Pro Evolution Soccer is dead, replaced by F2P game eFootball

[vonAchdorf]

PES is no more and eFootball will be a pure F2P game.

 

[Tigranes]

A sad end to a once great franchise that's been practically dead for a long time.

Football games have failed to improve in any meaningful way for a decade, and it was also a good study in the rise of microtransaction-based MMO-style play killing other modes. I have a friend who works on marketing team for the FIFA games and at this point it's almost impossible to contest their internal logic that 90% of the revenue comes from myclub or whatever the hell that shit is.

Anyway, RIP PES, the franchise that released over a dozen games and never, ever, ever figured out how to design any kind of acceptable user interface

 

[Carrion]

PES is no more and eFootball will be a pure F2P game.

Probably not pure F2P, though, as you might have to pay to gain access to different game modes and stuff. That's not the worst thing, though, since it's also going to be a cross-platform game that includes mobile devices. Next-fucking-gen, I tell you.

I've got PES 5 and 6 installed since I haven't bothered with the new games anymore. It was pretty frustrating how in the past few years Konami actually seemed to get their shit together after so many years of disappointment, but the games felt half-finished and had terrible game modes that were lightyears behind what you see in a bunch of other sports games. Then they spend two years on a new game, and the result is... this?

Football games have failed to improve in any meaningful way for a decade, and it was also a good study in the rise of microtransaction-based MMO-style play killing other modes. I have a friend who works on marketing team for the FIFA games and at this point it's almost impossible to contest their internal logic that 90% of the revenue comes from myclub or whatever the hell that shit is.

It's absolutely shameless what EA's been doing with FIFA. They've changed the engine several times and introduced a couple of trademarked (and mostly useless) new gameplay features every year, but at its core it's still fucking FIFA 12 (or maybe something like FIFA 09 if you're a console player). All the game modes too are built on the same rotten core, just with new shit bolted to it every year, mechanics that aren't connected to the existing ones in any way. A funny example is how a few years ago they added a new attribute (Composure) into the game, but because many of their scripts were just copy-pasted from previous games, it messed up things like how simulated games work, which lead to wingers and midfielders dominating the goal-scoring charts. That remained unaddressed for years and probably still hasn't been fixed for all that I know. Oh well, who even cares about that kind of stuff when all the cool kids play Ultimate Team (did I hear you say microtransactions?). I wonder if anyone there even cares about the games they're making, it's just complete trash.

Football deserves better. The only game worthy of the sport is Football Manager, but that game destroys lives and marriages.

 

[Tigranes]

It's absolutely shameless what EA's been doing with FIFA. They've changed the engine several times and introduced a couple of trademarked (and mostly useless) new gameplay features every year, but at its core it's still fucking FIFA 12 (or maybe something like FIFA 09 if you're a console player). All the game modes too are built on the same rotten core, just with new shit bolted to it every year, mechanics that aren't connected to the existing ones in any way.

Every single year both PES and FIFA would just sell you some fake placebo shit with a slightly different name - it would be "Motion Realism Animations", then "Real Movement", then "Fluid Collision Systems", then "Authentic Vanilla Bean Flavour Shooting" - and you're really just paying for a roster update (not even that, in PES' case).

Football Manager is the same, unfortunately, tacking on pointless shit like reskinned press conferences that nobody wants, because they don't have the resources (apparently) to make any substantial improvement beyond reformatting and adding new excel sheets. But at least in their case the 'roster update' is more crucial, and the underlying game is a lot more solid.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

football games past sensible soccer '93 are retarded. ss had a better ai when chosing how and to whom to pass, i don't remember a single instance i swore at the game because its pass was retarded or in a completely wrong direction, while this happens regularly, multiple times each game, with any modern videogame. also, it's retarded that to make a simple kind of pass you have to input an impossible combo which would put killer instinct to shame. it's just not possible that playing for real, live, would be easier and more intuitive than a videogame. ai-piloted shots are the pinnacle of retardation, fifa is the worst offender, with shots repeatedly hitting posts just for the sake of cool factor, the result of a shot, whatever it is, chosen the moment the button is pressed instead of being actually simulated. stats get more and more meaningless, i'm still furious at ronaldinho overtaken by some chinese rando asshat. skill itself gets more and more meaningless, it's all about timing the most overpowered combo at the right moment and then hoping for the best, that ai picks a positive outcome for your choices. hell, my cousin and i were pretty good at sensisoccer and he managed to score with a second keeper he subbed in for another player just for laughs, he had of course terrible stats but i clearly remember it, and he shot when he had to and managed to manually bend the trajectory to counterbalance. nothing like this can be done with anything published after 1996.

holy shit, do you remember virtua striker? when the game decided you had to lose, you lost. no amount of skill could save you, suddenly the "randomness" went against you and everything you did went wrong while everything the computer did was just perfect. i'm afraid it was our patient zero.

