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

PES 2013 MLO - OCTOBER 2012

Hey guys! How are you all doing? Its been about a week since my last post, but I am starting to get back into the swing of things and get some more time to write. I haven't as of yet, been able to get myself into recording videos of my matches to any decent quality yet, but as soon as I do, I will be posting regularly and adding to my You tube channel. 

Talking about You tube, I just want to give a mention to another fellow PES player that frequently posts vids on You tube and has many ups and downs as many of you may have. Mr Markcoos, the creator of the Markcoos Mafia team in PES has played many a game of PES and continues to try and claim glory in his campaigns. The latest of which sees him try and produce a winning team in PES 2013 MLO. I have enjoyed watching and keeping up to date with his many adventures online as have many others. If you have not yet had the chance, please check out his channel which is on the left of this post above my You tube channel link and subscribe to keep up to date..

Another mention goes out to the highly successful Midnite Kid. His team on PES 2013 MLO has also seen many ups and downs, but he highly recommends a number of players in his aim to become high in the rankings. Last year saw him climb to the top 20 of MLO players for PES 2012. He is widely known as one of the favourite You tube up loaders for PES related vids and continues to bring many hints, tips and laughs to the following PES community. Once again, His channel link for You tube can be seen alongside this blog. If you have not yet subscribed, please do so and follow him as I am sure you will enjoy the vids he produces. 

Back to myself now, and time has shown to me that MLO this year has had its ups and downs. Not only for its game play, but also the damn use of the similar rating setting! I initially started on around a 340 point rating which gives you a professional attribute. Since the start as mentioned on previous posts, I  dropped majorly down to a 187 rating! It was all or nothing and I was due to throw in the towel. The team was tired (what little team I had) and the worst part was, I had no funds! 

Since this diabolical state, I managed to sell and buy a few players, build the team to a green flowing fully strengthened squad and, alas, I managed to climb to a better 250+ point rating. This has somewhat been a mad few weeks though. I ended up with a 9 games winning streak which shocked me to say the least. Then dropped loads of points again and could only manage to win 1 in 5 games to get some funds. My luck then changed and Things started to happen.

I fought to my hearts content and pulled myself back up and into a professional player slot once again. My highest was up to 396 points. From 187 points to 396 was a dream come true! 200 points in the space of a few weeks was brilliant! But that was where the dream ended! 

The similar level setting started to play against me and give me opponents on at least 200 points above my rating, plus my team strength rating! I have since managed to keep a balance of around the 350 point mark, but I just cannot seem to get anywhere past it due to the overwhelming amount of high team strength players I face along with their rating! 

I have actually thought about contacting Konami about this issue because it has happened in the past 2 editions of PES, but so far (for their sake) I have not! LOL. 

Well that is where I will leave you for today, but if you have any similar problems or comments relating to the post, please feel free to leave one. 

Thanks for reading, and I will post again soon!

BOB

PES 2013 MASTER LEAGUE ONLINE

I know, I know! It has been soooo long, but yes, I am finally back!

I had been having a break from PES 2012 and any other form of gaming as I was writing a book and kinda got engrossed. But alas I have found my stride and wound up back into PES in the form of 2013.

Well what can I say? Have I found this instalment better, worse, the same or quite frankly, awful?

The truth........honestly........I like it! There are of course a few niggly bits and bobs, but generally, the game play is so much better. I can pretty much pass how I want, set up the team how I want and score how I want. 

So how has my progress been? On MLO? The most important part of my PES routine?

Not bad, but not the best. 

As some of you may know, you play a few games at the start of forming your team. This then results in where you get placed in the point system. I was not bad, but not great. I ended up with about 320 points which is professional. I started my full campaign and slowly started to win a few, but also lose some. Then I hit a slump!

I dropped down to a miserable 187 points! I lost that many in a row, it severely knocked my confidence in my skill as well as my love of the game. My team was depleted in strength, skill and form. Apart from my full team, which was majorly tired, I only had 5 other players. Four of which were out of contract (all default players). My initial though was to file for bankruptcy, but then I had a little brainwave. 

I proceeded to sell one player and buy one player at a time. Before I knew it, my team was at full health, most of all, with fit subs!

My next step was to try and win some games. What came next was not what I expected. I ended up winning the next 9 games on the trot! My team was fully benefited with full contracts and a few extra players. I did go to sleep that night feeling very happy and dreamt of achieving something good in the months to come. 

The next day, I went to sign in to MLO and it was time for the update. 2.0. Ooh I thought, all the things Konami were promising were finally here! So I went to update. "communication error" it said! I could not download the update, nor could I play MLO!

Well I was not happy, but then again, after my winning streak, I thought I would have a little break and try again the next day. 

I was in for a shock. The next 30 games I played, resulted in me dropping from 317 points (which I had worked so hard to achieve), all the way down to 206! Not happy! Especially as the players that beat me, were either waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to good, statistically, or really crap teams! No matter what I did, even with my players on red or orange arrows, I could not play the same as I had in my winning streak. They did not move the same, shoot the same, or pass the same. They actually seemed like 'worse than default players'!

I have actually given up for the day, but I do hope my form improves, or at least my team's form as I was really angry about it!

