FC 26 Gameplay Feedback – Core Systems Are Fundamentally Broken
This isn’t a tuning issue. It isn’t “early patch adjustments needed.” It’s a foundational intelligence problem. Right now, FC 26 does not understand football at a systems level. Multiple core mechanics actively work against logic, positioning, and player intent. Below is a breakdown of what’s going wrong. 1. Passing Logic Has No Spatial Awareness Passing feels disconnected from player input and football fundamentals. The engine consistently selects the wrong target. Pass down, it passes up. Pass right it passes left. Simple or obvious passing lanes are ignored. Through balls are to overpowered and normal passes to underpowered. The system shows no awareness of angles, pressure, or body positioning. It often feels like the game overrides your decision and chooses chaos. This isn’t difficulty. It’s just broken. 2. Bounce-Back Tackles Winning the ball cleanly should end an attack. Instead: You time a tackle perfectly. You clearly win possession. The ball ricochets instantly back to the attacker. The attack continues like nothing happened. Repeatedly. This creates artificial pressure and removes defensive reward. Tackling is reduced to a minor inconvenience instead of a skill-based action. 3. Overpowered Tackles From Behind Defenders can: Stick out a leg from behind with zero body position. Magnetically hook the ball away. Win possession with no foul called. Meanwhile, attackers lose the ball from the slightest toe contact as if the defender’s boot has superglue on it. Skill dribbling is punished. Blind tackling is rewarded. 4. Defensive AI Centre-backs: Randomly step up to follow attackers into ur box creating space instead of holding line putting them in offside. Abandon the defensive line with no trigger. Create massive gaps for through balls. Full-backs tuck in when they shouldn’t. CDMs don’t track runners. Defenders don’t understand risk management. There is no consistent defensive structure logic. 5. Corners = Instant Counterattacks (Again) After a corner: Your players are out of position. One clearance turns into a 3v2 or 4v2 sprint. No recovery AI logic activates. This isn’t realistic counterplay. It’s systemic imbalance. 6. Attacking AI Is Either Static or Brain-Dead Forwards: Stand still next to defenders. Make runs directly into marked areas. Sprint into offside like a blind buffalo in a stampede. Ignore obvious gaps between centre-backs. There’s no timing, no staggered runs, no reading of play. 7. Dribbling and Creativity Nerfed Into Oblivion Dribbling has been reduced to: Clumsy collisions. Coin-flip animations. Random dispossession. Creative play is punished. Exploit mechanics are rewarded. Anything that requires skill rather than abuse of mechanics has been systematically weakened. 8. Goalkeeper Inconsistency Keepers: Concede from impossible tight angles. Fail to react to near-post shots. Miss routine saves. Then pull off superhuman saves from point-blank range. There’s no logic curve. It feels animation-driven, not physics-driven. Certain angles should not be 100% goals. 9. “Impossible” Solo Goals Players can: Run straight through multiple defenders. Ignore physical pressure. Score from unrealistic shooting positions. Meanwhile structured build-up play is unreliable. The balance favors chaos over football. 10. Reward Structure Punishes the Average Player Example: 24 attempts required. 20 wins needed for full rewards. That locks a large portion of the player base out. Instead of scaling rewards fairly, the system demands near-perfection. It discourages participation. 11. Pack Weight & Progression Frustration Whether intentional or not: Pack luck feels heavily unrewarding. Progression feels grind-gated. Rewards don’t match effort. If gameplay is frustrating and rewards are underwhelming, engagement drops fast. 12. Server Instability & Input Delay Especially during objective tournaments: Heavy gameplay. Delayed inputs. Inconsistent responsiveness. Skill gap disappears when responsiveness isn’t consistent. 13. Rubberbanding & Objective Quitting When players: Rubberband to complete objectives. Intentionally lose to avoid playing… That’s not a community problem. That’s a gameplay satisfaction problem. People avoid playing because the experience isn’t enjoyable. Core Issue: The Game Doesn’t Reward Football Intelligence Right now: Reading the play isn’t rewarded. Tackling cleanly isn’t rewarded. Creative dribbling isn’t rewarded. Structured defending isn’t rewarded. Patient build-up isn’t rewarded. Exploit-heavy, chaotic play is. This isn’t realism. It isn’t difficulty. It’s low-level decision logic across multiple systems. What Needs to Change Rework spatial awareness in passing. Remove or drastically reduce bounce-back possession immunity. Tone down behind-the-back tackling magnetism. Fix defensive line discipline AI. Balance corner recovery logic. Improve attacking run intelligence and offside awareness. Restore dribbling responsiveness and reward skill input. Stabilize goalkeeping logic based on angle and distance. Overpowered females outmuscle big guys. Just seriously. Just give evryone pink hair and pink boots allready. Adjust reward systems to scale more fairly. Fix server responsiveness before adding more content. If this is the intended gameplay direction, then it’s deeply concerning. Because right now, FC 26 doesn’t