FC 26 – New September (FIRST PATCH) Changes

How Gameplay is going to change with the new FC 26 Patch

This is the new changes in FC-26 with the new patch, there was a lot of rumours going around that defending was going to be changed, but it appears that FC-26 has been doing some voting and it appears that they are not going to be changing defending first patch.

Main Changes

Here’s a list of the main changes for FC-26, these are the official bullet points they’ve been given to us by EA, below this I will go over my general opinions on how I felt from playing the game

EA SPORTS FC 26 version 1.0.2 is now available for all platforms and includes updates to gameplay based on the feedback you gave us throughout the EA SPORTS FC 26 Closed Beta.

This TU includes:

Tuning changes to Low Driven Shots.
Improvements to AI attacking support and positioning.
Addressing instances of Manager Career players leaving the team when simming.
Borderless display setting and controller responsiveness improvements.
Various stability improvements.
And much more.

Gameplay

Made the following updates:

Tuned Low Driven Shots based on your feedback in the Closed Beta to be less accurate when shooting with an extreme amount of power.
EASFC Card: /trello.com/c/Up39JOsh
As part of our AI attacking updates based on your feedback, made the following changes:
Increased frequency of wingers making attacking runs into the box.
Wing Backs will no longer drop too deep in their own half when their team is in possession.
Improved teammate offside awareness.
Addressed instances of players not making runs into open space when it could be beneficial.
EASFC Card: [Gameplay] Attacking AI Positioning on EA SPORTS FC Tracker
Improved positioning of players when playing with low defensive depth so that they’re not pushing too high up the pitch.
Center Backs are now less likely to run wide when marking central attackers.
False Backs now transition more intelligently to defense to better maintain defensive shape.
Updated the Be A Goalkeeper UI:
A goalkeeper dive indicator now displays where an incoming shot is coming from.
Changed the Camera Pan input based on your feedback and to avoid button conflicts.
As shared on the EASFC Tracker, we’re continuing to work on Be A Goalkeeper updates to improve the gameplay experience. We’ll share more details in the near future.
EASFC Card: [Gameplay] Be A Goalkeeper Save Delay on EA SPORTS FC Tracker
Improved cases of unexpected heavy touches when sprinting in wet weather Authentic gameplay based on your feedback.
[Gameplay] Heavy Dribble Touches on EA SPORTS FC Tracker
Improved instances of Ground Passes unexpectedly falling behind the intended receiver.
Tuned difficult to perform Driven Ground Passes to be less accurate, for example, first time Driven Ground Passes taken at 180 degrees.
Addressed incorrect shooting animations that sometimes occurred when attempting lace shots, resulting in unexpected behavior.

Ultimate Team

Addressed the following issues:

Players weren’t always able to enter multiplayer gameplay after accepting a Co-Op invite.
Player Item portraits were sometimes misaligned on the Squad screen.
A stability issue could have occurred after completing the Onboarding and viewing your Squad for the first time.

Career Mode

Addressed the following issues:

Players could’ve incorrectly left your club when simming through the calendar.
EASFC Card: [Career Mode] [Workaround] Players leave your club when simming.Investigating

General, Audio, and Visual

Made the following changes:

Updated some star heads, kits, and placeholder text/images.

Addressed the following issues:

[PC Only] Adjusting display settings while in Borderless could have unintentionally resulted in performance loss.
[PC Only] Addressed a few instances of controllers not recognizing inputs.
We will continue to investigate this and other reported PC issues and provide updates in the near future. More details are available throughout the EASFC Tracker and on Steam News.
Addressed a number of stability issues that could have occurred.

If you want to improve in FC 26, join my FC School Series, where tens of thousands of people have improved, we are so sure we can help you, if you dont get better we will refund you after a month.

My Main Thoughts and changes:

So these are my main impressions, I played the game last night and I can tell you there isn’t that much of a difference on gameplay, there’s always this big misconception when the patch comes out there’s something completely changed.

In terms of what has changed, definitely is low drivens, what I was doing before was I was doing very high-powered low driven shots, it was the accuracy that was giving to these shots a high effective rate, you were still able to score very easily even with a player that did not have high shot power.
What they have done is is they’ve reduced their effectiveness as you can see from the image above, and they’ve increased the spread range of the shot, so even if you are using precision shooting you could still miss the target, I think this is a good thing, I think it was overpowered before, however, I do feel like if you just go for a mid power shot you can still achieve the same thing. So just don’t go near 90% power, but rather stay around 50-50%

That would be the key change, there is also another change to AI attacking support and positioning, I see it in very little in gameplay situations, it’s not as obvious as you think. A lot of people have been complaining because they think that defending is hard as it is, why would they want to make attack better? but the truth is the attacking movement is not the the best so far, its more defending is bad and more manual, making attack “feel better” but not in terms of AI movement. There’s been some issues with how centre backs also run back and track runs, they’ve also made changes to that, but I havent tested this fully yet.

They have improved teammate offside awareness, again its too early to say is this effecting the step up if you manually move up the other defender, or is this just general play of holding the line. I think more testing needs to be done, but the most important thing was the centre backs are now less likely to run wide when marking central attackers, which caused a lot of holes defensively.

Time will only tell, I will do some more testing and keep you updated.

Neal Guides

I am NealGuides, I run a Youtube Channel with over 300k+ Subscribers helping people get better at FC 26. We have helped millions of people improve.
I am part of the EA Design Council, in which I have played EA FC 26 early and provide feedback on the game to help shape its future.
I have coached many players in FC from the average casual, to pros, to real life footballers. If you want to improve at FC join my FC school series.