EA Sports FC 25 Ultimate Team will implement a duplicate storage feature for untradeable multiple players drawn from packs, which can then be used in SBCs.
This long-awaited feature is one of several quality-of-life updates EA is rolling out with EA Sports FC 25 Ultimate Team, designed to alleviate the community’s general dissatisfaction with the daily game.
“I’ve been working on the product for 12 years, so I’ve lived through the rise of Ultimate Team and the general vocality of our community,” Richard Walz, Ultimate Team’s game design director, told iGamesNews at an EA Sports FC 25 preview event. “It feels great to be honest, getting more community requests and making more quality of life improvements. While it’s not going to be a huge thing, being able to address those issues makes a big difference in the lives of our players.”
Just like you can send players to the trade pile, in FC 25 you can send duplicate non-tradable items to the SBC Store. Then, when you start a Squad Building Challenge, this SBC Store will have its own tab so you can browse your duplicates first.
However, EA Sports FC 25 will also implement a paid Premium Season Pass for the first time.
Other changes coming to Ultimate Team in FC 25 include relaxing evolution entry requirements, so players can actually evolve their favorite players more often, rather than focusing on isolated meta items.
Friendlies will then be independent of the rival matchmaking system. This is intended to bring friendlies closer to the casual space it should occupy. In FC 24 and earlier, friendlies were often more competitive than rival matches because of the guaranteed big prizes, but there were strict limits on how many games could be played in a day.
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Speaking of Rivals matches, in FC 25 you’ll also be able to relegate from Rivals divisions – hopefully stopping players from getting stuck in a division above their level.
Finally, weekly rewards have also been revamped and will now be unlocked via a points-based system, with wins giving 3 points and draws giving 1 point. The rewards for completing matches in higher tiers will also apparently be better.
EA says these changes are the start of a more proactive approach to implementing community feedback more quickly.
“We now have a department that’s funded to proactively focus on and address our core community complaints more frequently than before,” Walz explained. “So as a group of people working on making this game, we’re now able to listen to the community and respond more quickly, which is a really important milestone.”
“With all these community requests, we don’t want to wait until after the product launch year to address these issues because the fan expectations are growing year by year,” said Karthik Venkateshan, producer of Ultimate Team. “That’s why we started this department, like, ‘How can we make these changes faster?’ That’s definitely our goal.”
To see everything new in this year’s game, including the FC IQ tactical overhaul and the Rush game type, check out our EA Sports FC 25 hands-on preview.
EA Sports FC 25 will be released on September 27th.
