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eFootball (All Platforms)

*aLe said:
I'll just post here what I answered them on Instagram, because this is what's going to happen.

👨‍🦱 ➡️ Me now
👨🏻‍🦳 ➡️ Me when the ML DLC drops
☠️ ➡️ Me when ML will finally be worth playing

Mark my words.
Click to expand...

Master League is too complicated to ask from a company struggling to release its 9-team demo with 3D grass, so much that the game is coming out in 2 days and they can't put together 5 minutes of B-roll gameplay footage.
 
*aLe said:
I'll just post here what I answered them on Instagram, because this is what's going to happen.

👨‍🦱 ➡️ Me now
👨🏻‍🦳 ➡️ Me when the ML DLC drops
☠️ ➡️ Me when ML will finally be worth playing

Mark my words.
Click to expand...
☠️ ➡️ Me when after i fav the game on steam and wait for 19.99€ on June.
 
The_Knight said:
Master League is too complicated to ask from a company struggling to release its 9-team demo with 3D grass, so much that the game is coming out in 2 days and they can't put together 5 minutes of B-roll gameplay footage.
Click to expand...
Wait, it's allegedly been in development for two years... I don't think we're asking for much here if we expect them to include a ML that is at least on par with the PES 2021 one. It doesn't take much effort...
And I honestly wonder where have those two years of development gone if it's gonna be more basic than the usual "lite" version, at release.
Either it's a masterpiece on the pitch (and I'll gladly forgive them for everything else, if it is) or these two years have gone down the drain.

I'll try it out (like almost everyone here) but I really don't expect anything special anymore.
 
*aLe said:
Wait, it's allegedly been in development for two years... I don't think we're asking for much here if we expect them to include a ML that is at least on par with the PES 2021 one. It doesn't take much effort...
And I honestly wonder where have those two years of development gone if it's gonna be more basic than the usual "lite" version, at release.
Either it's a masterpiece on the pitch (and I'll gladly forgive them for everything else, if it is) or these two years have gone down the drain.

I'll try it out (like almost everyone here) but I really don't expect anything special anymore.
Click to expand...

At this point it's obvious that there was a change of plans sometime over the past year, given how incomplete a state this game is launching with.
 
staffan said:
There's this one guy that seems to have necked every last drop of Koolaid

View attachment 123501

Imagine calling yourself "ePositionalPlay", christ almighty. Has to be one of the cope posters on here
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The_Knight said:
It's weird because he's a PC gamer, like me, heavily into mods. I'd understand if he were a mobile gamer. These are the "new crowds" Konami is targeting with this release. You won't hear them complain about the lack of 3D grass or downgraded ball physics etc. I still can't believe we have no footage. Just call it an early access to soften the blow, it's so easy.
Click to expand...
That guy is banned from here :LOL: – known as Scott / EntraineurJDP / YT_Tacticien / etc.

He has some sort of Konami personality disorder. Even got banned from /r/WEPES recently, and you know what they're like. Quite funny though.

He's the one I called a mug on here before, and he was lurking, wrote a negative comment on my YouTube upload, then DM'd me on Twitter to say "still think I'm a mug?"

Yes. Yes I did.

A funny interlude.
 
The_Knight said:
At this point it's obvious that there was a change of plans sometime over the past year, given how incomplete a state this game is launching with.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's obvious, by any stretch. They can just be behind, or they can just be doing what A LOT of publishers/devs do when they move to a F2P model: release a buggy mess and excuse it with promises, a roadmap, and expect fanboys to respond to criticism with "at least it's free" rejoinders. Really, it's not that unusual, and Konami have released buggy shit before.

It's more likely that they simply cut down their dev expenditure, focused on developing/extending an MTX strategy, taking the mobile playerbase/revenue stream as a blueprint for going forward.
 
janguv said:
I don't think it's obvious, by any stretch. They can just be behind, or they can just be doing what A LOT of publishers/devs do when they move to a F2P model: release a buggy mess and excuse it with promises, a roadmap, and expect fanboys to respond to criticism with "at least it's free" rejoinders. Really, it's not that unusual, and Konami have released buggy shit before.

It's more likely that they simply cut down their dev expenditure, focused on developing/extending an MTX strategy, taking the mobile playerbase/revenue stream as a blueprint for going forward.
Click to expand...

I think it is fairly obvious the game has changed directions somewhere mid way, reading the reveal trailer + introduction text in description implies that to me firstly.

