An Update to eFootball 2022's V.1.1

As I covered in my last piece, Konami’s update to eFootball 2022 was, at the time, well received. Noticeable improvements were felt as most of us played offline due to some routine and not-so-routine online maintenance.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the large-scale maintenance. As compensation for the issues encountered during the maintenance period and the inconvenience caused by the subsequent emergency maintenance, we have sent 50,000 GP to all users that have created a game account by 06/09/2022 01:59 (UTC). We hope you continue to enjoy playing eFootball™ 2022!

If you’re familiar with Konami and the PES franchise, you’re no stranger to Konami’s routine server maintenance. As far back as I can remember (in the post-online days), Konami has regularly scheduled maintenance to keep servers optimized and make the overall online experience a pleasant one. Well, unfortunately all was not well after the update for V1.1.0 went into effect. In Konami’s own words:

Thank you for playing eFootball™ 2022.
We would like to extend our gratitude for all the feedback and suggestions ever since the launch of version 1.1.0.

We are looking to reflect your feedback and address the reported issues via the upcoming updates.

— eFootball (@play_eFootball) June 13, 2022

Considering that the major update (V1.1.0) was released on May 31, Konami then had to turn around and let players know that a patch was coming shortly:

We will be releasing v1.1.1 for eFootball™ 2022 on 16/06/2022.

As a token of our gratitude for your continued support, all users that have installed the update (v1.1.1) by 20/06/2022 01:59 (UTC) will receive a Chance Deal.

*After installing the update (v1.1.1), log in to the game and access your Inbox by 20/06/2022 01:59 (UTC) to claim the Chance Deal.

*The Chance Deal can be used after the launch of the update (v1.1.1) until 23/06/2022 01:59 (UTC).

We hope you continue enjoying eFootball 2022!

Responsiveness

So what exactly went wrong since the June 4 update. Well, thankfully PES/eFootball aficionado KnightMD has been gracious enough to document a lot of what has gone wrong, starting with responsiveness:

Online vs Offline responsiveness: Why @play_eFootball feels like a different, much more responsive game offline, compared to 1.1 online: pic.twitter.com/ovCpf2Ge4X

— KnightMD (@KnightMD1) June 13, 2022

It’s not uncommon for sports games to feel and play differently online vs. offline. As far back as I can remember, there has always been a light input delay when playing online, especially in PES which has struggled to adapt to the influx of online play by younger players. A slight delay when passing or shooting is somewhat understandable, but to have your players take a full touch instead of a first-time pass/flick is worrisome and can lead to negative consequences like your counterattack slowing down.

These kinds of issues, which happen regardless of what user assist level you play on, can’t be attributed solely to server lag because they’re not as prevalent offline. Instead, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way animations branch together or do not branch together causing drawn out animations. FIFA has the opposite issue where it’s far too easy to break out of animations, which results in unnatural looking animations and sometimes comical collisions.

So what’s the solution exactly? Well, for starters, there has to be more animations added to the game in order for the game to transition from one animation to another. If that’s not possible, then Konami needs to just allow the original button input play out and tune the collision system while also balancing the referee logic/foul system. Neither of these proposed solutions are easy fixes so it will be very telling to see if Konami can fix what wrong post-June 4.

Kickoff Glitch

If you’re not familiar with the kickoff glitch or personally haven’t happened to see it, then all I can say is “good for you.” Unfortunately, for those of us who play a lot of online matches, it’s something that rears its ugly head and needs to be fixed.

Konami was said to have fixed this, but it’s still highly prevalent and there’s really little you can do because you can’t pre-position your defense at the restart. You can try to go “all-out defense” by pressing down on the D-pad twice to drop your defensive lines, but even with that you’re still susceptible to conceding a goal right after kickoff. You’re almost forced to counter these cheap goals with your own 1-2 passing moves, but as someone who likes to play possession-based football, it’s not a realistic tactic as you very rarely see any team in real life concede in these types of situations.

Konami Adds Partnership With A.C. Monza

Partner Announcement 📣✍️#eFootball is proud to announce the launch of it's partnership with newly promoted Serie A side @ACMonza 😍

The Lombardia club have reached the top flight of Italian league football for the first time in their over 110-year history! pic.twitter.com/rOYWSXp34Y

— eFootball (@play_eFootball) June 14, 2022

Newly promoted (for the 2022-23 season) Italian side A.C. Monza has followed in the footsteps of Atalanta, Lazio, and Roma in signing a partnership with Konami. Despite not having a huge following, the more partnerships the better, even if you can’t technically use them yet because the modes are lacking and Konami hasn’t fully released all of the clubs available online for offline play.

Bottom Line

When everything is going well in eFootball 2022, it’s a really fun game. It is not up to par on the graphics front, and without Master League, edit mode, or a proper offline exhibition mode there isn’t much to do apart from playing online. That said, considering how poor this game was at launch, there are times where it feels like vintage PES. However, once the server maintenance finally ran its course, this most recent update felt like a step back with regards to online play. While offline play was generally improved, the lack of the aforementioned modes leads to a stale experience, so it’s imperative that Konami salvages what good faith it recaptured with the V1.0.0 release. Konami has a history of this sort of thing with eFootball PES 2021 Season Update feeling different depending on which Data Pack was released. At least now Konami is being a bit more transparent with the patch notes instead of letting us as the community figure it out through trial and error.