Some Goals Are Bigger Than Others
I have failed to win promotion from Division 2 in my fourth Master League season on PES2009. FAILED. A big theme of the past week or two has been how strange, in lots of ways, I’m finding this year’s Master League. It’s simply not following the usual script. As everybody knows who has ever played the mode to any extent, there usually comes a ‘tipping point’, and it usually comes after just a season or two—maybe three at the most. Not after four seasons. Or five…
After the tipping point comes, you’re supposed to streak to promotion. Then after maybe a season of holding steady in the top division, you streak to the title, and thence to the Cup, and the European Cup, and the fabled Treble… And after six seasons or ten seasons or whatever your own personal ‘magic number’ is, you have a stellar squad that can almost win games on their own. (Occasional puzzling defeats still come along, but that’s just PES being dodgy with you.)
When things get to that point, you can be considered to have ‘completed’ your Master League career. The only real reason to play on now is out of curiosity, or because you enjoy the challenge of repeating your feats season in, season out. Most people restart, play another career, see if they can do it all differently, with or without the addition of House Rules.
Me, I like to go on, indefinitely. Some PESes are different. PES5 I found consistently tough, only winning three Trebles in about 40 consecutive seasons in the one career. That unforgettable year on PES5 will always be my yardstick to judge ML by, for better or worse. It’s still early days for PES2009 (yes I’m still saying that), but if these first four seasons are anything to go by, the longevity of ML this year could be close to PES5 proportions.
And here’s one reason why—this season’s final league table, where after such a good start I finished fourth from bottom:
So I’ll be spending season 5 still in the bottom division. Season FIVE. This is getting scary (but I like it…).
And I was doing so well. My last two posts showed great progress compared to last season’s pitiful effort. Yesterday I was sitting pretty in 5th place after 14 games, just three points from a promotion spot. What the hell happened?
I just collapsed in the final third of the season. I lost plenty, drew a few, and only won a handful more games. My slide down the table was relentless. I’m struggling to pinpoint an exact reason. I was never scoring loads of goals this season, but at least I was shutting out the CPU up the other end. I stopped doing that—and started conceding silly goals.
It’d be easy to blame the influx of three new young players. It’d be easy to say they diluted my Teamwork stat. The truth is that before they arrived, back when I only had 17 players to choose from, I concentrated better, took fewer risks, played more methodically, more slowly. As soon as I had the comparative luxury of a squad of 20 to choose from, I lost my focus. I started thinking I had an automatic right to possession, and that every attack should result in a goal-scoring chance. Wrong on both counts, especially in PES2009.
So much for season 2011-2012. I really, really thought this was the season for promotion. It hurts, actually. All I can do is lick my wounds and move onto the next season.
There was one very bright moment in the last stages of the season. A goal that literally made me shout out loud. It was one of those special PES moments, really. It was all the sweeter for being scored with my new young player, Kim Cyun Hi, who’s showing some precocious talent even this early.
Kim was playing wide on the right in this game. The ball breaks for him, and I decided to take a first-time shot, from an angle, out near the corner of the penalty box. The ball flew absolutely ruler-straight into the far top corner, across the keeper. It was the first goal of its kind I’ve scored on PES2009 (the Gambino one from the other day was more central, and the ball moved a bit in the air, dipping at the end; this Kim Cyun Hi goal just flew).
Okay, it does superficially look like ‘just another long-range PES goal’. The poor quality of the mobile phone clip doesn’t do it any favours either. But this is PES2009, a game with arguably the hardest long-range shooting mechanic of any PES game. Goals like this are pretty hard to come by. Even if PES2009 does ‘do a PES2008′ and become too easy in the long run, and I start scoring goals like this for fun, I’ll still remember this particular goal, and my exultant yell at the moment of scoring it, for a very long time to come.
When I moved back to Kansas and started supporting the Wizards (Kansas...
Nice goal! Maybe Kim will be the super striker he has been for other players this year. Good luck on promotion next season- imagine if you were on top player. It’s not our immaginations, this PES is a lot tougher. The difficulty levels seem more like FIFA this year.