Dont know if it was ever deemed official but it seems to be pretty clearcut for a big while that the PS4/Xbox one version would remain a Fox Engine game season update and a lot of people where suprised that the last gen version was running unreal engine aswell as the wrapper engine on the open beta.

All those things + How it looks like as if they just started creating this game and its modes makes me think that a lot
But we will never know for sure I guess, ''Looking forward'' to play this thing and see its depth or depthlessness & Quality
 
103SpooKy said:
Dont know if it was ever deemed official but it seems to be pretty clearcut for a big while that the PS4/Xbox one version would remain a Fox Engine game season update and a lot of people where suprised that the last gen version was running unreal engine aswell as the wrapper engine on the open beta.

All those things + How it looks like as if they just started creating this game and its modes makes me think that a lot
But we will never know for sure I guess, ''Looking forward'' to play this thing and see its depth or depthlessness & Quality
Click to expand...

Yes. Imo this really seems to fit 18 months worth of work at the most.

March 2020 - June 2020 most likely when they changed strategy due to unfolding Covid lockdowns and crisis.

This decision was made after the season update was setup also, I heard 2-3 years ago they planned PES 2021 even to launch on the PS5 as a 'proof of concept' much like PES 2014 was. Getting a PS5 seems to be still quite difficult unless your a hardcore gamer, along with the lack of real amazing must have games to get with it, most people seem to be just sexing up their PS4 games with it.

I remember spoony mentioning on the PES Universe podcast about the Unreal Engine 5 is what their intention for PES 2022 was most likely, but with Covid and the strategy change they didn't need it yet.

While we are all rightfully pissed off about shambolic buildup to the game, i will repeat, i have nothing whatsoever against the free to play model. There is no excuse for them not to produce a quality game at all. What i expect is for us to all form an inquest into what and when did they actually change strategy.

If they can do what they did for PES 2018 at least they could have a great year, big if though, PES 2018 was quite frankly shit on release, basically unplayable, until a patch 2 weeks after launch then finally it was a good game in late October early November. This is the best we can hope for. The free to play model and no obligation rush the game to go gold in August could have been the difference between an unplayable disatserous launch and loss of most of the community, to a good, buggy game with potential which finally hits it potential later this year or in January.

And that is my last ounce of positivity until Wednesday night when i download it.
 
I'm baffled at how competent Konami are at being incompetent.

In just 3 days we'll be getting the 1st ever release of their all new football title, one that's not only completely changing and revolutionizing the model we're used to, but one that's also replacing what's arguably the most popular and important football gaming franchise ever, it's a huge legacy to live up to.

Even with all of these things considered, not only are we getting no official gameplay videos from Konami, but there seems to be almost no hype at all too, the players who prefer an offline and/or simulation experience are enjoying the improvements EA made to FIFA22, the players who prefer online and/or arcade are hyped to start playing Ultimate Team again on FIFA22, the players who want something new are excited for UFL or GOALS, which not only made Konami's model seem less revolutionary since they'll use it too, but also gave Konami competition in something they were expecting to have a comfortable monopoly on, which would give them an edge over FIFA, the F2P model. It all just feels like a wasteland.

I just can't believe how terrible the marketing was for all of this. Introducing a F2P model would always be controversial, there was no way around that, but I'm sure that if they were more transparent and gave us more information earlier there would've been less rejection and backlash.

I mean, let's say they gave us a a reveal trailer a couple of months ago, displaying footage of the supposedly good looking PS5/XSX version we keep hearing about, with a sophisticated presentation and visual identity like they had in PES2011/PES2012, instead of the bright blue, yellow and pink combination they went for, without playing a song in the background talking about how powerful we are, and then they introduced us the F2P model, the new name, and their plans for release, without it being this 9 teams and no offline modes demo we'll be getting in 3 days, but instead a release with all teams available and offline modes already on the store for purchase. Maybe they could've even released an interview with the developers, but instead of only the 1v1 and 5 meters talk they've been doing they could actually explain why they changed plans, because we got a trailer for PES2022, and now suddently we're getting eFOOTBALL, something happened along the way, if they simply said they had to cut costs or something like that I'm sure many wouldn't be pleased, but one of the few things more aggravating than hearing a truth we don't like is hearing a lie instead.