 

[Carrion]

Every single year both PES and FIFA would just sell you some fake placebo shit with a slightly different name - it would be "Motion Realism Animations", then "Real Movement", then "Fluid Collision Systems", then "Authentic Vanilla Bean Flavour Shooting" - and you're really just paying for a roster update (not even that, in PES' case).

FIFA is exactly like that, but PES went through some notable gameplay overhauls during the last few years in an attempt to make the game good again. They just never seemed to finish their job and still had the piss-poor game modes dragging the entire thing down.

ai-piloted shots

One of the reasons we don't get good football games is because the games are aimed at the most casual crowd possible, rather than embracing full manual controls and going for a more detailed simulation. If you want to go arcade, go arcade, nothing wrong with that, but if you want to make a football game, you have to make a damn football game. You need to spend a shitload of time tweaking sliders to make FIFA look even remotely like football, and even then the result is far from optimal since the AI can only do so much to adapt to your changes.

 

[Jarpie]

football games past sensible soccer '93 are retarded. ss had a better ai when chosing how and to whom to pass, i don't remember a single instance i swore at the game because its pass was retarded or in a completely wrong direction, while this happens regularly, multiple times each game, with any modern videogame. also, it's retarded that to make a simple kind of pass you have to input an impossible combo which would put killer instinct to shame. it's just not possible that playing for real, live, would be easier and more intuitive than a videogame. ai-piloted shots are the pinnacle of retardation, fifa is the worst offender, with shots repeatedly hitting posts just for the sake of cool factor, the result of a shot, whatever it is, chosen the moment the button is pressed instead of being actually simulated. stats get more and more meaningless, i'm still furious at ronaldinho overtaken by some chinese rando asshat. skill itself gets more and more meaningless, it's all about timing the most overpowered combo at the right moment and then hoping for the best, that ai picks a positive outcome for your choices. hell, my cousin and i were pretty good at sensisoccer and he managed to score with a second keeper he subbed in for another player just for laughs, he had of course terrible stats but i clearly remember it, and he shot when he had to and managed to manually bend the trajectory to counterbalance. nothing like this can be done with anything published after 1996.

holy shit, do you remember virtua striker? when the game decided you had to lose, you lost. no amount of skill could save you, suddenly the "randomness" went against you and everything you did went wrong while everything the computer did was just perfect. i'm afraid it was our patient zero.

I must've put thousands of hours into different versions of Sensible Soccer and Sensible World of Soccer-games on Amiga, I tried the few later versions on PC but they were never able to recapture the magic. I remember Dino Dini's Goal! being quite good, but the camera was so flawed in it, the wider camera was too far up, and the closer camera was way too close.

I remember some of the PES-versions in maybe mid-2000s still being very good, I wonder what's the last great version of that series. Shame that ISS Pro Evolution-series was discontinued as it was great too.

 

[Grunker]

Football games have failed to improve in any meaningful way for a decade

FM21 is the best FM yet. The match engine especially is just taking leaps and bounds forward these days

 

[†††]

PES 6 should've been outlawed, shit was more addictive than crack.

It's so sad what has become of every single sports franchise. And now the new Football Manager is going woke by adding women's football.

 

[Deflowerer]

Don't see the problem with this model for sports games, better than asking 60+ bucks for almost no improvements. Besides, if you're into their equivalent of Ultimate Team, then at least under this model you would actually keep your players very likely, unlike FIFA where you have to start your spending from scratch with each new entry.

 

[Tigranes]

Don't see the problem with this model for sports games, better than asking 60+ bucks for almost no improvements. Besides, if you're into their equivalent of Ultimate Team, then at least under this model you would actually keep your players very likely, unlike FIFA where you have to start your spending from scratch with each new entry.

For me the issue isn't with the model switch, the issue is that whatever model, the entire business goes into the pseudo-gambling progress quest mode and the actual football mechanics just don't get any improvement (whether in terms of on-pitch physics and AI, or with alternative/better principles for simulating things like fatigue or morale or team dynamics).