Not Given syndrome is over! I played CL after CL game on top player and banned myself from getting frustrated for hours. It seems your ‘cycle of frustration’ was correct. In PES (like you said) you get to believe you should be winning the ball on certain occassions, and start clamping if it doesn’t go your way. Do you use R2 a lot? I think I was using it too much- at the moment I i am not using square at all, R2 very rarely, and X a bit. Defending has become a lot better. I started an ML on top player with Valencia- sacreligious I know, but it’s a lot more enjoyable than bloody Macco and co. The way this season is going and on this difficulty level, a treble is no where in sight.
Not Given – I didn’t comment on your plan to start an ML with a top team in D1 because I don’t really think it’s a bad thing to do. There’s no point persisting with Castolo & co if you’re not getting anything out of it and are only doing it because you’ve always done it. I think you’re doing exactly the right thing switching to another track. You’ll try again with the Defaults eventually and be all the better for it.
The cycle of frustration… Yes, I’m still battling it in my own way. A decade of ISS/PES has made my thumb just want to extend across those two buttons, X+Sqaure, and my forefinger clamp down on R1 almost without me consciously wanting it to. I can stop myself doing it now, but still have relapses, as my spectacular fall from the top of the table in the latter half of this season shows.
I use R2 only in my corners when I want to stop a cross coming in—I’ll also use Square on its own to bring secondary pressure. I find the combo very effective in these particular cases.
I am pretty pleased with the goal. As you know those kinds of shots – power and placement – are so tough this year, never mind from that angle and distance. I’ve still not managed even to come close to doing it again.
It’s all the better for the fact that hes 17/18! His stats musn’t be THAT good yet. I think your right. Although I always like to play on top player, i’ve never been one for bone crushing difficulty. I just like having an extended ML campaign over many seasons and for it to stay challenging to win the leagues/cups (i’m betting it will). The fear of it turning into 08 is slowly disappearing though. Despite the fact that 08 was hard with the defaults as well, when playing with the big teams I felt immediatelly it would be too easy. In 09 on the other hand it’s still very hard for me, even with Valencia. My only final concern is when we have a squad of Galacticos. If it passes that test- 09 is a success!
Im officially bemused with PES 2009!!!!!!!!
2nd bottom of the league in my first Master League season, drawing most losing quite a few and winning very infrequently. Now i wouldnt have a problem with this as i like the challenge and wouldnt want the game to be too easy, we all know its a challenge with the default ML players BUT……
Even when a non league side plays a premier league team in say the FA Cup in real life, they give a bloody good go of it, so WHY WHY WHY WHY am i encountering the following:
- My Players seem to treat the ball as if its made from concrete
- Passes are short, nowhere near the intended direction or always cut out
- Shots are pathetic, WHY cant my forward perform a hard low shot from 6yds out, no matter wher eyou are its always a flimsy soft floated skyrocket!!!!
- Scripted moments, oh yes!!!! even when the CPU isnt auto bagging 89th min goals, when i get the ball in the CPU box and try a shot, there seems to be a 2 sec delay imposed on me between when i press shoot and when the player carries out the animation!!!
This is just a few of my bug bears!! I have bought 3 players in the negotiations window, a CB Curachaga, a WF Gambino and a CF Takahashi who all were young and had promising stats, Takahashi scored a belter on his debut to give me my first win, but since then they have had little impact.
PES used to be the ’sandbox’ of footy titles, pass anywhere, do anything yet this title feels so laboured, stiff and structured, Im playing purely through perseverance, stubbornness and because I HATE losing a challenge, but thats all, at the moment im getting NO enjoyment from playing PES, in fact its making me angry!!!
I could deal with the game being difficult as a rule but so may gameplay features are just so inferior after playing FIFA that im wondering if its actually worth keeping the game!
Sorry for the negative post but wanted to get it off my chest!!!
PES ML for me, does not Unite!!!!
^ I have experienced exactly that. I would advise you to stop playing that ML and play the CL or other Cup competitions. Practice with the bigger teams and enjoy it more. The last 10 hours of playing PES became a haze of anger and frustration playing my ML, don’t do the same thing!
Paul – it looks like you’re feeling the ‘comedown’ from FIFA09.
Yes, FIFA09 is effortlessly superior in so many ways. You’ve got the passing, the through-balls, the shooting, the player movement – all are superb, and you really feel in control out there on the pitch. PES2009 has very much an ‘on-rails’ feel in comparison.
