Hey FIFA fans,



As we step further into the FIFA 19 season, we'll be using this space to address some of the changes and fixes that are taking place during our post-launch support. We've been gathering feedback from the community around some of the issues our players are reporting and we have been working to address them while also being cognizant of keeping the balance and feel of the game intact.



This article highlights, and provides more insight into, some of the key changes in this title update, which is now available for all PC players, and it is slated to arrive on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in the near future.

For the full list of changes in this title update, check out this post.

GAMEPLAY

For Gameplay, there are 4 areas of focus in this title update: Dynamic Tactics, jumping volley kicks, goalkeepers and goal kicks.

Dynamic Tactics:

To allow for more control over your Dynamic Tactics during a match, it is now possible to make changes to your Game Plans, from the Pause Menu, during a match. This will allow for even more control over your tactics during a match and provide greater ability to respond to the tactics of your opponent.

In addition, when you swap players while on the Balanced Game Plan, those swaps, where possible, will now be applied automatically to your other Game Plans. So, for example, if you swap your Striker and Center Back, in your Balanced Game Plan, after that Center Back gets a red card, that change would now be applied to the other 4 Game Plans where possible. In some cases, if your Balanced Game Plan uses a vastly different formation than your other Game Plans, the automatic swap may not be possible, but with the ability to make adjustments to your Game Plans in the middle of a match, you can still make that change in the Pause Menu.

Jumping Volley Kicks:

We have seen the feedback from the community around jumping volley kicks, such as bicycle or scissor kicks, happening too often, sometimes in unrealistic situations, and that they were too accurate. As a result, we have fixed a couple of issues that were causing these kicks to happen too often, and we have also made a change to bring the likelihood of successfully executing one of these kicks more in-line to what would be seen on a real football pitch.

There was an issue that was causing players that didn't meet the Agility attribute requirements, or who didn't have the Flair Trait (FIFA 19 Traits Pitch Notes Article) to perform these kicks without the player holding the Flair Shot button, which has now been resolved. These kicks were also sometimes happening in unrealistic situations, such as when the attacking player was surrounded by 2 or 3 defending players, which should no longer be happening. Players that had high Agility attributes were also executing the animation for these kicks too fast, making them more effective than intended.

When looking at the effectiveness of these kicks, we found that they were not being impacted enough by error, which was resulting in a higher percentage of these kicks being more accurate and powerful than intended. We have increased the likelihood that these kicks will be impacted by error, which will potentially result in the kicks having less accuracy, less speed and less spin. In situations where executing one of these kicks would be easier, such as when the attacker pops the ball up to themselves in order to do a bicycle kick, the effect of this change will be less noticeable, while it will be more noticeable in a situation where executing one of these kicks would be more difficult, such as trying to hit a bicycle kick on a crossed ball that was coming in at high velocity.

To give some context of how this change will impact these kicks, we have an example of 100 bicycle kicks being taken by Gareth Bale prior to the title update, and after the title update. The blue lines show shots that would have been on the net, which could end up as saves by the keeper or could end up being goals, while the red lines show shots that would have been off target. As is shown below, after the title update, a much higher number of shots are missing the net and the spread of where the shots are targeted is much more varied than before the title update.

Pre-Title Update: