Hey everyone!
We recently held yet another Gameplay Developer Q&A over on our official EA SPORTS FC Discord.
I went ahead and summarized all the questions and answers here for you.
Check out what the developers themselves had to say about the upcoming gameplay changes and direction.
Also, if you haven't already, come hang out with us on the official EA SPORTS FC Discord. We’re planning more dev Q&As covering other aspects of the game, so keep an eye out for those if you want to get your questions answered directly by the devs.
Question 1
Nerf 95 depth my players are always offside by a hair follicle
Answer 1
We are working on a few different approaches to make 95 depth feel balanced and fair for all players and we are currently testing them actively. This investigation is the top priority for the Gameplay team right now. Because defensive approach is tightly connected with other elements of our positioning system, we need to test these different approaches carefully to understand what impact they will have on other aspects of gameplay and ensure that other defensive approaches are not affected in a negative way. For instance, as we talked about in the Gameplay Developer Notes, we have changes coming for fullback positioning and offside awareness. These changes are directly related to the behaviour of the defensive line, so we want to make sure that any changes we make to 95 depth don't affect the changes we've made to keep the defensive line solid and attackers still able to track the offside line and make those better runs.
Question 2
Passing is obviously the essence of football. What tweaks can be made to improve the passing on FC27 ? Especially accuracy of A Passes. Attacking AI needs fixing so that players make better runs. And through balls just do not work. Ensure stamina depletes faster when using 95 depth or team pressing. Reduce interception radius by a small amount. And increase jockey speed for defenders so that spinning women can be mirrored - improving the skill gap further There you go game is fixed. Cheers.
Answer 2
We understand that passing is crucial to the football experience, and we want to make sure passing in our game feels as good as possible. We do see some cases where ground passes lead the receiver in an unexpected way, and some cases where through passes made laterally across the pitch target a different receiver than expected. We are investigating both of these scenarios, but because making changes here would impact low level passing systems, we have to move very carefully.
Question 3
So no nerf to low driven near post? No nerd for low driver outside the box? Passing is horrible Defending is pointless
Answer 3
We are aware that near post shots are too effective from some angles and we are working on some related solutions in both shooting and goalkeeper positioning to address this. We'll make sure to keep you updated as soon as we have a timeline for the changes.
Question 4
Nerf Ping pass, playing tiki taka is one thing, playing ping pong is another
Answer 4
We see that players are using driven passes more than last year. Because of the changes to through pass assistance in FC 27, players are using through passes less and driven passes more, which is a shift in game balance that we are monitoring closely. Changes to passing have significant impacts on core gameplay, so we need to be very careful about how we proceed with any tuning. We will continue to monitor in game data and your feedback to inform our decision making for changes to passing in the future.
Question 5
Why do you guys not fix the 95 depth? The team facing the 95 depth loses more stamina than the team playing 95 depth. And in addition the player switching is useless whether you use L1 or the right stick
Answer 5
We continue to see your feedback on switching (both L1/LB and right stick) and are actively investigating cases where switching does not behave as expected. With L1/LB switching, players have very different expectations for switching behaviour depending on their different styles of play and defensive strategies. Right stick switching works differently from L1/LB switching, so we have to approach these two mechanics independently in our investigations. We see room for improvement with both switching mechanics, and we'll keep you updated on our investigations in this space.
Question 6
Fix the overpowered AI controlled player interceptions. Why are attackers making better interceptions and tackling better than defenders? Fix the overpowered tackles from behind. Fix tackle backs. Why are attackers getting the ball back after getting tackled ? Fix overpowered kickoff goals. Fix fullbacks playing attackers onside. Fix attackers always running behind defenders and getting in offside positions.
Answer 6
One of the design principles we have every year is that players should feel appropriate for the position they play in the real world. That's what should drive a lot of the fun in building your squad. When players have tradeoffs, you make hard choices about who makes up your squad, and those decisions are fun when you bring them into the game. When we have situations where players are more effective than expected, like attackers making tackles, it is something we want to address. So rest assured, it's something we are actively working on so we can keep squad building fun and interesting.
Question 7
Ai defending in clubs is atrocious. The defenders do not challenge for over the top through balls and consistently seem to run away from attackers when running towards their own goal. Will there be any changes made to address this?
Answer 7
Yes we see your feedback around CPU controlled defenders in Clubs not dealing well with lobbed through passes, especially in counter attack scenarios. It is something we are currently investigating and we are hoping to have some more updates in this space in the near future.
Question 8
Can u please fix players going out of position, players being off position in game but in position in menus and bruiser without playstyle. A 5’4 female should not be bodying my lucio. Attackers should not be intercepting automatically better than my cb or manual interceptions
Answer 8
We are currently investigating the balance of tall vs. short players, especially in physical challenges. We will keep you updated on our progress on these changes.
Question 9
Fix red cards and yellows, how many times I’ve been absolutely rocked by the last defender and the ref keeps it playing with no cards
Answer 9
We've seen these kind of issues with referee decisions and we are actively testing solutions we think will improve these situations.
Question 10
In authentic feature if we Trun off the weather effect its still has effect applied lol
Answer 10
Thanks for reporting! We will make sure to look into it!
Question 11
More accurate shooting because low driven near post is broken. More accurate passing because pinged pass is broken. More tactical diversity because people are trying to counter the one formation dominating the game. No mention of 95 depth fixes. No mention of wanting to shake up the meta meaning we’ll face the same 11 players every game. All this coupled with a lack of content and evolutions in the mud. I miss FC26.
Answer 11
In FC 26 we saw players favour two formations much more than any any others. In FC 27, our data shows players are predominantly using eight formations across the entire player base in Ultimate Team. Our data also shows that at higher divisions of play there are formations that are more popular. Please continue providing feedback in this space, as we are closely monitoring how competitive gameplay is evolving.
Community Manager