The state of Youth today
I’ve come to the end of my first season in PES2010 Master League. I finished rock-bottom of the table with a truly dismal record. (NB: I played every match. I haven’t taken advantage yet of the new option to simulate matches. I’ll specifically mention it if/when I do start simming.)
It was an end that couldn’t come soon enough. Single figures for goals scored. Just 3 wins in 34 matches. There’s no upside to it all, really. As mentioned in my last post, I believe this to be my worst-ever start to any Master League in my entire PES history. Given that I traditionally start Master League badly (and writhe and groan about it), that’s some unachievement. If PES2010 really is an easier PES than most others, my non-performance this season has been even worse.
So be it. In fact: this was the best possible thing that could happen to me. I don’t play Master League to score hatfuls of goals every match and have an easy time. I want it to be difficult and challenging and frustrating. I’d be most annoyed if it wasn’t. So I’m actually very happy with PES2010 at the moment. I’m just puzzled as to why I’m finding Master League so very tough.
I’ve done a lot of fiddling around with the custom sliders and the player cards and every conceivable tactical tweak I can think of. I used four or five different formations throughout the season.
One very important thing I discovered: many midfielders and strikers have their playing style cards auto-set to Defence. It’s very important to check every player’s style card in the Lineup section of the home menu, and make sure they’re set to the preferred style. I discovered, rather belatedly, that I’d spent most of the season playing with most of my attackers set to a defensive style. I changed them all pronto, but it didn’t seem to have any immediate effect. I still lost matches and couldn’t score goals. And then a few matches later the season was over. I suppose I’ll see next season how differently the team handles with the proper player card settings.
The season’s end saw Wolves, Burnley, and Sunderland coming down from Division 1. They’re very welcome. I have grown weary of playing against the made-up teams of Division 2. It’ll be nice to see some familiar names and actually notice who I’m playing against again. No doubt in time the fictional teams will become familiar, and among them I’ll find rivals, bogey teams, and all the rest of it. For now, I’m so happy to see the three Division 1 clubs.
I went into Edit mode and spent some time on my new kits. The horizontal blurry red line isn’t a daring design experiment. It’s a very early, almost token effort at emblazoning a PES Chronicles logo across the chests of my virtual players. There’s an option to import a proper design made with proper tools in an image editor. I have limited skills in that department but enough to come up with something more than the bare text. Maybe next season. I didn’t have time this time around.
There were two considerably more important items on the post-season agenda. Upgrading my backroom staff was one. And getting some new players in was another.
I had quite a lot of cash to play with after some more activity on the transfer market. I had a great offer for Shimizu, and took it without regret. He was almost useless. There’s something very wrong with these Youth players. They’re worse than the Youth players of previous games. I think it’s because they’re now Youths and Defaults. So they’re double trouble, at least to begin with. I’m keeping Palmieri and Schwarz for now, based on their names alone, but any good offers will be listened to.
I had £5m in the bank, and I would need it all. I upgraded my coach, my doctor, and my Youth team (the only way is up for them). New contracts for half of the existing squad took another chunk of the cash.
At the end of it all I had about £600k to spend on new players. I had to be careful to take into account that I’d be paying their wages as soon as they arrived. I picked up a couple of decent midfielders named Lanalkiss and Marchini from the Free Agents list (hidden away this year in a sub-sub-menu of the Search function). My only full-on purchase was Benjani as a CF. He cost me £300k from Manchester City or Pompey or wherever I found him.
None of my new signings are that much better than my existing players. All I’m hoping for is that they’re just better enough to start the momentum building towards getting out of the hole I unaccountably find myself in.
My current formation (see left) is a skewed 4-4-2/4-3-3 hybrid, with a wide RWF and the left side of midfield slightly pushed towards the touchline. I got the idea from a commenter here on the blog, heraldo. It’s been a good formation for me, but not great. I’m considering going back to my trusty 4-3-3, but don’t feel I really have the squad for it yet. I’m open to any and all suggestions.
