As every self-respecting PES player should know, it is possible to map strategies to the controller’s face buttons and then use them on the fly during games by pressing L2+X, or Circle, or Triangle, or Square, or any combination thereof. (It’s the same for the Xbox 360, of course. Except with different names for the same buttons.) I’ve met PES players who have played the game for years and know nothing about any of this. They’re strange people.
My setup really hasn’t changed since the controller seen above was grey and belonged to a PlayStation1…
(For those truly strange people who don’t yet know, you configure your strategy setup via your team’s Formation settings. This year the options are tucked away under the Team Tactics heading. Go into that menu and start playing around. It can be a bit fiddly (setting up my strategy layout takes about 10 minutes) but it’s all fairly intuitive once you know where everything is. And don’t forget to save your hard work at the end of it all: Data Management>Copy Formation>Save Formation.)
Strategy Plan A (ultra-defensive)
(Both of the Strategy Plans provide alternate formations that you can configure how you please, and switch to for as long as you like in-game at the press of two buttons, without having to pause and visit the menu screen. FIFA take note.)
- All players set to HIGH defensive responsibilities.
- Back line set to DEEP
- Counter-attacking set to SELDOM
This alternate formation can be almost impregnable if you concentrate fully. Don’t let the CPU’s tricksy passing and one-twos drag your players too far out of position. It’s good for holding onto a lead when the other team is piling on the pressure. It’s also surprisingly good to play with for a little while, as the enhanced midfield and defensive presence leads to great possession in the middle and forward areas. It’s easy to leave this one on for longer than you intended.
Strategy Plan B (ultra-attacking)
Use with extreme caution!
- All players except the CB set to LOW defensive responsibilities
- Back line set to HIGH
- Counter-attacking set to FREQUENT
In PES2008 I have been absolutely carved wide open at times when using this to try to get back into a game. But at other times, as it’s intended to do, it has got me back into games and even won me games. It’s best employed when you want to contain the opposition in its half, especially when you have a corner or a free-kick in an advanced position.
Naturally, it’s at its best when you have the ball. When the other team has the ball, it’s best to cancel it in most cases. Your players will run back to their original positions and hopefully snuff out any danger. Switching straight into the ultra-defensive formation is often more effective than simply reverting to the standard formation (4-3-3 in my case).
The only times I play with this formation switched on all the time, and never cancel it even when the other team has the ball, are when I’m behind or level in the last few minutes and I feel like taking a gamble. It sometimes pays off, and I get the equaliser or the winner thanks to all those attackers. But it also sometimes costs me another goal. As I said, use with extreme caution.
Both of the above alternate formations are very useful for confusing the CPU players under certain conditions. What follows is a bit of an exploit, but I’m not ashamed to say I use it. Not much, but I use it. Considering all the advantages the CPU teams have over me, I think I’m entitled to this small one:
When the opposing GK is about to take a goal kick (for example), quickly switch to one of the above formations. As he takes the kick, none of your players will be where they were when the AI computed its kick. You stand a good chance of getting the ball. Switch back immediately to your regular formation, or play on with the alternate one at your discretion. Again, use this carefully.
Pressure and Counter-Attack
Pressure and Counter-Attack are fairly self-explanatory. In practice their effects are often imperceptible and/or annoying. Both have the potential to tire your players if left on continuously.
Pressure is highly controversial among the PES community. It makes your players go ball-chasing even more than they do already, leaving massive gaps that your opponent (human or CPU) can easily take advantage of. As with Strategy Plan B, I tend to be very sparing with Pressure, only really using it when I’m desperate.
Counter-Attack is an odd one. It’s reputed to make your forwards sit higher up the pitch, level or almost level with the other team’s defence. When you’re defending deep, though, your forwards are often so far away with counter-attack switched on that you struggle to clear your lines. I tend to use it when I have collected the ball in defence and have time to pick a pass to a midfielder, who will them hopefully play it forward to the advanced strikers. It’s not good to have this on when you’re desperately heading or hoofing the ball clear and you just need an outlet.
And that’s it. Obviously, the better your players, the better they will carry out your strategy. In years past, my ultimate teams of Master League galacticos have completely destroyed some opponents using the alternate formations at the right times.
I really do play with these strategies mapped to my controller all the time. I’ve dabbled in the past with Opposite Attack, Player Change, Centre Attack, and the rest of them, but I’m settled on these for now. I’ve never used them online, but that is going to change this year (as soon as the online play gets sorted out). It’ll be interesting to see how they work against a human player.
Filed under: pes | Tagged: controller, counter-attack, formations, pressing, pressure, strategy, strategy plan A, strategy plan B, tactics | No Comments »
The Green Shoots of Recovery
I’m off the bottom of Division 2. Better late than never.
