EA SPORTS FC™ 27 | The Grounds Developer Launch Update

It’s been great to see players jump into The Grounds, meet other players, and spend time across the different in-world activities. So far, we’re seeing plenty of activity around small-sided football, including 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and In-World Rush. 

The early data is also highlighting some clear areas where we can improve. One of the biggest is Kickabouts. While small-sided football has been incredibly popular, that popularity has also made it harder for players to find enough people to start matches in some of the other activities around The Grounds.

Table of Contents

• What We’re Hearing From You
• Other Quality-of-Life & Live Issues

What We’re Hearing From You

We’ve been monitoring your feedback closely, and there are a few topics that have come through particularly strongly.

Winner Stays and Win Streaks

We’ve seen a lot of requests for a way for winners to stay on a pitch and build a streak. We’re already seeing players and streamers track their own streaks and create some fun competition around them, and we think there’s an opportunity to better support that directly in The Grounds.

We’ve already begun exploring potential designs for this experience. We’ll share more details as our investigations lead to more concrete plans for updates to the game. 

Kickabout Matchmaking and Queueing

When players get a Kickabout going, we’re hearing that the experience can be a lot of fun. The challenge right now is getting enough players together to start one. 

We know this can make some activities much harder to jump into than we want them to be, and there isn’t one single change that solves the problem. We’re looking at a few different approaches, including ways for players to signal that they need more people at a particular gameplay site, ways to connect players across servers while keeping them in the world experience, and scheduled Kickabout-focused events that could bring more players into these activities at the same time.

Long-term Fatigue in Clubs 11v11

We heard the feedback that infinite stamina could disproportionately benefit Clubs with more players compared to smaller Clubs. Based on this feedback, we’ve reintroduced long-term fatigue in Clubs in Title Update v1.0.1, and will be watching closely over the coming days to understand how the change feels in practice.

Menu Performance

Many of you have told us that menus within The Grounds can sometimes feel slow to load or unresponsive. We’re actively tracking this and continuing to look into where we can improve the experience.

Other Quality-of-Life & Live Issues

We’re continuing to address issues as they are identified, investigated, and ready to release. Some current examples include:

• 5-star skill moves not working in small-sided matches: A fix has been deployed.
• High ping in some cross-region Clubs matches: A fix has been deployed.
• Incorrect Archetype Point costs for certain upgrades: We are investigating.
• 1v1 goalkeepers behaving erratically: We are investigating.
• Teleport access to Stadium and Clubhouse portals: We are testing a potential fix.
• 11v11 drop-in position preferred position not being applied correctly: We are testing a potential fix.
• Unable to open the world map while queued: We are testing a potential fix.
• Map input opening the Season Pass: We are testing a potential fix.

This is only the beginning for The Grounds. We’re continuing to watch the data, listen to your feedback, and make improvements as more players spend time in the mode. 

Keep telling us what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’d like to see next. 

– The FC Clubs & The Grounds Development Team