They have an effect, but all they do is apply the same things to all teams. For example, I played Rubin Kazan and they had a passing accuracy of 88% minimum on World Class or Legendary. Next game, against Man City, they have the same passing accuracy.
If I alter the sliders, it might drop to 80% - for both - or rise to 90% - for both. What good is that? Yeah, it plays great when I play against Man City, but not when I play against anyone else.
Altering the sliders won't add that missing variation. It'll only make it all one way or another.
I reduced FT error and shot error to 0 and the CPU hit everything on target - even bent a ridiculous shot from out side of the area with the out side of the foot into the top corner..so id argue they do work.
But again - they'll do that whether the CPU player striking the ball is Lionel Messi or Benteke or Heskey or some League Two donkey, so what's the point in the slider? Unless you're going to adjust it for every single game...
Also to address individuality - I have no issues with this, sure it can be improved but if i play for example lucas as an attacking midfielder then substitute him for cortinho i can certainly feel the difference and effectiveness. Likewise if I start with Sturridge up front and then bring on Benteke i play different as Benteke wins more headers so gives me a different option.
My own player control, and individuality, I definitely do feel. I can't argue with you on that. I love playing the game for that feel of having full control of my own players, and knowing which players to dribble with, and which to run away from defenders with.
But the opposition AI is another story.
Their defenders are always perfectly positioned (unless you tweak the sliders so much as to break the defence, and even then it's not AI players making realistic mistakes, it's just AI players deciding to stand far too far apart for no reason).
Their short passes are always quick and perfect (seemingly more so the worse a team's overall ability is - I find long-ball Premier League teams play long balls, but terrible teams realise they don't have the passing accuracy for it, and kick the ball around like Barcelona instead because their short passing ability receives a huge boost due to the difficulty level).
(You can put first touch error down, pass speed down and pass error up, but again, it doesn't stop Premier League teams and League Two teams passing with the same accuracy whether they pass long or short.)
In short... The difficulty level AI is pretty poor, and takes all kinds of shortcuts to make the match difficult for you rather than realistic. Sliders don't amend that.
I feel more dread when I'm against Barnsley than against Barcelona, because (as mfmaxpower has pointed out before now), the defensive side of the game doesn't match up to the attacking side of the game, and you end up with a situation where Barnsley are really difficult to break down, and who can score on the counter thanks to the difficulty level, whereas Barcelona are easier to break down because of their willingness to attack.
i had 3 games online last night with a mate and won 7-0, 1-0 and 1-0.
Good fun when playing a friend.
I really enjoyed playing it online for a while - more than any other football game - but the patches have made it possible to move from one end of the field to the other in a couple of easy passes again.
It's still good, but it's not what it was. Their vision has changed because of the FIFA 15 crowd, and because of the reviews I'd assume, so God knows what FIFA 17 will be like.
EDIT: Rather than make a new post for it (and this is already an essay)...
I tried your sliders and settings again tonight, hitmanuk.
Five games, three 0-0s, CPU possession 88% to 92%, and at one point West Brom put together a 36-pass move (with many of them first-time passes) - only to then randomly turn around and kick the ball out of play, as if for an injury. Garbage.
PES 2016 is not a good game, IMO, but you do find yourself playing possession football against good teams and constantly attacking against poor teams. There's no need to play any other way than "through balls to wingers" in FIFA. Against any team. It's all the same.
Definitely done with it now, player control is great, physics are great, AI is really poor.