Pro Evolution Soccer is a great game series, but it is absolutely horrible in regards to responsiveness. In PES, the designers went to great lengths to get the actual feel of a soccer game by perfecting the soccer ball physics and taking into account each player's particular strengths and weaknesses, but they sacrificed responsiveness along the way. When you press the X button to pass the ball in PES, the game stores that input as a request and then you have to wait until the kicker has caught up to the ball, gained control of it, and placed his foot before the actual kick animation begins. Sometimes this can be 3 seconds away if the player is far from the ball. However, the X button also happens to be the command for canceling a pass. You can see where this is going right? Many times a player will press the X button to pass, and the game quietly buffers the request and continues to simulate the game. Meanwhile, our player notices that his command didn't execute, so he pushes the X button again. Now the game cancels the kick request, and when the striker gains control of the ball and stops moving, the pass never happens.
To the untrained player, this is simply a broken experience. The punishing situation above teaches the player that the X button does nothing. However, eventually that player might learn the nuanced use of the pass mechanic. But this still causes trouble for me even though I understand the mechanic. Often I will press the X button to buffer a pass, but then while I'm waiting for the action I wonder "did I press the button hard enough?" and I'll press it a second time. Other times I'll mash the X button in a tense moment, only to realize afterward that I have no idea how many times I pressed the X button so I don't know if the last press meant Pass or Cancel Pass.
The decision Konami made with PES was a more realistic soccer game instead of a game that responded instantly to player input like World Cup Soccer for the old school Nintendo. The interesting thing about PES is that it is still a highly regarded game despite it's lack of responsiveness. I appreciate the attention to detail of kicking with the left or right foot, how the placement and spin of the ball have just as much effect as the weather and team's energy levels. I agree with the decision to sacrifice instant responsiveness for more realistic kicks and sprints and nuances of the real game reflected in the simulation. The problem with PES is not the lack of responsiveness, it is the lack of feedback to the player.
Imagine being at a fancy new restaurant and ordering food through a computer at your table. You press the cheeseburger button, the onion rings button, and the Guinness button while the computer screen shows you a message that says, "Welcome to fancy burger! press the buttons below to order!". Well, imagine that the fancy restaurant doesn't confirm your order until a cashier behind a curtain actually accepts the order at another computer terminal. Since your order hasn't confirmed your button pushes immediately, you would logically think that the order wasn't going through. Thinking that the computer isn't working, you might end up pushing the cheeseburger button 5 times before any sort of confirmation comes up, at which point it will say "5 cheeseburgers, 3 fries, 3 Guinnesses - would you like a shake?". The system works, but it doesn't fulfill the communication requirement of letting the person making the requests that their request has been logged and is waiting for execution.
Like the above example, in games we omit the essential part of communication from our system. If our responsiveness is not instant, we must let the player know "action confirmed, just a moment". We've taken great strides in making games more realistic. Jumping, running, throwing, and virtually any action we can think of an avatar doing (besides maybe pulling a trigger) has some time cost now, and often we pad additional time in to get the transitions to look smooth.
All PES needs is a UI element on the screen to let me know if the pass action has been buffered. Draw the X button image when true, and remove the image when canceled. I haven't even said the word yet, so here it is: Feedback. It's what makes games games and not interactive movies.