Of course there would still be a lot of backlash, but I'm sure there would be a lot more people excited to at least give it a chance, we'd be getting discussions from people on forums more often compared to what we have now, which is mostly one sided, and for good reason, Konami bottled it.

I don't doubt that eFOOTBALL can be a very decent title in the future, pretty much all of the FOX PES titles had something to offer and aspects in which they excelled at, in the last few years Konami have arguably been the best at offering a satisfying experience in the offensive transition, passing and chance creating, it's a joy to have possession in PES, most of the time at least. Of course they can do it again here, since the core seems to be mostly intact, the main mechanics they seem to be working more on are the defensive ones, which were the least developed in previous titles, so it makes sense, and it looks like it'll be more manual, they're focusing on positioning, tackling and punishing the player for being too agressive, making the system closer to FIFA's too, by having the pressing be less effective than now, it isn't a bad idea at all.

However, even though I see potential to have a title which is superior to every single FOX PES we got in the last few years, since the attacking looks similar and the defence looks more developed, I don't see that happening for at least a couple of years, after many updates and polish. In 3 days we'll be getting something that resembles a demo, or PES Lite, to be more accurate, with so much content and gameplay features missing. I'll still download it, it's free afterall, but there won't be much to do besides playing a few friendly matches, which won't even matter much anyway, because by the time they release the offline modes for us to buy the gameplay might already be very different due to updates. I get why they're releasing it so soon, even though they should delay it, it's because they want to come out before FIFA22, but it looks like that has already backfired anyway, so I don't see the point, it should've been delayed so the 1st release could actually have something more to it. It's all just so underwhelming.

TL;DR I'm sure the F2P model would've caused backlash no matter what, but if they had been more transparent and professional about it all, while also giving us a more polished and finished product, even if it meant releasing it later on in the year, I'm sure the reception would've been a lot more positive and optimistic for the future, especially because eFOOTBALL seems to have interesting and promising ideas. They should've also made less mistakes in things that aren't complicated to get right, like the whole visual identity, with the logo, HUD/UI and trailers. We could've had hype and excitement for it all, instead of the dissapointment we have now.

 
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I've been thinking more about the release we'll be getting on September 30th, most specifically the 9 teams available for friendly matches, which I find ridiculous, and the more I think about it the more ridiculous it sounds.

Since the main offline modes won't be coming for a while, I imagine that most of us will only download eFOOTBALL at first to play a couple of friendlies, to get a feel for the gameplay and direction they're going for. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't allow us to play as all of the teams in the game, or at least most of the ones from the top european leagues. I know that for PES Lite having few teams available was the standard, but there was a reason for that, it was to not take away from the value of the full game, but that doesn't exist anymore, this download is the full game.

Now, I know what many might be thinking, the reason we can't play as all of the teams is because they're not ready yet, since the game is clearly unfinished at this stage and we'll be getting something that's more of a demo than a full game, fair enough, but the main appeal, the only substancial thing one will be able to do in this 1st release is playing the new MyClub, or Creative Team, something like that. This is the mode that has all of the packs, the squad building card element to it, and for it to work it needs a player database, surely when you open a pack you'll be able to get a player from a team that isn't one of the 9 available for friendlies. Also, these kinds of modes ask you to choose a real life team to use as a base, so your team can have a crest and kit, surely you'll be able to do that aswell, right?

So, if we take those things in consideration, we must have the players in the game's database, alongside the club's crests and kits, so why aren't the clubs implemented in the friendly match mode? It doesn't make any sense, unless when people download eFOOTBALL to play MyClub/Creative Team they only get to choose from 9 clubs to use as a base, and can only get players from those 9 clubs, now that'd be hilarious.
 
So the game will launch as a demo. Millions will download it for free. A massive chunk will stop playing when they realise it'll stay a demo for the next month or 2.
A fraction of those that stopped might dip back in when the new myclub gets rushed out. If the mode is anything like previous years, then most of them will sack it off after a couple of weeks and never return.
Fielding an entire team of superstars before a ball is kicked in your 1st match screams short term vision. Only improvement on that is to play 'pay roulette' for high 90's rated or legends. Exhibition match, exhibition match, exhibition match etc, etc. F*ck away off.

If they made something based on the fantasy football team selection structure (wage capped), at least that would add some challenge and fun. Plus make use of 99% of the player roster that will never be seen or used otherwise.
Guarantee the player base would be larger for longer.
I've always had the most fun on pes using a majority 3 star team, then adding 2 - 3 world class players into the mix.