So here’s to season 2010-2011. I suspect it’ll be another struggle, but it should be slightly less of a struggle. Season 2 is traditionally the one where I start at least hanging around in mid-table. It’ll be interesting to see how I cope.
Marcos Rúben – search for him, usually available at a nominal fee if you can get him young, and has an amazing growth rate, he will bang in goal after goal, he saved my ML carer in PES09 single handedly!!
When you say that the freebies are well hidden away – was it by searching on group then free agents? Or is there another way? Seems to be very few/none in there when i’ve looked.
How’s Oscar doing for you? He’s not bad for me. Very slow, but a good passer – has a couple of assists.
Also, are you banking on sponsorship to pay the 2010 costs?
I suppose the only way is up mate.
I love the tactical side of football games. I have tinkered a lot with the sliders and playing cards myself. The attack level cards especially, switching from defensive to attacking depending on the game situation.
I’ve had to reign in my formation in my 2nd season and stupidy on my part going with a defence made of defaults which worked in my 1st season IS NOT going to cut it in season 2.
I thought I was being a smart ass, assigning the Bayern Munich players to Celtic, WE/PES Utd, thus them being Free Agents (Celtic) and available for transfer (WE/PES Utd).
Last night I found after my 1st season players that appear in International clubs in PES 2010 but their club sides are not in game, appear as ML Youth Team players with various clubs. David Beckham is at Fiorentina, Thorsten Frings at Tottenham and Obafemi Martins is at Barcelona. With more to come in future transfer windows.
As far as Schwarz, Palmieri and Shimizu, it’s not entirely surprising. Konami pull new defualt players from the Newcomers list and if they’re any good, make them much more default-ish, usually by increasing their age, robbing them of years of development. (See also Gutierrez and El Moubarki.)
There was some foreshadowing for this move on PES 2009 for the Wii — All three of those players were available as 20 year olds. Sadly, they all had different curves, and while they were solid performers, none of them became the legend that they’d been on earlier editions.
My PES 2010 is in my hot little hands, and I’m as confused about Master League as the rest of you. It gets a solid WTF from me this year, but I know that given time I’ll acclimate to the game and start to sort things out. I actually appreciate the newness of it all. It reminds me of PES 5, which is the game I started the series with. Master League was strange and wonderful, and took months to figure out. I’d eventually purchase the Piggyback guidebooks and that opened even more depth.
You are right that I’m enjoying the level at which one can tinker with formations and player roles, although at this stage, I don’t know what is working . . . or in what fashion!
A typically bizarre decision by Konami. It always begs the question, “what were they thinking?” Why not leave them as unaffiliated as every past edition has done? Buh. Zarre.
@ not Greg: there is a fairly good option to create basic kit logos under “Draw Your Own.”
Tactics?
Try the solid European style 4-2-3-1 formation. Have 2 DMF with early tracking back arrows. Have an AMF play in the hole (or move him up as SS for more attacking movement). Try to keep your wide midfielders somewhat “narrow” but roaming around your advanced playmaker. Don’t hesitate to have those wide midfielders chase the opposition through the middle. I don’t know how susceptible full backs are to being caught out of position in PES 2010 (as that was a concern for many in PES 2008 & 2009). If it’s a concern for you, I may have some tips to balance that out.
At any rate, good luck with the new season. You probably need a good striker to get you some goals at some point. If it’s really that hard for you, I guess, play for a draw most of the time (if you can) and take advantage of set-pieces (again if the game allows you)
I found it helpfull to play a 4 5 1, sort of liverpool style, with 2 dmfs. I concede so much less with a nice solid midfield and hamsun is perfectly capable of leading the line.
Paul—early days yet but it seems there’s the usual trouble about getting decent players to sign for the club if you’re struggling. I’ll have a look for Ruben though. His wages had better not be too high!
Liam—there were 4-5 pages of free agents all through my first season, and there’s still the same amount now. That’s deceptive though as they were – and are – all fairly rubbish, with only a few diamonds in the rough.