Every year, there’s a palpable turning point. The single game when you finally get it, when you stop automatically using your old PES tricks, and start to adapt fully to the new game. PES2008 has come alive for me at last.
Playing Master League with the pish-poor Default players has delayed my adaptation. Perhaps I should have played International Cups for longer, or just played any old games with better teams and players.
What it was, for me, was recognising that my automatic reliance on the R1+X+Square method of continuously pressing the opposition was damaging my play. I was knackering my players and dragging my defenders out of position willy-nilly. No wonder the opposition could virtually walk the ball into my net at times. No wonder my team had nothing left in the tank after a while.
It’s always been faintly noobish to auto-clamp your hand around those buttons in order to sprint and tackle and press with a second player. It’s only rarely been all that effective, thinking back. It was just the thing to do when you play PES. (Most online players do it all the time.) It’s almost an autonomic reflex upon losing the ball.
It really doesn’t work in PES2008 - not enough to make it worthwhile, anyway. I decided to take my fingers off the gas last night. I would only press R1 when I had the ball and wanted to sprint with it, or when I wanted to bring one particular defender into one particular area. The old practice of holding it almost all the time had to go.
Results were immediate. My team kept its shape and its energy much better for longer periods of games. I picked up a 1-0 win. A 2-1 win. A couple of 0-0 draws. I won the second round cup game 2-0 against Derby County. Mao Molina scored a nice snapshot from the edge of the box. Suzuki headed the other goal. It was a great result. Derby were relegated last season and are up there at the top this season, duking it out with the Division’s big boys.
My own possession stats are now the reverse of what they were before - 60/40 in my favour on average - and I’m creating more chances with my fresh and well-positioned players. Consequently, I’m scoring goals now.
Schwarz is getting seriously good, and he’s still only 18. Here’s a goal he scored today. Vintage Schwarz, holding off the defender and then powering a low shot into the far corner:
Squeezing R1 whilst trying to win back the ball is actually counter-productive most of the time. R1 locks your players into their sprint modes, making any simultaneous use of X or Square seem much less effective. It’s weird, but simply standing off the opposition, biding your time, letting them have harmless possession (rank PES heresy!), and then pressing X (without R1) when you have a player near enough to challenge, works 100 times better than the customary sprint-press method.
The sprint-press technique is still there, of course. It’s still available for you to use when you want to crowd and pressurise an opposition player in and around your penalty box. It’s just not wise to use it all the time.
Filed under: pes | Tagged: goal replay, possession, pressing, Schwarz, tackling | 4 Comments »
I’m an experienced PES player. I have been playing this game since the days of ISS, with virtual jumpers for goalposts. I have played every version since, and won everything it is possible to win - all the cups, Master League championships, and Trebles galore - on the hardest difficulty settings, year in, year out. I can even hold my own online, when I’m in the mood.
This year I’m struggling. I’ve struggled before. On PES5 it took me three seasons to get promoted, and I thought that was bad. This year might be shaping up to be worse.
It’s week 12 of my second season and my record is pitiful. Played 12. Won 1. Drawn 2. Lost 9. Goals scored: 3. Goals conceded: 25. Making a shameful goal difference of -19. Minus nineteen.
Needless to say, I am bottom of the league. Also needless to say, I will most likely stay there.
After picking up the six new players in the off-season, I was genuinely hopeful that they were enough for me to do well this season. Maybe not well enough to get promoted, but I thought I’d be up there near the top. At the very least I anticipated going into the transfer market with a fat wedge of points to spend.
When all the new boys are fit and I’m concentrating, I play well and can usually compete well with the CPU teams. But those games are few and far between. Most often at least half the new boys are either unfit or - in one maddening case - away on International duty (Schwarz). Most games I play see me fielding a team that is still more or less made up of the original Default players. Ximelez and Hamsun et al. They’re just not good enough this time around.
They’ve never been good enough, really, but in PES2008 their not-good-enoughness is felt even more keenly because of the length of Division 2’s season. Having 20 teams in the division makes for a long and thankless task. It used to be the case that you could easily accept a write-off of a season, because it was never long to the next negotiation period and the start of the next season. But PES2008’s Master League is a marathon.
Even when most of the new boys do play, it negatively affects the way I approach the game. I think that I should be able to make things happen more easily and this leads me to play recklessly, conceding possession too often when I should be putting my foot on the ball and playing it around for a bit. Most of the goals I have conceded have been due to this. The CPU team gets the ball and gleefully walks the ball into my net past a scattered defence.
My 4-3-3 formation is not helping. I‘m finding that when I recover possession in and around my penalty box, I don’t have any outlets. A long pass to a forward is often intercepted. A short layoff to a full back or to the DMF frequently results in an interception as well. The CPU teams seem to have had their pressurising algorithms turned up to 11 this year.