If you look back at my first posts in PES release week you’ll see me going on about this very issue. At the time I thought there was no hope for PES2009, or for PES full stop.
There does seem to come a point when something ‘clicks’ and you start appreciating PES2009 for what it is. But I don’t think it can be forced. You might be better off playing FIFA09 until PES2009’s time naturally comes around.
If you’re giving PES2009 another go at the moment, best advice is to try to forget the at times alarmingly fast gameplay of FIFA09. Relax into the slower pace and relative confines of PES2009, knock the ball around in midfield – 20 passes, 30 passes, however many it takes – until you carve out a chance.
p.s., and yes, as Not Given says, there’s no point tormenting yourself with that ML when the overall game still feels strange,
I know what you mean about the feeling that FIFA is better. But I haven’t touched in close to 50 hours since getting PES. Every goal in PES is worked for, and the odd through ball feels good. 80% of FIFA goals are through balls when I play with Valencia (or any good team). I’m not entirely sold on the fifa being better angle anymore, i’m just not sure it is…
Not Given – it’s not an entirely done deal for me either. I do think FIFA09 has ‘better’ passing, through-balls, shooting, etc., but overall gameplay? The big picture? It’s not so clear-cut.
I’m working on Monday’s post which tackles some of this for me. As much as I think FIFA09 is the better football game, I can’t help but notice that I’m still playing PES2009 even after the PS3 patch has come out, and even after the New Xbox Experience has enabled me to circumvent the disc read error thing by installing the game entirely onto the console hard drive! I have every reason in the world, really, to play FIFA09, but here I am still playing PES2009. What does that tell me?
Part of me doesn’t want to be embarrassed about going back on my early worship of FIFA09 and denigration of PES2009, but it’s not an about-face really. What’s happened is that both games have drawn roughly level in my view, with PES2009 happening to be the one I’m most ‘into’ right now.
I agree, it should be a tight battle. But the longer I go without playing FIFA, the more it’s going back to the usual- PES all year. Bang in form now- albeit with good teams like Valencia and Spain. Defending much better and attacking well too- the R2 and one-two runs open the game up! The through ball bug never made it unplayable for me, so I don’t even have that excuse for not playing FIFA!
I have just played the biggest farce of a ‘match’ on PES. Spain vs Russia- if anyone is in doubt of the existence of scripting this match was full of proof. Heres a quick list-
1st minute- I am R2 shielding a runner in the penalty area, when out of nowhere the CPU CONTROLLER Marchena runs in assaulting Arshavin giving a penalty. Totally unnavoidable. Then as if to rub it in Mr Seabass allows me to guess the right way, only for the Arshavin on speed to tab the rebound in anyway. (why bother let me save it???)
2-10 minute- Wave after wave of Spanish attack is ‘heroically’ defended.
11 minute- Russia player runs in at an angle, shoots at Casillas only for my world class keeper to deflect it perfectly to another Russian to fire in.
12- 45 minutes- Wave after wave of Spanish attack is ‘heroically’ defended.
51 minutes- Russian corner, with Arshavin rushing in at 100 mph to rocket in a header. Unstoppable.
52- 89 minutes- Wave after wave of Spanish attack is ‘heroically’ defended. At this point I am hysterical with anger/rage, throwing the kitchen sink and all the plates at the goal.
89 minute- Pavlyuchenko, walks around 3 of my defenders AND THEN AROUND THE KEEPER, in a display that would make Pele proud and taps in.
90th minute- Marchena AGAIN rushes out of nowhere, CPU controlled to assault a random player- gets a straight red card. I am sure you know how it feels at this point, because for 15 minutes (the length of the match) I have simply been a spectator, watching the scripting at work.
95th minute- 1 on 1 with the keeper, Villa goes around Akinfeev to tap into an empty net- but oh wait HE HITS THE ******* POST.
0-4
Sorry about this rant, anyway i’m off for the next league match…..
…
not given
80% of goals being through ball in fifa2009 is the main factor i fear could break the game for me at the end and going back to PES or more likely stay away from football game for he rest of the year. Despite all the progression FIFA has made i start getting the feeling that one to one is the way most goals are achieved(and i remember myself mocking about how easy it was to do that in the old FIFAs around 2000). And this become scary when play online against people using assisted controls, i mean it, but the game with assisted controls is straight pass (assisted, no merit on it when playin Barcelona and Etoo) to the forward and run one to one to the keeper, is plain and stupid to play online and almost if not the same, and i mean it seriously, than PES2008(all right, without the lag but i get some of that too).
