PES 2017 - Gameplay Details - Free Kicks and Corners

PES 2017 Set Pieces – Free Kicks and Corners

This series of articles are being written to highlight the improvements needed in PES 2017 based on the most popular fan opinion. We will analyse, in depth, each aspect of the PES gameplay and produce an article for each. These gameplay aspects will include passing, dribbling, set pieces, game modes, myClub and others. For this one we will be discussing set pieces in the form of free kicks and corners.

Set Pieces:
PES has many fantastic characteristics but set pieces are not among them. Along with referees it is probably the most complained about part of PES.

Corners:
Corners feel scripted and irrelevant. It seems to make 0 difference to the result of a corner how hard and where you kick the ball. Once put into the box it feels predetermined whether a goal is coming or not – this is often referred to as scripting and has received a lot of criticism. It doesn’t only infuriate the defending team but the goals don’t feel rewarding when you’re on the positive end of them. It just seems to be an element of the game that removes skill and annoys everyone all around.

Free Kicks:
Free kicks have a similar feel to corners. Take this situation for when you play against a friend who knows how to exploit free kicks. There won’t be any positioning the free kick, analysing the angle, determining the curvature needed on the ball or anything else that would require an element of skill. It will simply be a race between the attacker and defender. A race for the attacker to move the shot to the corner of the near post and then click half way up the power bar. And on the other hand a race for the defender to take control of an available defender and move him to the near post to cover. If a player knows how to take free kicks and has a relatively decent free kick taker then they will score more times than not. The ease in which you can exploit and therefore score free kicks is shocking. Case in point below:



A complete overhaul of the free kick system is required for PES 2017. Not everybody was a fan of free kicks in earlier versions of PES but if a system similar to PES 2008 is put in then at least free kicks can’t be abused and scoring a free kick will rewarding. 30 yard free kicks in off the bar on PES 2016 are routinely skipped in the replay whereas replays used to be saved when the same happened on a classic PES.