It’s official. My tactics project on PES 2012 has begun. Having applied a decent option file and having played numerous exhibition matches, a few tournaments and some BAL matches, time is ripe for the tactics project.

The most important thing in the tactics project is to understand the sliders and what Konami intended to do with those sliders. With no piggyback guide these days, we pretty much need to learn by trial and error, given the poor and insufficient in-game instructions from Konami.

Firstly, I’m out experiment with all the preset sliders and how they impact the progress on the pitch. It’s important to know the pros and cons of each preset and what kind of players would be needed for each preset. Plus this thing called the team style.

I played as Argentina against Brazil on professional difficulty where I was very easily able to deal with Brazil. They were no challenge while I was running riot. When I investigated further, I noticed two important factors (a) the team work stats of Brazilian players are much lower (b) Brazil’s default preset is “all out defence”!!!

I was sure that the preset needs to change but unsure if it should be ‘possession game’ or ‘all out attack’ or ‘quick counter’. It’s not how the real Brazil plays. It’s about how these sliders are implemented by Konami.

So far, in my experience, the ‘quick counter’ preset seems to be more balanced if you know how to defend well. When I set Brazil to ‘quick counter’, they were looking for counterattacks but as soon as I closed the channels and spaces, they started building the attack in a slightly more considerate fashion.

‘Possession game’ should achieve something similar but it’s not taking advantage of the very quick attackers in the Brazil frontline.

I’m still experimenting by playing against Brazil in different presets and will surely post here with my findings.

What’s been your experience so far? How have you understood the sliders in PES 2012?