, sprinting etc make this game a job to play.

It really is the opponent AI when attacking that needs to improve immensely. Are konami aware of this? One can only hope.

[aloncho11]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

Since Konami removed individual player tactics/assignments a few years back, the game has lost much of its customization potential. After months of experimenting and testing, I was finally able to get CPU teams in FIFA 12 playing differently, and one reason had to do with the ability to customize each CPU player's attack/defend assignments.

I love a lot about the gameplay in the PES demo, the most sim-football experience ever IMO. But after playing around with ratings and formation edits, I can already see there's probably very little one can do about getting teams to play much differently than they already do. I don't believe there are enough tactic and formation modifiers in the game to compensate for the individual player customization options they removed from the game three years ago. (And last year as well BTW when they removed additional and IMO critical player ratings from the game.)

Well, the reason for Konami to remove the player runs arrows was that they cancelled player's natural behaviour dependeing on ther position, stats and special skills. For example, if you gave a forward arrow to Gerrard playing as a CMF, that arrow immediately cancelled him moving on the pitch according to his stats and special skills. Arrows (offensive and defensive) were meant only for players you wanted to behave differently than they do IRL, but most gamers overlooked that and often abused them by having their team full of arrows. That caused the game to be unbalanced

Arrows were ditched and then player cards came in, in an attempt to mix special skills (one touch, 1 on 1, passer, flicking, etc.) with movement/running tendencies (incisive run, track back, fox in the box, marauding, etc.) with many tendency cards available just for certain roles. This translates into players behaving differently according to their position and role on the pitch, although the change is subtle.

So going back to Gerrard's example, now he has the "box to box" card that makes him run back and forward playing offensively and defensively all game long (no need for forward and backward arrows). You can also add to the mix his attack/defensive awareness ratio...

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

Well, the reason for Konami to remove the player runs arrows was that they cancelled player's natural behaviour dependeing on ther position, stats and special skills. For example, if you gave a forward arrow to Gerrard playing as a CMF, that arrow immediately cancelled him moving on the pitch according to his stats and special skills. Arrows (offensive and defensive) were meant only for players you wanted to behave differently than they do IRL, but most gamers overlooked that and often abused them by having their team full of arrows. That caused the game to be unbalanced.

I don't know about that. The more customization options, the better. Konami has removed several options and player ratings from the game the past few years, to the detriment of the overall gameplay IMO. That's the bottomline as I see it.

You can also add to the mix his attack/defensive awareness ratio...

That's one of the options they changed/tinkered with that just doesn't work. Set every CPU player's attack to low and defense to high, and the CPU will still relentlessly attack. Whereas if you do the same thing in FIFA 12, the CPU will continually pass the ball back and forth without really moving forward. Those settings work so well in FIFA that you can allow the CPU to enter your half, and then if you pressure them they'll pass the ball backwards and exit back to their own side of the pitch. Nothing like that is possible with PES' tactics settings as far as I can see.

[Yeats]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

The passing, shooting, tackling, running, positioning, turning, sprinting etc make this game a job to play.

Freudian slip, lol.

[aloncho11]

Re: Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here

I don't know about that. The more customization options, the better. Konami has removed several options and player ratings from the game the past few years, to the detriment of the overall gameplay IMO. That's the bottomline as I see it.

That's one of the options they changed/tinkered with that just doesn't work. Set every CPU player's attack to low and defense to high, and the CPU will still relentlessly attack. Whereas if you do the same thing in FIFA 12, the CPU will continually pass the ball back and forth without really moving forward. Those settings work so well in FIFA that you can allow the CPU to enter your half, and then if you pressure them they'll pass the ball backwards and exit back to their own side of the pitch. Nothing like that is possible with PES' tactics settings as far as I can see.

It well could be. Then again, it could be something they couldn't make happen from a technological standpoint (it's either arrrows or player cards, can't have both).

I think what you are referring to could be achieved in the teams style, tinkering with player support and support range. I've set both of these values to 0 for Spain, and although the results are not breathtaking, they seem to play a more build up style.