Oscar is the exception to the Youths-bashing I’ve done here. He’s been very good and I’ve got high hopes of him spending his whole career in my team—unless I run into financial trouble and have to sell him. And I’m counting on a lot more than sponsorship money to make it through. I’ve got to sell. Hopefully I’ve still got enough stiffs left to ship them all out without having to touch my few ‘crown jewels’, Oscar being one of ‘em.
As soon as I’ve got the coaching staff and the budget, I really want to train Oscar up with Middle Shooting – if that’s even possible. I’m only surmising I’ll be able to do that after enough upgrades.
heraldo—yes, your special hybrid formation did the business for me for a while but my inherent rubbishness right now has really come to the fore. I think I’ll just stick it back to my usual 4-3-3 and try to make it work.
I think the whole sliders/playing cards thing is still in its infancy. I’ve now spent a good long while with them and barely scratched the surface. (And let’s not forget the focus points thing in training!)
ck—the whimsicality of PES and Master League has been one of the series’ attractions over the years. Really all it’d take to stop that affection dead would be a solid realistic career mode from FIFA. Few of us would then be smiling indulgently at Konami’s twee eccentricities. FIFA, however, just keeps fluffing its lines. (The more I think about this, the more I think an Ultimate Team 2010 pseudo-Master League is a logical next step for that mode. A carbon copy of last year’s UT won’t get my custom – the very idea is preposterous, and I suspect that’d be the majority stance. So UT will need something else, and that has to be a playable offline league mode, surely?)
Re. the new ML, for me the #1 thing that’s just plain weird at the start now is that the Negotiaions window is effectively open all the time. Sure, the players can only actually move clubs during the two windows, but the searching, scouting, and bidding can now go on all season long. I didn’t realise at all, and was astonished in the opening third of my first season, weeks after the Neg. window had shut, when an AI club came in with a bid for Stein. I hadn’t realised until then that the transfer system had changed like this.
I knew you’d love the nuts and bolts of the tactical/customisation options. I’ve never really been one for them myself – not in any greater detail than needed to get by, anyway – but I’m being forced to pay closer attention.
Steph Wheeler—there are no more arrows! The tactical system has ha d a complete overhaul and it takes some getting used to. Attack/Defend/Balanced stances are now toggled via a player card. The same system, really, just presented in a different way. Other factors are all-new and have an effect. I’m still learning.
And I think that’s really why I’m struggling with PES2010. Learning a new PES takes time. I do need a good striker, and playing to keep a clean sheet is always a good starting point for succes. I’ve been playing too direct, too attacking.
Nostalgicforpes—I’ve been looking at 4-5-1 and even 5-3-2. I won’t say now what my formation is – it’ll be in Friday’s post. Suffie to say I appreciate the value of a good DMF in PES…
Hmm- You say you now appreciate the value of a good DMF- *Cough* Mathieu *Cough*. The new Mathieu is Coutadeur! He plays for Le Mans, you should definitely take a gander at him!
Correction, he plays for Monaco.
patrick222—oh no, no Mathieu for me (yet). I think he’ll be too old to be worth bothering with by the time I get the money & prestige to be able to sign him, so it’ll be a Regen job for me and Mathieu I think. Fingers crossed my career carries me that far.
I had a look at the Youth players you get if you start with the Defaults — you were right, they’re not much better than defaults themselves. I think the best player is rated around 70? Typical for Konami. Some of them might develop into someone worth keeping (as you suggest Oscar might for you).
I’m thinking about starting with the Defaults, but the awfulness holds me back. You don’t get much money to begin with, I suppose, which means you can’t sign anyone truly helpful until your second year. That’s a lot of boooring 0-0 games, or worse yet 0-1 games. Perhaps I’ll sim that entire first year, concentrate on building my staff and developing the youngsters?
You’re 100% right about FIFA and their offline mode. They talked it up, but what they released was so bad I haven’t bought the game. I bought my wife a Wii game instead!
Ultimate Team with an offline mode would keep me hooked, and if it were done right might be the crowbar that pries me off of PES.