 

[Carrion]

It's so sad what has become of every single sports franchise.

Aside from football games, I only know that the NBA 2K series (which really is a damn fine sports game and way better than what FIFA or Konami have been able to offer) has been destroyed by microtransactions and some other crap like unskippable in-game ads. Any other examples?

Don't see the problem with this model for sports games, better than asking 60+ bucks for almost no improvements.

This'll probably lead to just having a single game that gets regular roster updates and occasional gameplay tweaks, either F2P or with a monthly subscription (which is something EA would want to do with FIFA for sure). The game's even marketed as just "eFootball" and not "eFootball 2022". I'd have been fine with these pathetic excuses of gaming companies coming up with new games every two or three years, actually trying to push the games forward with notable improvements every time a new iteration comes out, rather than just releasing some half-assed mod of the previous year's game. Instead they seem to be going in the exact opposite direction.

 

[Gammer]

Back in the day, me and the boys used to put hundreds of € down per game. Twelve or so sweaty drug dealer teenagers in a room going back2back2back for hours losing and winning all our profits. Good times.

Haven't checked it out for years and years so no bother with this shit.

 

[bussinrounds]

I remember some of the PES-versions in maybe mid-2000s still being very good, I wonder what's the last great version of that series.

I'd say the old gen version of 2008 for the PS2 which was kinda like a mix of 5 & 6 (in terms of 6 being more offensive and 5 more defensive)

It just needs a little global editing to the player speeds, acceleration and passing speeds, as it plays a bit fast out of the box. The cpu does attack much better than in 5 & 6 though and is a lot less predictable. There's also supposedly some new animations, but I haven't really noticed anything.

https://evoweb.uk/threads/pes2008-ps2-version-is-the-lost-game-video-thread.77796/

I was just working off this guys somewhat recent option file and updated/set up 16 of the top national squads for the Euros that just passed.

 

[Falksi]

Sensible Soccer's still a top laugh with mates, but it's nowt like real football. Some of the PES & FIFA games were well worth it, esp as you could usually pick them up for £2-5 a year or two after release.

Last one I bought was FIFA 14, which was OK but I preferred FIFA 08 (which was the last one which I bought before that). I've not owned a PES game since the PS1 though. Playing mates copies they seemed to go through a right dip, so I 'aint bothered with them since.

What's everyone's recommendation for best footy game now?

 

[ferratilis]

A new record has been set, eFootball 2022 is now the worst rated game in Steam's history. Good one for Konami.
https://steam250.com/bottom100

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A new record has been set, eFootball 2022 is now the worst rated game in Steam's history. Good one for Konami.
https://steam250.com/bottom100

 

[Infinitron]

Sadface:

 

[Cosmic]

A sad decline. I'm no football fan, but I had many good memories playing PES and FIFA with my friends when I was a kid. Nowadays, football games are absolute shit. FIFA is extremely overpriced for what it offers and asks you money more often than a gypsy, and PES is more or less dead. eFootball is basically a mockery of PES and a sad attempt to compete with FIFA. Konami can't stop making shitty games.

 

[ghostdog]

There's still a big community around Sensible World of Soccer that keeps making patches/mods with up to date rosters and teams. It's based on the 96-97 version. It's still damn good:
https://sensiblesoccer.de/swos-2020


PES6 (the best PES probably) is still being updated, improved and patched. The Firebird patch is the best probably..

 

[Riskbreaker]

The soundtrack, one must admit, is phenomenal.

 

[bussinrounds]

PES6 (the best PES probably) is still being updated, improved and patched. The Firebird patch is the best probably..

I'll take 3. 5 or 2008 on PS2 (with some global edits) over 6.
Better defense, as 6 was too end to end/offensive.

 

[†††]

I'll take 3. 5 or 2008 on PS2 (with some global edits) over 6.

5 was too finicky with fouls to the point of being grating

 

[ghostdog]

PES6 (the best PES probably) is still being updated, improved and patched. The Firebird patch is the best probably..

I'll take 3. 5 or 2008 on PS2 (with some global edits) over 6.
Better defense, as 6 was too end to end/offensive.

They have tweaked the gameplay of 6 somewhat, making it slower and more deliberate.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Only good soccer gaem is Kunio Kun no Nekketsu Soccer League, deal with it.