Challenging combined with fun is more addictive to the masses than pay to win microtransaction.
 

eFootball 2022: first games and impressions with the free to play heir of PES​



IN PROGRESS
Konami’s European offices occupy a three-story building a few steps from Windsor Castle and around fifty people work there, most of them working on Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Link, another cross-platform free to play that works great and generates big profits. The sense of eFootball is all here: now very far from the numbers of FIFA, which can still afford to combine a full-price positioning combined with the rich microtransactions of FUT, the Japanese football, what was once PES, must catch up. And after all, the company has long since put aside large AAA productions.

eFootball 2022 is the first cry of a project that will be updated with new seasons and more content. The September 30th will come a version equipped with some teams (Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Manchester United, Arsenal, Corinthians, Flamengo, River Plate and Sao Paulo) plus a handful of licensed stadiums, the ability to play against AI or other users, online and offline, and some weekly events. The rest will come later, with a tight release plan starting in the fall.

The version we tested was roughly the one that will be downloadable at the end of the month, without the online part but with a few more gameplay functions which will be implemented at a later time. The Japanese developers intend to create a product that starts from some fixed points: staid game pace, more realistic if you want to simplify, fairly articulated controls and a focus on duels. The result for now is in chiaroscuro.

I new controls they intend to give more variety to the action. For example, interceptions have a heavier weight and in fact I liked the ability to better control the body of your player through the right analog stick while pressing. As well as I appreciate i Power Kicks: by holding R2 down before taking any kick, be it a pass, a shot or a cross, our alter ego in shorts kicks more vigorously, but being the larger movement it needs more space.

The two characteristics complement each other: to avoid interception or prevent an individual duel, kicking deeper helps, but you have to think about it in time, otherwise perhaps a horizontal or backward discharge is better, and so on. Moves and counter-moves, which give the idea of actually wanting to create a simulation closer to reality and ultimately ambitious. At the same time there are problems, it is undeniable. Not all the interactions between the models are perfect, indeed, e ball physics sometimes works less well than in other cases.

These are both aspects that Konami has already pointed out that they will be improved over time and, in my opinion, here the bulk of the work will be primarily aimed at mastering the Unreal Engine 4 in the best possible way.artificial intelligence. Playing against the AI it is perceived that the developers want to implement a more modern football, made of construction from below and re-aggression as soon as the ball is lost, but the movements are not always what they should be and the goalkeepers tend to err more than they should when setting (non solo Szczęsny).

THE FOUNDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Football has changed a lot in recent years, the restarts in the open field have often been replaced by a more accentuated compactness between the lines, combined with greater physicality and solutions such as man-made scoring across the field. eFootball seems to have in mind to allow all this, both through the implementation of new tactics, and thanks to its controls. Only, for now, it doesn’t always work.
Technically there are ups and downs. The game still features details like grass or the aforementioned animations that could certainly be improved and, especially on PS5 where we played the title, are far from making a miracle scream. There are several animations of imperfect interludes and playing there are bugs, for example a player in the net stopped while he was going to get the ball, forcing me to restart the game.
At the same time the action is fluid thanks to the possibility of never leaving the field even when the ball goes out and the Duel camera, which tightens on duels as needed and then reopens, works quite well. In addition, the usual attention to team partners returns, who can count on stadiums, changing rooms and details made with care in order to better immerse users. There telecronaca will be entrusted to Caressa and Marchegiani but in the tested version only the English language version was available. On the other hand, the sound is good, which gives you the opportunity to choose at will how to balance commentary, noises of the field, of the stadium and so on.

KICK OFF

On 30 September eFootball 2022 will be downloadable by everyone and it will, in fact, be a kind of big demo. Will it be worth a try and be patient for a while? The answer I have given myself is yes, for a couple of reasons. The first, very trivial, is that being free there is not much to lose. The second is linked to the paradigm shift chosen for the series: Konami embraces a model that physiologically provides products with problems and not all the contents available immediately, but capable, hopefully, of evolving over time.

All the big hits of this genre, which combine free to play and online competition, started one way and then matured. In perspective, this “live” model should guarantee great flexibility to respond quickly to the needs of the public.

However, there is no doubt that this direction will not appeal to historical fans, that in order to have something comparable to the “old PES”, At least in terms of options and methods, they will have to wait. In the autumn, the Creative Teams will arrive, that is, those made by users and not the real club teams, more competitions and the first experiments with in-game currencies. There will be more introductions thereafter, including the Master League.

