Feedbacking Konami; from idea to reality - part 1
Kategori: General
During the years I've been an influence on the PES-games development through various forums. I've been the discussing fan, the hired pro, the annoying actuator, the objective critic, just to mention a few. After having filled these different shoes I've given myself a mission never to stop trying to influence the world around me. That's why i'm writing this post which becomes the start of a series of blog posts called "Feedbacking Konami; from idea to reality". I will take a look on how things we mention gets incorporated in the game and how long that takes, on an average. I urge you all to give me examples of suggestions that have become reality and things that have not. I am striving for an equal amount of examples to present on the blog.
One feature I think I've been an influence to get introduced into PES is the direct throw ins. You know, the one's where the player runs after the ball, picks it up and throws it in again without a black screen. This is something I refer to as "continous play" and that is a term that Konami also picked up on. I suggested this during the later years of the last decade and it now exist in both PES and FIFA. It took a long time but EVERY year I fed it back to Konami, both through more powerful people in the organisation and by keeping the topic alive on different forums.The reason I wanted it in PES was because it opened up new possibilities when counter attacking.
One feature I think I've been an influence to get introduced into PES is the direct throw ins. You know, the one's where the player runs after the ball, picks it up and throws it in again without a black screen. This is something I refer to as "continous play" and that is a term that Konami also picked up on. I suggested this during the later years of the last decade and it now exist in both PES and FIFA. It took a long time but EVERY year I fed it back to Konami, both through more powerful people in the organisation and by keeping the topic alive on different forums.The reason I wanted it in PES was because it opened up new possibilities when counter attacking.
For me it was rather big when it finally was introduced. The first game for its introduction was PES 2012. In the offline mode Konami had made a cut-scene where the player ran and got the ball instead of a black screen. When I saw that I knew that my idea was being incorporated, they were just not there yet. In PES 2013 it happened occassionally, and in 14 and 15 it now happens regularly. I'd like to think that Konami has listened to my feedback in this sense, or that I at least planted a seed in a game producers mind.
After giving you this background we're onto what this post is about, namely, feedback about control settings.
Control Settings in PES
Everyone who has played PES knows that the game gives the user a great amount of control settings for every action. You can set passing assistance level, type of through ball, how to shoot, if tackling and dribbling should be automatic and a lot more. All these settings give the user more or less manual input or handles it over to the AI.
The manual "elite".
There's a smaller part of the fans in the PES-community who thinks that they get more out of the game by having more input. I am one of those fans. On the web we are called "full manual players" or just "manual players". On my other site, a community based website, we play in two kind of leagues. One is the casual league (optional settings) and the other one is the hardcore league (manual settings throughout all options). To be a "full manual player" you got to have the following settings: 0 in passing assistance, manual shooting, auto tackling off and auto dribbling off. In the two latest editions of PES there's a new option for through balls called advanced. The manual community are not yet in agreement about whether this option should be considered as the most manual alternative.
Why play manually?
There's a smaller part of the fans in the PES-community who thinks that they get more out of the game by having more input. I am one of those fans. On the web we are called "full manual players" or just "manual players". On my other site, a community based website, we play in two kind of leagues. One is the casual league (optional settings) and the other one is the hardcore league (manual settings throughout all options). To be a "full manual player" you got to have the following settings: 0 in passing assistance, manual shooting, auto tackling off and auto dribbling off. In the two latest editions of PES there's a new option for through balls called advanced. The manual community are not yet in agreement about whether this option should be considered as the most manual alternative.
Why play manually?
The simple reason for playing manually is that more situations where you are forced to act yourself arise when the computer does not interfer with your actions. You miss shots, you send away terrible passes, you tackle but not on the ball, you lose the ball easily and you get more frustrated. It's a high bet you play as a manual player. But the reward, oh the reward. This is the feeling PES-players are talking about. It's there on manual play. It's hidden within PES, just for you to find it.
What do I want to change with the control settings and how do I want it to look like?
I don't want to change much. I still want casual players to have their easy passes and their easy goals. But I want to be able to see that they are playing that way when I face them, through their profile. I want to be able to create a room where only players with manual settings are allowed, optionally I would like the room to revert the entered players settings so that they match my own if I've made the room with that option.
When it comes to matchmaking in divisions or MLO you should be able to set your search options to "full manual" or by tuning options for all of the control settings. In PES 2015 your search criterias are limited to people with control settings close to your passing assistance and that is too simple and not enough for us manual players or even for the casual players for that matter.
This is the change I want. I want control settings for online users to be visible when setting up a room and I want matchmaking to have control settings as search criterias. That's all.
In the next post I will tell you how my feedback was received by Konami.