I do think that playing at home with friends all manual FIFA2009 is the best football game i ve ever played with friends. But against the CPU i do miss the variety of goals and situation PES used to give me, but, unfortunately, the manual passing FIFA gave me has made it almost impossible for me to go back to the rails and the CPU overpressence in PES. So i think im just condemned to be eaten by the FIFA fatigue at some point and hope FIFA2010 fix this issue and make the CPU defence to go 30 fucking yards backwards when i´m building my atacking play! (sorry for the curse). But honestly i don´t think they are aware of this so this is the first time i see someone reffering to that in the midst of all this FIFA overpaising year. But the truth for me is that once you get the grip of FIFA the depth grows thinner as it seems to be all about controlling defensively the midfield and once you get the ball back run to the counteratck and through balls. as not given said 80% reliability in this.
Not Given – it’s starting again?! I’m not looking forward to going back to Top Player, hearing your tales. But I played the first season of this ML career on TP, and don’t remember scripting being quite so bad, so we’ll see.
fjmarlop1 – playing FIFA09 against someone else even with the mixture of semi-manual and manual settings that we discussed a few days ago is pretty great as well.
Good points overall – especially about the CPU defence depth, a growing bugbear for many.
I’ve just come back to FIFA09 after a few weeks away and I’m really liking it still. Perhaps that could be the key—either playing it not so much, or mixing it up with another game.
I think I’m seeing only the best in FIFA and PES at the moment. It really isn’t usual for me to be so positive about things. I’m scared… If these are rose-tinted spectacles, I don’t want to take them off.
not greg
when playing with friends, specially if they are just casual players i left semi crossing and just assisted shooting (manual and even semi manual is for long time players i think, and assisted shooting with the hardness of manual passing is not a danger for a plausible overall score)
still enjoy the game as i´m not scoring that much to complaint about getting some extra goal thanks to some throgh ball (honestly, manual shooting makes one to one everything but a certain goal). The problem is that im aware of that and at some point it could damage my perception of the game and the enjoyment of a challenge since it would be stupid to use other build up of atacking play when you know what is the most effective and also easy. it would be more like a house rule to use another attacking play, just for fun,but it is not what this should be about and i won´t do that. but untill then i still enjoy a lot of thigs of this game. PES not likely to come back so far, but who knows.
fjmarlop1
I found that about FIFA as well, and it’s the main reason I stopped playing it and bought PES. I was bored of hoofing balls over the defence and scoring/missing one on one chances- it’s not real football.
Greg
It was definitely scripting! Everytime I reach the ‘tipping’ point and think I have found form in PES it kicks me in the teeth, it’s proving a real tough nut to get to grips with this year. It wasn’t me just not accepting defeat either- I actually lost the next match to the Czech Republic 0-3 but I just played like crap. My players really felt dejected after the Russian stuffing and we couldn’t string two passes together. There are 3 types of losses in PES, the geniuine one when you play under power or the opponent plays better, the one where your even/a bit better all the way through and the game auto scores it’s 89th minute shocking winner, and one when the game decides it’s going to hammer you- and its on god mode from the start. I have also noticed it gets into these ‘runs’ of scripting, and if you reset it goes away. Is this all immagined?? Or does PES really pull your strings this much on the high difficulty settings.
fjmarlop1 – I think anything that effectively ‘cracks’ a football game is a massive shame. Because as soon as you discover a certain means of scoring, or even just creating a good chance, that game’s days are numbered.
Next-gen PES2008 was doomed for me from the moment I discovered the wonder dribble (it really took me a while, because I just never used to play that way). Some people would say “Well don’t use it then” – I completely disagree with that stance, because as you say, not using what the game lays out for you to use shouldn’t be what a football game is about.
Not Given – oh, I believe in scripting. Lord, do I! PES2008 on PS2/PSP nearly drove me crazy after several seasons’ play, by which time the only way it could leverage anything against me was through the most blatant, disgraceful scripting. I’m more than a little disturbed to hear that it’s apparently as blatant as it is now for you.