In between the gameplay will have to evolve, there will be problems and things to fix. Konami has chosen a complicated and ambitious path, it is not certain that it will succeed in having the hoped-for success. But it was perhaps the only one to ensure survival.

Source: https://www.italy24news.com/sports/news/amp/115685

Next up, while I quite like the level of detail in the closeups and stadium intros, it just fails to carry through to the actual pitch. I played on an LG OLED, so this wasn’t a bad TV, but the pitch, which looks as flat as I feared it would. Even things like slide tackles leaving marks on the grass, which has been a bit of a staple in graphical flourishes, is conspicuous by its absence.

The thing is, the crowd in eFootball just… Well… Looks bad. I appreciate they’re there as a peripheral more than anything else, but when you go to take a corner and you see a bunch of repeated, pixelated character models just moving up and down to get some sense of movement, it really takes you out of things.

It ranges from the minor, with things like player markers being stuck on the pitch during a replay, to the major, with collision bugs appearing in more than a couple of instances. This ranges from weird collisions leading to a foul or a missed call from a referee, to arms full on appearing like jelly when challenges are made. I pushed a couple of games to penalties, and with ever one, the goalkeeper just jittered along the line before the kick was taken. It’s a really weird issue that doesn’t look like it’s going to go away just yet.

However, the most egregious issue with the build I played was with the sharp/power kicks. To do these, you hold down R2 while pressing the button, the player winds up to take the kick, and unleashes a shot that could be compared to something like the Predator Kick from Adidas Power Soccer from way back in the day. It’s not that extreme, of course, but it’s definitely more marked. The problem with this is that R2 has also been mapped to sprint. So, if you’re running down the wing and want to float a cross in, you have to let go of R2, which results in a slight animation as the player slows down, then put the cross in. If you’re somehow still holding R2, you’ll start a power cross. This is shown by a different coloured bar underneath the player icon, and it’s immediately apparent that things don’t feel quite right. If you’re sprinting in to reach a cross or through ball and hit it first time, it’s the same thing. It just doesn’t feel good, and bursting into the box to stroke the ball calmly into the top corner is going to be a very tricky thing to get used to, if indeed you can at all. There were a few times as well where attempting to hit a “finesse” style shot resulted in cancelling everything that the player was doing and the ball rolled loose. Combined with the other issues, just points to something that doesn’t feel ready for primetime just yet.

Source: https://www.nextgenbase.com/efootball-2022-preview-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

20210927_234921.jpg
 
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103SpooKy said:
I think it is fairly obvious the game has changed directions somewhere mid way, reading the reveal trailer + introduction text in description implies that to me firstly.
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I don't think this is a particularly good reason. I've said it here many times before: all that teaser was (it wasn't a trailer) was a render of a Messi model meant to (a) hype people up for the engine switch and (b) instigate good-faith sales of the intermediary product – effectively a repeat of the 2020 game that they were also charging for. The description that went along with it served much the same purpose, and was the usual guff. They needed to kick the can down the road, and they did. It's not evidence they had big plans which they subsequently shelved.
103SpooKy said:
Dont know if it was ever deemed official but it seems to be pretty clearcut for a big while that the PS4/Xbox one version would remain a Fox Engine game season update and a lot of people where suprised that the last gen version was running unreal engine aswell as the wrapper engine on the open beta.
Click to expand...
There was one interview a few years back on a Russian website in which a Konami guy suggested this would be the way forward. It was never substantiated again. Then last year, Durandiil said to Renan Galvani in a DM somewhere that in his personal opinion, the game would be released on old-gen as Fox Season Updates and new-gen as the totally new version. Galvani put it out to his followers as news from a source (and Durandiil wrote here of his surprise at the whole thing). It spread like wildfire and people treated it as fact, despite nearly no real evidence. So, again, I wouldn't factor this purported "plan" into an assessment of what Konami really wanted to do with eFootball.