Well that is pretty much from me at this time, but I do hope to be giving the blog a new look soon, as well as some more posts on regular occasions. Please subscribe or at least come back and visit and I wish you all the best of luck in your campaigns! 

Catch ya laters peeps!

BOB

PES 2012 MASTER LEAGUE ONLINE

Oh the joys of playing this game...............but also the damn, awkward moments!

I have played PES 2012 ML online a fair bit over the last few months, but the last week has trailed off a bit. The reason for this is as follows.....

1) I did well

2) I got promoted from div 5 straight to div 1!

3) Once in div 1, I won a few games!

4) It then went downhill!

I had managed to get up to 560+ points! This was just after I had been promoted! Then I had a problem.

I had always had my option setting to 'similar level opponent'. My team was not the most expensive team, but I had used them well to get where I was. The problems I now faced, were the teams I came up against.

With being in the top flight in master league online, pretty much all the players I now faced, were full strength teams. They had a full squad, on full energy levels and on top form. In addition to this, they also had a wide selection of subs to choose from who were also ALL on top energy and form!

So the scenario was......not easy! 

I had the option of being on a 'similar level' setting with all of these full strength teams, or the other option of 'any level' player, which could also end up giving me an even higher rated opponent as my luck would undoubtedly give.

And there we have it! This is exactly how the scenario in my downfall began! I stayed on the similar level strategy, only to end up losing every game (not by much I may add), then switching to the any opponent strategy and facing higher opponents who mightily trounced me!

I now lie back in div 4, on around the 420 point mark, but I do hope to regain my composure and rise up again. I think the only option is to keep trying to gain funds, no matter what the result and try to buy some higher top class players at 20m+. All the players that caused my downfall seemed full of these (not one lower priced player in sight!), and I believe the way the games engine works, would favour me better in these situations when the team is right. Over all, the achievement gained from being such a low priced team was brilliant in its own right as I have managed to defeat quite a few 300m+ teams with my lowly 50-70m team, but to stay up there is the real issue.

Will this happen before the next instalment of the franchise? Or will I be destined to stay in the lower divisions? 

This of course is another story for another time.

Thanks for reading fellow pro-evo-ians!

Bob!

BEST CHEAP ATTACKING PLAYERS IN PES 2012 MASTER LEAGUE ONLINE

 The problems most PES 2012 ML online players have, is which players to choose that are cheap. Most of us obviously want to buy some decent attacking players that can have a beneficial effect on our match results. I am sure I am not not alone when I say that there are plenty of times you will end up being drawn against another player with the likes of Pato, Rooney, Eto', Forlan, Villa etc. This of course can be a very daunting experience, especially when your own team does not even compare statistically to your opponent. 

I have been tinkering about a bit with my own ML team quite a bit recently, but really wanted to get a proper feeling of how well a team can perform on a budget. Obviously, my main aim is to become a decent player, as well as be able to compete with the big boys. But the challenge I have given myself is to try and perform on a budget. Be able to grow my team and of course, WIN matches in ML online, just by buying cheaper players and using them effectively.

My current up to date progress has seen me rise in ranks and divisions from division 5 all the way to division 3. This is where I have been hovering over the last week. My points have gone down, but also gone up, leaving me in a position to now think of my next move. I have not been posting much, due to the urge to compete with the budget players and try to gain a decent status.

After all of the highs and lows of this challenge, I am happy to say that it is possible to compete with budget players, but only up to a certain level. To get further, I believe is another campaign altogether.

So here is the brief story of how I changed my team and which players I found to be the best cheap attacking players in ML online.

With a whole team reshape on the cards, I had to be brutal. I decided to sell my non-performing players until I was down to my last 16. With the funds I gained, I checked my game plan to see which positions were needing to be strengthened. My keeper had to go, but I decided to spend between 2-3 million on one. The defence needed some tweaks here and there, but generally was not too bad. Each defender had a 70-76 ovr and was reasonably priced at about 1-2 million each. Playing with a 4-3-3 formation, I suggested a CM would be a good choice and spent around 2 million on Lodi. He has been performing well, and consistently averages an orange or red form arrow. For the RMF, LMF, RWF and LWF positions, my choices would be from Utaka, Obemyang ( not totally convinced the spelling is right!), Mateus, Musa and  Biabany ( slightly more at around 4mil). SS and CF positions would be chosen from C Benitez, Moulongui (again another spelling not so sure!), Mphela, Van De Mirch, Utaka (when not being used on the wing).

From these attacking players, especially when most are on good form arrows, can bring very good results. Al range from between 900k, to 4mil. My team at the time I was promoted to division 3 was around the 36million mark. I enjoyed my best winning streak at 6 games, but most importantly, managed to fend off some pretty decent D1-D3 players.

I hope to strengthen my defence more to allow some pace. This will hopefully catch some of the onslaught of the world class players, but until that time, I hope to keep playing and will reveal any other helpful tips along the way!

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave your comments and any suggestions in the comments section below.