But of course, you and I are the lone voices in a wilderness of l33t onl1n3 k1dd13z who want a lag-free way to take the piss out of their friends and strangers. FIFA knows which side their bread is buttered on.
PES 2011 needs an animation overhaul — 2010 is a pretty game, and quite playable, but it still moves robotically and reminds me a bit too much of ‘08 and ‘09.
cklarock. In my first season I was able to purchase 3 players with an overall rating in the late 60’s early 70;s. Kerlon (ss) Tosic (SM) who i just sold to liverpool for 41 million and a decent CM named Ekdal, all have developed pretty well and I believe gave me that added quality in my first season.
Not Greg, I have Now changed my formation to a quite unorthodox 3 5 2 Midfield made up of 2 wingbacks from my youth team who were rated in the 80’s ( I was only level 2 for Youth development) A DMF Santo CMF ekdal and AMF playing on the right handside and 2 forwards OKAKA as an orthodox CF and LWF Juan Mata. Guitterez is still getting games he is awesome in the air, Obviously my formation is all directed for Attacking Wing Play, The only problem with the formation is I am conceding alot of goals whilst also scoring plenty, but this could be as i have only signed on defender mancienne and am still using the defaults and a youth teamer signed in my first season as a GK.Ive also qualified for Europa league.
@ Jamie: Thanks for the tips. I’ve had Tosic on earlier PES incarnations and he’s always developed well, but I’d lost track of him in ‘09. I’ll definitely check out Ekdal as well.
ck—the burning question for me on day 1 with PES2010, and every day since, is: just what happened to the gameplay and difficulty that was on show in the demo? That struck me as being just about perfect. The full game feels tweaked, and not necessarily in a good way. Time will tell. I’m still playing the game with great enjoyment a couple of weeks later, and I’ve barely looked at FIFA10. It has to be said, though, that Master League on its own is responsible for this. PES2010 does move stiffly, and the core gameplay isn’t as timeless as it used to be. If/when you get to play FIFA10 I think you’ll have some thoughts to chew on.
The fluidity of FIFA10 is amazing. Its freedom of passing is extraordinary. It’s one of my hobbyhorses in the next-gen, but FIFA10 in some aspects really is what I thought (in 2006 or so) that PES would be like on the PS3/360. I don’t think any of us have ever really got over the shock of 2007’s game-that-must-not-be-named.
Fortunately for PES2010, Master League is extraordinary. I still worry that it’ll be a four- or five-season career and then kaput, PES2008/9-style. If that happens, I’ve got plans to try out a full ‘realism edit’ on the game. I’m tracking the various mass-editing threads on the forums with interest, waiting for a magic formula to be arrived at. And hoping I never need it, of course.
jamie—my formation changes will be in tomorrow’s post. It’s interesting that 3-5-2 is the default Default formation when you start with them in ML. I’ve never played even one game with them in that formation! Come to think of it, I’ve never played 3-5-2 with any team that I can remember. I’m still looking for a killer formation, and will be trying it out I think.
I always try and mould my team to play in the formation shown here: http://i37.tinypic.com/5bsh9g.jpg
I find its a really good formation, covers the whole pitch, the DMG provides good cover for the back four Mascherano/Senna style and give the AMF chance to bomb forward Gerrard Style.
Also like to have my fullbacks overlapping with the wingers.
Only drawback to this formation is that if you go gung-ho, or dont keep your shape, or if you are playing a very strong midfield team, it can leave you a little exposed.
I guess this formation was born out of the good players that i had, specifically the 2 wingbacks and also that i had a decent WF who could also play as a Support striker and 3 decent midfielders a DMF a CMF and AMF who can play as a Support striker. As i said i have leaked a few goals, but i see it as an attacking formation, With the right personnel which i am getting in place this can be easily changed to a more conventional 442 or 4411. with pretty much the same line up.
Off-topic to you all, but what’s the deal with people that play FIFA10 online? The last few nights I’ve been playing head-to-head matches and am yet to find anyone at all that plays either slow speed or semi-manual controls or both. It’s shocking.