Besides that, we had several clues as to how all this would go:

- years back, Konami announced their intention to move all their efforts into the gaming mobile space
- they made good on that with the exception of PES, either killing off IP, turning into cheap money grab stuff (Metal Gear Survive) or keeping the trademarks to licence literal pachinko machines
- they emphasised eSports ambitions for years, and clearly saw the future of PES as connected to that world: they renamed the series "eFootball PES" already, they renamed their tournaments eFootball.open and eFootball.pro
- they had surely noticed that even two years ago they hit their 200m download point for the mobile game; they introduced naming parity, and they had developed it on UE4. We have good reason to believe the revenue streams from this F2P model would have far outperformed the console/PC
- they ran promotional campaigns for the mobile game in the console version of myClub, always trying to direct attention to it
- they introduced last year a new in-game currency, tied to a single Konami account to span across platforms (i.e. console and mobile) called "eFootball points"
- they released for a good few years a successful F2P version of PES on console/PC.

Add it all up and you can see that there were clearly business grounds to shift to a new F2P-only, mobile-inspired streamlined development for the future of the franchise. They signalled it a few times, with the branding decisions, their promotional campaigns celebrating success of mobile, and their early attempts to bring those playerbases together.

Literally the only evidence we have of a concerted plan not to do this – to create some wonderful, feature-complete, truly next-gen mainline PES sequel – is a quick UE teaser render, a single obscure interview, and some marketing misdirection guff. Never mind that the move to Unreal itself was a sign of their crossplay ambitions, given the mobile development and the famous scalability of UE.
 
Mathgamer said:
I played on an LG OLED, so this wasn’t a bad TV, but the pitch, which looks as flat as I feared it would. Even things like slide tackles leaving marks on the grass, which has been a bit of a staple in graphical flourishes, is conspicuous by its absence.

The thing is, the crowd in eFootball just… Well… Looks bad. I appreciate they’re there as a peripheral more than anything else, but when you go to take a corner and you see a bunch of repeated, pixelated character models just moving up and down to get some sense of movement, it really takes you out of things.

It ranges from the minor, with things like player markers being stuck on the pitch during a replay, to the major, with collision bugs appearing in more than a couple of instances. This ranges from weird collisions leading to a foul or a missed call from a referee, to arms full on appearing like jelly when challenges are made. I pushed a couple of games to penalties, and with ever one, the goalkeeper just jittered along the line before the kick was taken. It’s a really weird issue that doesn’t look like it’s going to go away just yet.
Click to expand...

Wow. Why on Earth are they releasing the game in this miserable state?
 
Why? Because "there's Fifa release" and "it's too late to release a football game later" > Kimura choice.
Whatever the state, he or they seems to understand that the release is the signature of what the game is for people.
Even if it completely changes in some months, who will care : "i tried and you can forget. Too buggy, you nothing in strategy, and it's clunky"

"They" is if they decided together with another partners or Konami headquarter guy, above PES, or with his second. Baddest choice was to change chief stubborn director : because they needed someone to found a way to do money quick with the game and Matsuda gotted a more "long term" project i suppose. With Covid etc. slowed them down probably, or perhaps making them lost money as no one were able to play their Casino games.
No joke. They lost money for others reason than PES, it's obvious than Covid altered their decision, in a way or another.

... All those changes for releasing something that could be so buggy and not appealing as it's half finished. He/they don't understand how dangerous and suicidal it could be, to do a bad release but quick than a later release but (perhpas) good, at least better and FINISHED in gameplay terms.

Devs in the team would be ashamed and pretty frustrated about the situation. Doing a game "playable" in that amount of time, switching and creating a (again) playable Demo even with all the bugs in that amount of time, those guys are certainly very talented. And smart.

I would really like to another company like Capcom to buy "efootball" and take all the devs from there. That's what could happen in the future, for the reason are they're enough talented to create a football game, and Capcom or whatever company is by far better than what Konami as become. Especially since that last choice of direction, i don't mean gameplay whise but releasing, cross-gen and all the marketing shit (they could've keep PESmobile appart / Efootball mobile etc., they don't have the licences for the biggest leagues in the world so it's hard to compete with Fifa. And people don't all care about O.F., they want it plug and play)
 
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Mathgamer said:

eFootball 2022: first games and impressions with the free to play heir of PES​



IN PROGRESS
Konami’s European offices occupy a three-story building a few steps from Windsor Castle and around fifty people work there, most of them working on Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Link, another cross-platform free to play that works great and generates big profits. The sense of eFootball is all here: now very far from the numbers of FIFA, which can still afford to combine a full-price positioning combined with the rich microtransactions of FUT, the Japanese football, what was once PES, must catch up. And after all, the company has long since put aside large AAA productions.

eFootball 2022 is the first cry of a project that will be updated with new seasons and more content. The September 30th will come a version equipped with some teams (Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Manchester United, Arsenal, Corinthians, Flamengo, River Plate and Sao Paulo) plus a handful of licensed stadiums, the ability to play against AI or other users, online and offline, and some weekly events. The rest will come later, with a tight release plan starting in the fall.

