Master League Discussion Thread

[Missingno1990]

For me, it'll be my usual taking the smallest club from any of the available nations, preferably with some youngsters and building from there.

I feel the best way to enjoy Master League is to start with a low rated team, sell some older heads, keep some others, and add a few young players my squad. I also tend to aim for players from the same nation as each other just to add a "theme" to my squad.
For me this adds more life to the game as you may struggle in the first season, and will most likely struggle some more with promotion. It also gives me a chance to aim for the Europa League at some point without feeling bad.

And lastly, as sad as it sounds, I always feel closer to my players if I build a squad and train them over a few seaons. lol

[ukexplicit1984]

Totally agree, I will probably choose a random Championship team, last year it was Wigan, not sure who it will be this year, and try and take them to Premier League glory... However, should MyClub not run like a laggy mess, Master League may well fall by the wayside as it did when PES 2013 and MLO was my main interest!

But yeah, a low level team, bring in some youngsters, maybe the odd old head (Signed Crouch last year, legend for my team!) and see what havoc I can wreak!

[Mike]

I think I'll go with Arsenal, like I normally do, although I hope ML is good enough that my career lasts longer than just one season. PES 2013 was the last game where I had a proper go on ML - a mode that I played religiously back on PS2!

[TomReyno]

It will be my team, United, starting off. Then after a few matches, settled into it and got to September, I'm going to start another with Real Zaragoza, turn them into an unstoppable force, or fail hard haha. No interest in myClub, but I enjoy BAL. Maybe doing a SOMS on another board based on my BAL save.

[Shales]

I am planning on running two ML's this year. My own personal team will be using a custom created team in the Championship and using Classic Default ML players. There is no otherway! I don't know why but I crave the moments when your get your striker in on goal and then produces a shot with next to no power. It's all about the struggle!

Then I was going to try to set up a "community" ML and play co-op with different guest players using PS4 SharePlay. If anyone wanted to join in for a session then they can. Thought it would be interesting to get other people involved and have votes on Player Signings etc. There might be absolutely no interest from anyone in this, but as of now I think it's a nice idea.

[Walker2o]

My plan is to drop Celtic (if we make it into the game this year PES15! which should happen if we get into the UEFA Champions League) into the championship or BPL and see how far I can go. I did this in FIFA and after 4 years I made it into the top 4 only to be sacked the next season for finishing 5th. Leaving Celtic to take Chelsea to champions league glory 4 years later in the year 2022! haha. If I cant get Celtic I think I might try and bring AC Milan or Villareal back up to a Champions League team.

I've just seen that FIFA has included pre-season tournaments and that could be a small but very useful feature, one I would hope to see emulated in PES to give ML a lasting interest. The in depth stats this year are what was needed!

[Missingno1990]

My plan is to drop Celtic (if we make it into the game this year PES15! which should happen if we get into the UEFA Champions League) into the championship or BPL and see how far I can go. I did this in FIFA and after 4 years I made it into the top 4 only to be sacked the next season for finishing 5th. Leaving Celtic to take Chelsea to champions league glory 4 years later in the year 2022! haha. If I cant get Celtic I think I might try and bring AC Milan or Villareal back up to a Champions League team.

I've just seen that FIFA has included pre-season tournaments and that could be a small but very useful feature, one I would hope to see emulated in PES to give ML a lasting interest. The in depth stats this year are what was needed!

I see that you support THEM! lol

I dropped Rangers into League 2 of England on FIFA 13 to challenge the English leagues.
I once done similar with Hearts on their first appearance on PES, 2010 perhaps 2011, I think.
I ended up winning everything with them. I was about 10 seasons in and my players had ridiculous stats, I even had Kyle Lafferty with over 90 overall.
I was desperately trying to get the invincibles achievement (for winning every match in a season) before the next PES came out and blew it by drawing the last league match. In 2012,2013, and 2014 my team were Atalanta. Enjoyed playing them, and came across a few hidden gems in their original squad.

I sink far too much time into Master League, but the last couple of years had gone backwards.

[Walker2o]

My plan is to drop Celtic (if we make it into the game this year PES15! which should happen if we get into the UEFA Champions League) into the championship or BPL and see how far I can go. I did this in FIFA and after 4 years I made it into the top 4 only to be sacked the next season for finishing 5th. Leaving Celtic to take Chelsea to champions league glory 4 years later in the year 2022! haha. If I cant get Celtic I think I might try and bring AC Milan or Villareal back up to a Champions League team.

I've just seen that FIFA has included pre-season tournaments and that could be a small but very useful feature, one I would hope to see emulated in PES to give ML a lasting interest. The in depth stats this year are what was needed!

I see that you support THEM! lol

I dropped Rangers into League 2 of England on FIFA 13 to challenge the English leagues.
I once done similar with Hearts on their first appearance on PES, 2010 perhaps 2011, I think.
I ended up winning everything with them. I was about 10 seasons in and my players had ridiculous stats, I even had Kyle Lafferty with over 90 overall.
I was desperately trying to get the invincibles achievement (for winning every match in a season) before the next PES came out and blew it by drawing the last league match. In 2012,2013, and 2014 my team were Atalanta. Enjoyed playing them, and came across a few hidden gems in their original squad.