BOB

MLO - THE PERFECT STARTING TEAM

What's up lads, I am hooked on MLO! I think it is an outstanding game mode, possibly one of the greatest modes in any game I have ever played. It is addictive and very rewarding when playing well and dangerously frustrating when things go against you! While there are some faults with the game, I am not going to go into in this post. That will be another day. Today’s post is about the most discussed topic on all pes forums. I see people constantly ask, how can I build a highly competitive team for the cheap? Here's my answer in detail.  

The hardest part of MLO is buying players and unearthing gems. One player can make a massive difference and can be the kick start your team needs to turn draws into wins. I am going to give my advice on building a team for newcomers and hopefully help those who are struggling to even draw games no matter how good they play. Oh ya, and the best part is the Starting 11 costs 15 Million in total!  

Team: Div 5 FC       Worth: 15 Million 

Formation: 4-3-3      Starting 11 

Name	Position	Ovr	Height	Skills	Price
Romo	GK	70	197cm	82 GK Skills	1.7 Mill
Bassangue	LB	72	186cm	70’s in dribbling & passing, 80 dribble speed, 83 Body Bal	1.5 Mill
Dzodic	LCB	73	188cm	81 Defence, 83 Header, 76 response	2 Mill
Johrfaem	RCB	66	187cm	81 Defence, 81 explosive power, 75 response	1.1 Mill
Medjani	RB	69	183cm	70’s in most needed stats, offensive fullback skill card	1.3 Mill
Meyler	DMF	70	190cm	High 70’s pass, 80 stamina, 80 body balance	1 Mill
Fahey	CMF	69	178cm	Mid to High 70’s in all needed stats. Passing, dribbling, etc.	900K
Cabalaard	AMF	69	172cm	80’s in most stats,, 80 Teamwork. 6+ skill cards.	1.3 Mill
Strurridge	LWF	69	188cm	High 80’s Speed, tall and strong. 1 touch play.	1.2 Mill
Lanzafame	RWF	69	180cm	Mid 80’s in speed + dribbling, 75 body balance. Super Sub.	800K
Barretto	CF	69	171cm	High 80’s speed + dribbling.	2 Mill

Substitutions: 

Name	Position	Price
Cristiano	CB/RB	1.8 Mill
Martinez	AMF	1.8 Mill
P.Mc Court	Anywhere	1.7 Mill
Doyle	CF	800k
Long	CF	700k
Mirralles	CF	1.2 Mill
Mouche	SS	1.7 Mill
Silva	CB	1.8 Mill

For newcomers, I advise using up the default players contracts as whatever you make (even losing) is pure profit. When the contracts are up, begin building, buy each replacement per position selling. Form plays a massive part in players. Check the players before buying or else replace with the subs I provided.  

This team can mix it with any team in Div. 5 and at a stretch, Div.4. It will work for you. Model the team on Barcelona, with DMF and CMF and AMF. Wide players pace must be exploited also. You have a safe goalkeeper, bombarding fullbacks and solid spine in the team. All the players are tall and strong or small and rocket fast. You have a good enforcer in Meyler and passer and all rounder in Fahey and the sublimely talented Cabalaard. Cabalaard is unbelieveable, just look at his stats, it’s a steal. Barretto is amazing too.  

This team can be used if you starting out your first few games or if you are struggling in Div 5/4. It is amazing who you can unearth in this game for practically nothing.

Let me know how ye get on and what ye think! 

Barry

MASTER LEAGUE ONLINE FORM ARROWS

It has been a while since I have had time to reflect on my progress with my master league online campaign, but I thought I would make sure I got at least one post in at the beginning of the week.

My team has grown from a lowly 15 milllion in value, to a 29 million force within the space of a week. This is the result of saving my match funds and rotating my players to enable to buy more players, but most importantly, better players in the positions that I need them in. I know that to a lot of players, 29 million is not much compared to their 100-200 million teams, but unlike you, I do not get as much time to play and have not notched up hundreds and hundres of matches. I do however feel pretty good about my efforts!

I have managed to fend off some div 1 teams that host a variety of top named and very expensive players, by using the "super defensive" feature. This manages to hold up some top teams but not all, and I have had to tweak a few positions and players during half time  to achieve the best results. 

I think the key to growing your team is to rotate players, save your funds, and buy new players. The players you buy in, need to be better statistically but most importantly have a red or orange arrow when you first buy them. You will be using them for a minimum of 10 matches, so the best bet is to rotate until their contract is up. If they have played well and their form arrows are still good, then renew their contracts when you need to, if not, then sell them and use funds saved to buy better players once more. This will enable your tesm value to rise and your team to get better.

Sometimes, I rotate the team so I have a few under-performing players starting the match, then sub them at half time for higher performing players. This adds to a better team game in the second half and could result in a come-back to win, or just to add to the tally of goals you have already achieved. It also helps the fatrigue levels of your players and makes sure you have longer to save funds befor the need to renew contracts.

Hopefully my results will carry on and gain me promotion to div 3 soon. I am currently in div 4 after being promoted due to a run of wins and draws. My points have gone up nearly 100 in the past week or so and have set me just under the 500 mark. 

The news may be short lived, but I hope I can tell you that I have gained promotion some time next week.

Untill the next time folks..........keep on scoring!

Bob