feel competitive. It doesn’t feel realistic. And it definitely doesn’t feel intelligent. A great example is when my midfielder just runs past the guy with the ball to go to his position instead of going for the ball Tactics are terrible... It feels like a football game that doesn’t understand football. U also have negative game mechanics. The game is full of them, like ur player slowing down, tumbling for 4 seconds, or the best way to prove it... If u try to pass at the back ur passes come unprecise and the first touch becomes difficult even from a small pass. So yes game is actively trying to make u worse. Many more things as well but all these are core problems with the game. But the really tragic part is... This is not at all fun or enjoyable. Ping used to average around 30ms. Now it’s sitting at 38ms. Either half the player base quit overnight, or the servers have somehow gotten worse. And honestly? It feels like the latter. Gameplay is completely off. The connection feels delayed, heavy, unresponsive. Whether it’s bad ping or just broken mechanics, dribbling has been absolutely nerfed into the ground. Players turn like trucks, skill moves feel delayed, and responsiveness is nowhere near what it should be. This isn’t “competitive difficulty.” It’s input lag and clunky gameplay. Right now, it’s borderline unplayable. Fix the servers. Fix the responsiveness. Because this? This isn’t it. On a scale of 1 to 6 this is a clear 1. Its a really really terrible product and should never been released. This reeks of lack of understanding or just a complete lack of care about football or your customers. Just horrible Sry for long post, but its just so much wrong with the gameLet us chose in sesons
EA have to fix it so you don't have to face Real every single match, I win 75% of the matches but it's the same, same, same all the time. Let us choose a team you don't have to face so people dare to try new ones. Or just fix so you are in PL and only face PL teams. This is making the game boring.Add deadzone outer threshold for the movement stick.
The Small and Large deadzone option for the movement sticks aren't enough to help the stick drift issues I have but an outer threshold option would really help. The drift stick problem I face is the stick pulls backwards and out of the max deadzone causing me to stop sprinting, have dead slides, and move really slowly.
Up 4-0 and all of a sudden 4 goals scored by the opponent to win!
It can't be anything except scripted when going up by 4 goals only ensures the other team will score 4 goals in response. How can this happen every single game? How can I go up by 3 or 4 goals to zero. Only to have the team that could not do anything all of a sudden run my team in the last 20 minutes to score 5 goals in response. My passing goes to less than 50% and my defenders start creating a diagonal line allowing the striker to not be off sides every time they throw a through pass and they win the game. How does this happen in 4 games in a row? Then I win a game where the same exact thing happens in my favor. I get murdered in the first half down 4 goals. Now all of a sudden i can easily get by their defense and I go on to score 5 goals to win the game. Then the same thing happens again in their favor for a couple games. How is this not scripted? This can not happen in this great of a number and not be scripted. Sorry staff I can't not say this anymore. The game is scripting defenses to sabotage their own teams when you are winning by too much.
Add limits on strafe spamming
I swear it gets super annoying especially octane stim that everybody strafe spam all the time in a fight rotational assist doesn't help either it just makes your aim way much more worst. with octane is a super pain despite dealing with movement on stim it seriously makes it unfair. This game should rely more on aim than movement aim is more key on winning the game than movement
Proposals for measures to improve visibility
This does not affect players who do not aim for headshots or who rely on aim assist. The main ones are the effect that appears when you are looking directly at an enemy when using Sparrow's Tactical Tracking, the aura-like effect when using Ballistic's ultimate, and Vantage's tracking ping, which have the effect of reducing visibility and lowering shooting accuracy. Please refrain from adding effects to areas that are not hit-detected, such as around the character. Specifically, display effects only in the center of the body. Alternatively, you can improve visibility by removing effects around the head.LB and right stick and RB contain work against common sense
I am working against my own team. The only reason I and many others are losing half the games is because of sabotaged positioning by my own team constantly tryiing to hold a programmed positiion to the detriment of our own team. It is pretty disgusting to say the least. This game is so maddening it is unbelievable. The staff in the forums just troll the fans while the game developers concern themselves with micro transactions. This game for the last 5 years has been so automated more and more it is programmed to create competitive appearances that are fixed turnovers. Fixed rebounds straight back to the shooter for goals. Tacklebacks for goals. Nerfed defenders. Passes going straight to the defenders. This is beyond disgusting.