I sink far too much time into Master League, but the last couple of years had gone backwards.

Ack there's always one of you kicking about haha

I did add Rangers into the League as well, they ended up just bobbing around the bottom half/ Championship. Not having Rangers to play against in past few PES games has been a big downer though! I did find an SPFL mod that had 18 teams in it, that was a good year. PES14 for PS3. The only thing that gets me is that I try to stick to the £30'000 pound wage cap, after a few seasons you end up with £30/40 million transfer pot which is outrageous. My Celtic team last season was a 5 star Champs League semi final team with Marquinhos and the like playing. Having to stick £4/5 mil (when playing is the SPFL) would be more enjoyable, but once moving the team into the BPL the transfer budget should reflect the increased earnings. I haven't put enough time into PES 2015 ML mode because the lack of depth annoyed me too much. FC Barcelona B was my team and I didnt last the second season. 200+ goals scored by my title rivals was laughable.

If ML gets itself sorted, I'd like to build a team of Scottish Players and take them into Europe, especially if I'm putting them in with the English teams.

[Missingno1990]

That was my plan with my Birmingham squad in 2015, but there just wasn't enough Scottish talent in the game. I ended up with mostly young Bundesliga talent (thanks to PES Galaxy's PC mod) but the lack of depth was pretty annoying. It seemed much harder to develop your own good players as you had to rely on the "looks like he'll make a breakthrough" thing happened. I like that idea, but the natural development of players via training didn't seem to do much at all.

[Walker2o]

That was my plan with my Birmingham squad in 2015, but there just wasn't enough Scottish talent in the game. I ended up with mostly young Bundesliga talent (thanks to PES Galaxy's PC mod) but the lack of depth was pretty annoying. It seemed much harder to develop your own good players as you had to rely on the "looks like he'll make a breakthrough" thing happened. I like that idea, but the natural development of players via training didn't seem to do much at all.

Aye I thought that too. Ryan Gauld is my go to player haha, there's no release clause in PES so can pick him up for around 500k

[Missingno1990]

Aye I thought that too. Ryan Gauld is my go to player haha, there's no release clause in PES so can pick him up for around 500k

Came across him as Scotland national team manager on the PC version and was the first signing I made on my Girona PS4 save. He's one of the few players in PES 2015 that are capable of weaving in and out a defense.

[Walker2o]

Master League is pretty spot on this year lads. The CPU simmed matches reflect realistic scores as well. Hoping to start my AC Milan career properly this weekend. I started my first game and the first thing the commentator talked about was how I was destined to fail because I was inexperienced.. Then proceeded to talk about how good a signing Marco Reus was

[Shales]

Master League is pretty spot on this year lads. The CPU simmed matches reflect realistic scores as well. Hoping to start my AC Milan career properly this weekend. I started my first game and the first thing the commentator talked about was how I was destined to fail because I was inexperienced.. Then proceeded to talk about how good a signing Marco Reus was

This is great hear! Very happy to know that the commentators now have "awareness" of what is going on. Although I still expect this to be basic, it's moving in the right direction.

Swindon Town for me then in the Championship with a default squad on Superstar! And listening to the WENB podcast yesterday with Adam Bhatti and co, Superstar is supposedly ruthless in ML

[Walker2o]

I played superstar yesterday and defeated Bologna 6-2 though a few things happened that made it seem strange... CPU goalkeeper fluffing a rocket shot I hit straight at him. Either too low a difficulty and I'm a fud or some genuine goalkeepers.

I've been spending far too much of my work day thinking of players to sign.

I went into Milan as they normally have an ageing squad and my first inclination was to sell De Jong, fallen out with him since he kicked Alonso in the chest. Went to sell him to only realise he's a level three leader or general (can't remember) and that would have a very negative effect on my team. The team spirit is pretty ingenious, can't believe it's took so long for either PES or FIFA to get it right. Definitely adds another dynamic when considering your squad having the traits. Low and behold my scout comes out the blue saying strootman was available for a good price. Stuck in a dilemma now haha. Decent price turned out to be 16 million, previously spent 18 on Reus when my original transfer budget was 16... ooops. Need to offload a few before the wahes come off my budget. Zero pre season was a good thing as well. don't know if that will change going into my second season.

A few faults are I don't like not being to tell the day of the week when looking at the calender and each game I've played is at night so far. Wouldn't mind that if I new the game was on a Weekday and not a Saturday!

[Missingno1990]

I head about all the night matches in Master League, but a lot of people seem to be playing Serie A, so that could be why. It might just be some sort of in game bug, but a lot of the Serie A games kick off a bit later in the day.

I did have a long read about the Master League and really liked the player traits idea.

If only the released a PC version that was on par, Master League would have been something else this year. Some of the player mods are just fantastic on PC.

But typical Konami refuse to address the problem and issue a watered down port instead. I only gave in to the PS4 version for the steelbook...