The version we tested was roughly the one that will be downloadable at the end of the month, without the online part but with a few more gameplay functions which will be implemented at a later time. The Japanese developers intend to create a product that starts from some fixed points: staid game pace, more realistic if you want to simplify, fairly articulated controls and a focus on duels. The result for now is in chiaroscuro.

I new controls they intend to give more variety to the action. For example, interceptions have a heavier weight and in fact I liked the ability to better control the body of your player through the right analog stick while pressing. As well as I appreciate i Power Kicks: by holding R2 down before taking any kick, be it a pass, a shot or a cross, our alter ego in shorts kicks more vigorously, but being the larger movement it needs more space.

The two characteristics complement each other: to avoid interception or prevent an individual duel, kicking deeper helps, but you have to think about it in time, otherwise perhaps a horizontal or backward discharge is better, and so on. Moves and counter-moves, which give the idea of actually wanting to create a simulation closer to reality and ultimately ambitious. At the same time there are problems, it is undeniable. Not all the interactions between the models are perfect, indeed, e ball physics sometimes works less well than in other cases.

These are both aspects that Konami has already pointed out that they will be improved over time and, in my opinion, here the bulk of the work will be primarily aimed at mastering the Unreal Engine 4 in the best possible way.artificial intelligence. Playing against the AI it is perceived that the developers want to implement a more modern football, made of construction from below and re-aggression as soon as the ball is lost, but the movements are not always what they should be and the goalkeepers tend to err more than they should when setting (non solo Szczęsny).

THE FOUNDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Football has changed a lot in recent years, the restarts in the open field have often been replaced by a more accentuated compactness between the lines, combined with greater physicality and solutions such as man-made scoring across the field. eFootball seems to have in mind to allow all this, both through the implementation of new tactics, and thanks to its controls. Only, for now, it doesn’t always work.
Technically there are ups and downs. The game still features details like grass or the aforementioned animations that could certainly be improved and, especially on PS5 where we played the title, are far from making a miracle scream. There are several animations of imperfect interludes and playing there are bugs, for example a player in the net stopped while he was going to get the ball, forcing me to restart the game.
At the same time the action is fluid thanks to the possibility of never leaving the field even when the ball goes out and the Duel camera, which tightens on duels as needed and then reopens, works quite well. In addition, the usual attention to team partners returns, who can count on stadiums, changing rooms and details made with care in order to better immerse users. There telecronaca will be entrusted to Caressa and Marchegiani but in the tested version only the English language version was available. On the other hand, the sound is good, which gives you the opportunity to choose at will how to balance commentary, noises of the field, of the stadium and so on.

KICK OFF

On 30 September eFootball 2022 will be downloadable by everyone and it will, in fact, be a kind of big demo. Will it be worth a try and be patient for a while? The answer I have given myself is yes, for a couple of reasons. The first, very trivial, is that being free there is not much to lose. The second is linked to the paradigm shift chosen for the series: Konami embraces a model that physiologically provides products with problems and not all the contents available immediately, but capable, hopefully, of evolving over time.

All the big hits of this genre, which combine free to play and online competition, started one way and then matured. In perspective, this “live” model should guarantee great flexibility to respond quickly to the needs of the public.

However, there is no doubt that this direction will not appeal to historical fans, that in order to have something comparable to the “old PES”, At least in terms of options and methods, they will have to wait. In the autumn, the Creative Teams will arrive, that is, those made by users and not the real club teams, more competitions and the first experiments with in-game currencies. There will be more introductions thereafter, including the Master League.

In between the gameplay will have to evolve, there will be problems and things to fix. Konami has chosen a complicated and ambitious path, it is not certain that it will succeed in having the hoped-for success. But it was perhaps the only one to ensure survival.

Source: https://www.italy24news.com/sports/news/amp/115685

Next up, while I quite like the level of detail in the closeups and stadium intros, it just fails to carry through to the actual pitch. I played on an LG OLED, so this wasn’t a bad TV, but the pitch, which looks as flat as I feared it would. Even things like slide tackles leaving marks on the grass, which has been a bit of a staple in graphical flourishes, is conspicuous by its absence.