I should be knocking it around at the back more, waiting for gaps to appear, probing for openings. Maybe I’ve read too much about the game’s supposedly ‘arcadey’ attacking style, but I keep trying to move forward too quickly.
I’ll change my playing style before I’ll ever change my trusty 4-3-3 formation. So that’s my plan for now. Slow the game down. Consider my passes a bit more. Slow and steady wins the race.
I don’t have absolutely nothing to play for this season. First and foremost I need to play for transfer points. I’m around the 4500 mark right now. My bill will be 11000 or so at season’s end. And I want to get a couple of new players mid-season.
I am also, don’t ask me how, still in the D2 Cup. I beat Hammerby in the 1st round at the start of the season. I won 2-1 at home then drew the away leg 1-1. Schwarz scored in both games! Good old Schwarz.
The first leg of the 2nd round is my next game.
Filed under: pes | Tagged: D2 Cup, difficulty, formations, master league, Schwarz | 2 Comments »
My first game of the new Master League season was against Galatasaray, one of last season’s high-fliers.
I was playing at home, but - as happens around 7 times out of 10 when I play at home - the damn game forced me to play in my Away kit. Putting my team in its Away kit is actually the wrong decision by the game 90% of the time - at home and away grounds. My Coventry City team plays in an entirely sky blue kit - naturally - and there’d actually be no clash with any of the other teams’ kits. It’s just stupid.
I cannot believe that kit selection’s omission from all but Exhibition mode in PES2008 was anything other than a careless oversight. There are rumours that the forthcoming patch from Konami will be an attempt to fix lots of things about the game, not just the framerate. Here’s hoping for the rumours to have some truth to them - and, if so, for pre-game kit selection to make a welcome comeback in all modes
(The patch! Already there is more hope being placed in the forthcoming patch than there is in the Second Coming of Christ.)
Getting down off my soapbox and back to the game, things went a bit wrong even before kick-off when two of my six new faces turned up for match day with the dreaded blue arrows next to their names. Suzuki and Rommedahl were the culprits. No matter. I put Jaric in at DMF. Rommedahl wasn’t in the First XI anyway. I’d miss having him as a supersub, though.
I hope the match wasn’t a taste of things to come this season. I conceded a goal within the first 30 seconds. I tried to pass the ball out wide to Mao Molina, but it didn’t reach him. A Galatasaray player intercepted, zig-zagged his way right through my defence as if they were not even there, and scored.
I had a small amount of pressure but couldn’t keep the ball for long before the CPU team was attacking again. They scored just before halftime with a header from a corner. I am finding it very tough to defend ‘blind’ corners in PES2008. These are the corners that are taken from the far side of the pitch where you can’t see your six-yard box.
Goal number three for the Turks arrived midway through the second half. I was actually mounting some consistent pressure and carving out opportunities. I hit the post with a speculative long-range shot from De Ridder. I was enjoying the new freedom that the new players were bringing me. I could rely on being able to stop and turn with them without the CPU team automatically nipping in to take the ball away. Being only 0-2 down, I was really going for it.
Then the worst happened. And I meant the absolute worst - one of those quintessential PES moments that makes you groan.
Mao Molina received the ball on the left wing from Klavan. But something strange happened. Mao Molina didn’t collect the ball properly. It seemed to bounce back off his legs a few yards into space. Either I had tried to turn and run with the ball too quickly, or the game was modelling the fact that this was the first time both players had played together, or it was just some random effect.
So there was the ball rolling in open space midway between Klavan and Mao Molina. Klavan was best-placed to collect it, but I was still controlling Mao Molina. I pressed L1 to switch to Klavan, but I pressed a split-second after the cursor had already auto-switched to him… Meaning that I actually re-selected Mao Molina, and in the time all this faffing about was going on a Galatasary attacker scooped up the ball and raced clear toward my goal.
I brought out Zamenhof, but the CPU player took it around the keeper and slotted it home. 0-3. So much for the brave new world.
Filed under: pes | Tagged: 4-3-3, corners, Coventry City, form and fitness arrows, formations, Galatasaray, kit selection, Klavan, Mao Molina, master league, patch, ps3 | No Comments »
What a relief. I don’t think I have ever wanted the end of a Master League season more. Getting thumped by almost every team is not much fun. Trying to make things happen with a squad of players that make Tony Adams at his worst look like Maradona at his best is no fun at all.
I actually won a game right at the end of the season. I won it 2-0, with a good header from a corner and then, wonder of wonders, a penalty. It was my first 3 points since before the mid-season negotiations. Things were that bad.