Re, the reset thing, a long time ago – PES2/3-era – me and a mate at work used to have the concept of a ’switch-on’. Talking about those sessions when none of your shots would go in or even be on target, we used to say to each other “I had one of those switch-ons last night”. I think it’s pretty clear that some kind of dice is rolled at the start of a game – or a session – that determines how easy/hard/middling it’ll be for you to do various things. The parameters of that dice-roll will depend on many factors, but difficulty level will be a massive factor.
not given you’re not wrong about the resetting.
it used to get so bad on pes5 (the scripting) that i resetted immediately if i even noticed the slightest hint of a scipted defeat. i would only ‘accept’ genuine defeats. it would take a number of times of resetting to get it right sometimes. haha and i thought i was the only one back then that thought the game was scripted…how wrong i was!
Cracking goal there!
I’ve finally given ML some decent playing time and am now half way through the first season. Surprisingly i’m doing pretty well. I’m up to 4th with about 5 wins in the league and a few draws. Thought that I was gonna be struck by Not-Given syndrome when I conceded a few very late goals in my first few games, but turns out they were exceptions.
Mainly win 1-0, had the odd 2-1 win. And through 2 rounds in the cup too.
Didn’t get much quality in the window – bought Jovanovic to replace Minanda in the hole. Also bought Traore the made up one. And the other signing was Kobiyashi – looks decent enough.
Hopefully get promoted straight away. Playing very good football becuase i’m concentrating so much – never had so much possesion before! Think the BAL prepared me as you start off at the level of a default player. Gutierrez is the top scorer – and I even managed one with Burchet!
#1 – from PES5 all the way to now, I find God Mode most often manifests itself in a sustained period of possession by the CPU rather than anything terrible it makes my players do (making my players miscontrol the ball and lose possession is my ‘favourite’).
Liam - I love how you always get the plug for BaL in somehow! You’re doing a good job in keeping it uppermost in my mind. If and when I get a spare hour or two I’ll definitely have to give BaL a look. But I fear it’ll go the same way as FIFA08’s BaP mode. I.e., something I’ll play for an hour, think “this is pretty great”, but then just won’t go back to.
But never say never. I’ll give it a chance when I get there.
Interesting that you got a taster of ML Defaults from playing BaL. If I ever restart ML I’d definitely spend a few hours in BaL first. Anything to ease that torrid first season or two.
Castolo is a GOD. He’s my top scorer this season after 12 games, and he’s only played in two of them! (he got a hat-trick in one and came off the bench to score in the other, and the auto-sort button hardly even picks him for the bench!)
Big Al – oh dear. You’re not going to like Tuesday’s post. Clue: its working title is ‘Down with Castolo’. I’m not going to change it in any way, and I stand by every word of it in advance…
Ha ha, yeah Castolo is goal less for me after 16 games too (started about 10 of them). He’s not the force he once was i’m afraid. Minanda is going the same way too – though at least he’s 37!
Now have 6 league games left and i’m currently clinging onto 3rd spot. Have a cup final too.
BAL.
Well, I’m almost halfway through my second season now, and am only 3 points off promotion places! I managed to bring in 11 new faces, including the all-time legend DAGAKA! (winning the cup last season made me comparatively rich, I still had 14000 points leftover after paying the wages) Orellano easily my best player though, if you get a chance to sign him – do it! he’ll always finish a 1 on 1.
As for scripting, it does often feel like it happens, but that happens in real life too! Think of all the Arsenal games in the last few seasons that have been like that, Arsenal have 20+ shots on target yet still lose/draw against the likes of Birmingham.
Liam - good to hear you’re still doing well. I think your BaL seasons have stood you in good stead. And Castolo? If it wasn’t for the brilliant Castello years, he’d be seen in the same kind of way as Ximelez and Hamsun etc. The greatness of Castolo is a myth—in every sense of the word. But I think all the Defaults have their fans among the PES community. I like Ruskin and Macco, for example.
Grilled Seabass – now that I’m into FM2008 I keep having to tell myself that completely dominating matches doesn’t guarantee the win. Game after game, after game after game… Really enjoying FM again though. Still keeping it as an occasional hour-long blast for now, but I’m finding myself reading tactical articles on the fansites again…