The thing is, the crowd in eFootball just… Well… Looks bad. I appreciate they’re there as a peripheral more than anything else, but when you go to take a corner and you see a bunch of repeated, pixelated character models just moving up and down to get some sense of movement, it really takes you out of things.

It ranges from the minor, with things like player markers being stuck on the pitch during a replay, to the major, with collision bugs appearing in more than a couple of instances. This ranges from weird collisions leading to a foul or a missed call from a referee, to arms full on appearing like jelly when challenges are made. I pushed a couple of games to penalties, and with ever one, the goalkeeper just jittered along the line before the kick was taken. It’s a really weird issue that doesn’t look like it’s going to go away just yet.

However, the most egregious issue with the build I played was with the sharp/power kicks. To do these, you hold down R2 while pressing the button, the player winds up to take the kick, and unleashes a shot that could be compared to something like the Predator Kick from Adidas Power Soccer from way back in the day. It’s not that extreme, of course, but it’s definitely more marked. The problem with this is that R2 has also been mapped to sprint. So, if you’re running down the wing and want to float a cross in, you have to let go of R2, which results in a slight animation as the player slows down, then put the cross in. If you’re somehow still holding R2, you’ll start a power cross. This is shown by a different coloured bar underneath the player icon, and it’s immediately apparent that things don’t feel quite right. If you’re sprinting in to reach a cross or through ball and hit it first time, it’s the same thing. It just doesn’t feel good, and bursting into the box to stroke the ball calmly into the top corner is going to be a very tricky thing to get used to, if indeed you can at all. There were a few times as well where attempting to hit a “finesse” style shot resulted in cancelling everything that the player was doing and the ball rolled loose. Combined with the other issues, just points to something that doesn’t feel ready for primetime just yet.

Source: https://www.nextgenbase.com/efootball-2022-preview-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

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wich new tactics?!
its like the old ones only cut in pieces and giving us a tiny crumb of a former tactics cake! ^^

and btw, i still would bet a fiver against a "guarantee (with) great flexibility to respond quickly to the needs of the public"! no way they will ramp up their support or similar...
 
I will ddl it when/if there's Edit Mode available. Without even playing it, in the exception that the game is finished.

They need an edit mode for Manchester Blue and Milan RW etc., as those teams will be played online probably.
 
I have no doubt that a lot of gamers (myself included) will download the game on Thursday and that Konami will be boasting the number of downloads days/weeks after. Konami’s concern should be how keep this “new audience” they’re targeting interested for the long term.
 
MKC said:
I've been thinking more about the release we'll be getting on September 30th, most specifically the 9 teams available for friendly matches, which I find ridiculous, and the more I think about it the more ridiculous it sounds.

Since the main offline modes won't be coming for a while, I imagine that most of us will only download eFOOTBALL at first to play a couple of friendlies, to get a feel for the gameplay and direction they're going for. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't allow us to play as all of the teams in the game, or at least most of the ones from the top european leagues. I know that for PES Lite having few teams available was the standard, but there was a reason for that, it was to not take away from the value of the full game, but that doesn't exist anymore, this download is the full game.

Now, I know what many might be thinking, the reason we can't play as all of the teams is because they're not ready yet, since the game is clearly unfinished at this stage and we'll be getting something that's more of a demo than a full game, fair enough, but the main appeal, the only substancial thing one will be able to do in this 1st release is playing the new MyClub, or Creative Team, something like that. This is the mode that has all of the packs, the squad building card element to it, and for it to work it needs a player database, surely when you open a pack you'll be able to get a player from a team that isn't one of the 9 available for friendlies. Also, these kinds of modes ask you to choose a real life team to use as a base, so your team can have a crest and kit, surely you'll be able to do that aswell, right?

So, if we take those things in consideration, we must have the players in the game's database, alongside the club's crests and kits, so why aren't the clubs implemented in the friendly match mode? It doesn't make any sense, unless when people download eFOOTBALL to play MyClub/Creative Team they only get to choose from 9 clubs to use as a base, and can only get players from those 9 clubs, now that'd be hilarious.
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We know koinami has been shiting on themselves, but this is not true. The firs release which will endure from 30th september to 11th November, will not have myclub, or creative teams or whatever they will call it, it will only be added on 11th November along with the 600 Teams (and player database). That is why you only can use the Pachinko/gacha/casino pack they are selling on that specific date.
 
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