I finished the season bottom of Division 2 by some distance, with a pathetic goal difference and my tail firmly between my legs. At least I had persevered. No reloading or restarting for me. That isn’t how I roll.
My player wage bill would be 9500-odd points. I had 17000-odd points in the bank to spend. I approached the negotiations quite nervously. It’s so easy to overspend and incur a Game Over. It’s also easy to be too cautious and underspend, leaving yourself hamstrung for the first half of the next season. There’s a golden mean which I have become adept at hitting over the years. But rarely before now had it ever been so critical that I get this negotiation period right. My bungled mid-season negotiations had seen to that.
Yes, I had the luxury of a full eight-week period (as opposed to the measly mid-season four weeks). But I still had to be careful. In the first week I had to decide whether to renew several members of my squad’s contracts. This in itself was irritating, as negotiating with your own team - whether you want to extend their contract or not - counts toward the total number of players you can negotiate with, which is limited. As things turned out I was only able to bid for one new player in the first week. I had 31 players in my squad and the maximum allowed is 32.
I headed straight for the Search By Openness To Negotiation category. (Incidentally, it’s nice to see that they spelt Openness correctly this year.) For anyone who is struggling on Master League, I heartily recommend heading to this list of players. Only a few of the players here could be classed as world-beaters (and even if they are, you almost certainly won’t be able to afford them) but they are exactly what you need to get a Default squad out of the doldrums. I should have concentrated on this list of players in the mid-season instead of pursuing Mathieu, but the past is past now.
(On the subject of Mathieu, I did try to get him again but now his team doesn’t even want to negotiate a trade-in deal with me. I can’t afford an outright bid. I’ll get him next time, hopefully. He’s still only 24 years old in the game, so I have a good few seasons left to try yet. )
Just because a player appears on the Openness list it doesn’t automatically mean you’re a certainty to sign him. More often that not, if you can drum up the cash and/or a player to sweeten the deal, you’ll get your man. But it’s never a sure thing.
Without further ado, here are the players I placed bids for over the eight negotiation weeks, and got:
Suzuki (DMF/CWP)
De Ridder (WF/SMF)
Mao Molina (AMF)
These are all good solid midfielders. I do keep going on about the desirability of having midfielders, and that their solidity be unquestionable… ‘Cos it’s important, is why.
I also picked up two players from the peculiarly-named ‘Unbelonging’ list (i.e. unattached and out-of-contract players). This is another favourite stop-off point for the cash-strapped and struggling Master League player. In many ways I prefer it to the Openness list. You only have to offer a contract. There are no transfer fees or exchanges involved:
Klavan (SB)
Rommedahl (WF)
Klavan is a left-sided SB who will easily displace Ruskin in my starting line-up, wonder goals notwithstanding.
I also picked up yet another youngster from the New Players section. He’s a 17-year-old Brazilian SB (right-sided) called Guimaraes. His stats are already better than good players a decade his senior, and the only way is up. I have high hopes for this player. I can see him playing in my team for 15 seasons.
You cannot acquire players without getting rid of some. Especially when you have a bloated squad like mine is. All of these players departed:
Baumann (sold)
Lieberman (sold)
Castolo (traded)
Gutierrez (traded)
Lothar (released)
Ceciu (released)
Stein (released)
Huylens (released)
I usually dislike releasing players. It seems a waste when you can trade them in for slightly-better players in the future. But in PES2008 the penalty for releasing players is comparatively low - 40 or 60 points or thereabouts, as opposed to the hundreds of points in previous games. I also wanted to get my wage bill down, as well as make room for other players in the future. Positioning myself for a good mid-season negotiation period next season does no harm either.
So, six players have come in. I’m happy with my acquisitions. I think I have had a good negotiations period. Admittedly I would have liked to get a good young goalkeeper, but I didn’t see one that immediately caught my eye, and time ran out. I deliberately refrained from getting a striker, as a couple of my new midfielders can also play up front, and I have decided to start playing Shimizu as an out-and-out CF anyway. I’ll be looking for a GK, a CF, and a CB next time.
After a lot of agonising in the Formations screen, this is my new First XI:
I’ll keep Rommedahl on the bench for now. These First XIs at this stage are so provisional anyway. Fatigue, injury and suspensions all mean that it’s rarely the same from one game to the next.
I did play one pre-season friendly, against a randomly-chosen side called The Goliaths. They beat my new team 1-0. I didn’t care. It was only a five-minute match (I temporarily changed the match length because I was so impatient to get the new season going). And I saw enough from my new team to know that the season ahead is going to be a very different prospect than last. Schwarz, playing out on the left for the first time, even had a good game, and I should have scored with him at least once.
One last thing that I did in the close season: I changed my away kit to a Real Madrid-style all white. The home kit stays Sky Blue, always.
So now for the new season.
