PES 2013 MLO - END OF AN ERA

Hey guys and gals! Welcome back to THE PRO EVO MASTERS LEAGUE! 

It has been a hell of a long time since my last post, which unfortunately was due to many things happening in my life. I was hoping to continue from the last, in a way that would benefit many other players like yourself, but also to give you an insight of what it was like being a die hard PES player. 

I am sorry for the posts not returning for this length of time, but as the phrase goes "All good things come to those who wait!" I have thoroughly enjoyed writing on the blog and also receiving the feedback that came with it. It truly means a lot when you have something to say too.

Within the time I had spent here, I have also met some very interesting people, some of which are also players who have a firm grasp of PES and gaming culture and who are now well known on other blogs and feature well on You tube.

So following on from my absence, what has been happening in my gaming world? Well, since starting PES 2013, I continued to play games as and when I could. I never really played much of Master league offline (which was my main source of PES previously) so I never finished my first season. My BAL was a little more in depth, with BOB JONES working his way into his 3rd season, but still, I never really felt the overwhelming urge to play the mode much.

So what about MLO? Master League Online certainly had me hooked. I remember starting with the default players. Sold a few, then bought a couple of decent players and went in search of that winning mentality. Such as my demise, I found that in the first 5 games, your results depended on which status you were set. I Found myself in the 500 point mark, which was Top Player. 

My first 20 games after that led me to believe that I was not going to be able to fend off many players. I lost too many games with my mediocre squad, and could not afford to strengthen it! My rating had dropped to a lowly 360! This was terrible! The game I had spent hours playing in the past because of my love for the way it felt and what you could do! 

I ended up having a few weeks off because I was so annoyed and had wished that I had never bought the game! MW3 was the back up game, but even that did not quench my thirst, so I eventually broke my diet and went back to MLO. I spent a good hour or so tweaking with my tactics and finding the way to get the most from my players. I won a couple, drew one then lost a couple so it left me back at square one!

Did this deter me further? NO! I was sure I could do this and be able to recoup my status back to Top Player. So I pushed forward and really concentrated in the game. I learnt some controls that I had never used before and found my new style of play. Within a few weeks, I managed a 9 game winning streak and had saved about 35 million to strengthen my team! I was as shocked as anyone would be, but it helped me fill the void of losing so many in the beginning!

After the new year, I was still some way of being able to afford the best players. Renewing contracts was the main problem. My other problem was trying to gain some ground on my win/loss ratio. At that time, I think I had lost around 70 games more than I had won. This had always been a factor in previous years as my goal was to end my reign having won more than I had lost.

So again, my uphill task was ongoing. I found myself swapping tactics all the time, trying out more pace skilled players to form a good attack, but nothing seemed to work for long. I had then decided to go to research mode and see what other players had done and if there was any other way to improve. One thing that I found, along with many other players was that the ones I tended to lose against, or even be paired with, were the long ball, "boot the ball up field" players. The spammers! The ones you play by passing the ball about to make a chance at goal, then with a stupid twist in the game, they somehow manage to get the ball, "hoof" it up the pitch to a speed merchant that is clearly offside, and then score. This happens over and over again and was found to be the evil within PES!

How can you justify that playing as realistic to football as is possible in a game, that someone who cannot be bothered to try and play, but just boots the ball hoping it will go to someone like Martins, then score and win????? Well something had to be done!

I managed to find a video tutorial in which The Midnite Kid had posted on You tube. It showed how he managed to stop Through ball spammers. You drop your defence as deep as is possible, Use your marking tactics to stop the runners and use a DMF to drop back and watch the striker. So I put it into force. Then went off to play. It worked!!! Not all the time, but probably about 75-80%. This was great! It helped me so much, but I still needed to work on new skills and building my team.

I hope you enjoyed reading and hope you can enjoy the next follow on post which will be posted soon!

BOB