I’m forced to play normal speed full assisted matches and the opponents style of play is awful, they literally pass forwards only and never let go of sprint, its quite unbelievable. Maybe it’s because I am very low rank having just started but I cannot believe the way some people play this game. Fortunately I am winning every game by having over 60% possession, scoring freely and just countering their springs with the jockey manoeuvre.
Back when I used to play PES6 a lot online a good number of people played the right way. grrrrr.
Seabass i very rarely play online so have a low ranking too, but i use mostly semi, some manual controls and play on slow, so if you ever want a game hook me up.
On another note, I think im suffering FIFA Burnout!
Im playing Manager Mode with Coventry City (Yep Not-Gregs beloved team) as they are the nearest championship team to me, im playing on pro mode after having started on World class and was being hammered in every game, which is weird as i more than hold my own on World Class during exhibition matches, im sure the difficulty is notched up during MM games.
Anyway, I cannot score for love nor money!!!! ive tried changing teh custom tactics, the formation everything, literally every game i play is 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1!
Im 3rd from bottom after having drawn 11 out of my 14 games! its really becoming irritating and am thinking maybe i need a rest for a week or so, maybe good time to start my 1st ML on PES?!
Paul—re. the formation, that’s the classic diamond 4-4-2 that I use a lot in Champ Man/FM games. It’s a classic 4-3-3 for me in PES I’m afraid, as today’s post (Friday) will go into. It’s a flaw for me in PES, this need to always play with one (very unrealistic) formation. Back in PES4 I played an entire ML career with a weird 4-2-2-2 formation and had some success, but other than that it’s been 99% 4-3-3.
Re. your FIFA10 MM career with CCFC… they’re rubbish aren’t they? It’s the players costing you all those results.
jamie—PES offers us the option to map up to 4 alternate formations to face buttons if we want. I always have two, one very attacking, one very defensive. I use them so rarely that it might be worth programming silghtly tweaked 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 formations for differing situations. If I do that now it’ll be on the blog in Monday’s post. Something’s got to change my fortunes…
Its a classic Formation Not-Greg i tend to have most success with it so try and buy players that fit that formation.
As for my FIFA MM career … soo irritating!! i just seem to have gone into a rut, have 60% posession but create little of worth and rarely score.
Cov’s players arent the best but ive signed Cabrera, a decent LM and Pinto, a good CM, both in their upper 60’s OVR, and have myself as my virtual pro playing upfront, myrating is 72, so have a few decent players.
I just always find that when i have the ball in midfield, when i initiate players runs, or leave it to the cu, i rarely create decent space to play balls into, it always gets congested and my play is forced, leading to me rendering posession easily.
Grilled Seabass—that’s the online game that I dislike so much. I really, really dislike it. It might just as well be a separate game. I don’t see it as part of the PES-FIFA continuum that I play in. ‘Competitive controller-squeezing’ is more what it’s like online.
I think the golden days of people playing the beautiful game online, for the most part, are gone. 99% of players do the always-sprinting thing in possession, and they do the Claw thing when chasing the ball.
I don’t see myself ever playing online again. I’ve played my statutory 5 or 6 matches of each game online. Like you I was finishing each game with possession stats in the 60%+ range. The amusing thing is that from the other guy’s pojnt of view, you’re the one who’s a noob to be doing that when the ‘way to play’ football online has been clearly established: Run-and-gun, direct, fast, and always—always—maximum double-pressure without the ball.
They’re more than welcome to their online game of controller-strangling. I wish them well but I want no part of it.
The real game for me has always been single-player offline, so I’m not disappointed about the state of online play, but I know it’s a frequent gripe for those old-schoolers who do want to play online.
Paul—a few decent players gives you a good platform to start from with CCFC in FIFA10, but with the starting squad it’s a pretty thankless task. I’ve been really enjoying it though—still not got back to it properly since PES2010 arrived and I really miss it.