This week, the EA FIFA community has been in an uproar over a potential glitch with a player affecting stat called Chemistry.
The glitch specifically affects Ultimate Team. A YouTuber, RighteousOnix, first showcased the glitch in a video he posted on June 25.
In his video, above, Onix shows how this potential glitch might be artificially raising and lowering player stats with no rhyme or reason. He uses the dribbling stat as his example. Once a player reaches 86 Dribbling he can perform a stepover sprint with the ball.
Over on Reddit, the FIFA subreddit has exploded over the issue.
What we’ve found:
Just to give a really quick run-down of what has been discovered, in lay-mans terms:
1) In FIFA Ultimate team you open packs to gain access to cards which represent players in the game. You can also buy these cards from other users.
2) When you build your team, by playing cards in particular positions, and with particular set-ups, you can increase their chemistry attribute. Having a high chemistry attribute on a player will give them boosted stats, having a low chemistry will nerf their stats. These chemistry stats boosts are huge for how your team plays.
3) It turns out that for a large chunk of the most expensive cards in the game, FIFA has not been attributing the stats boost to the cards afforded by their chemistry. Meaning that they feel sluggish, slow and clumsy in comparison to other, cheaper cards in the game which have been given the chemistry stats boost.
4) This means that users have been spending vast amounts of in-game and real life money, sometimes hundreds even thousands of dollars/pounds, to obtain player cards which are NOT what they seem and are in fact heavily nerfed.
The official FIFA forums at EA Sports are no different with some players seeking refunds:
“If they want to refund all my FIFA points ever spent in time for FIFA 17 coming out then that’s cool with me.”
So far, EA has not commented on the issue. Their Twitter feed is full on promoting Ultimate Team and FIFA 17 at this point. Neither the forums nor the subreddit feature any EA moderators jumping in.
It’s been mum from EA. If this Ultimate Team glitch is truly affecting the game, we’re surprised EA wouldn’t say something and try to fix it. EA makes nearly half a billion dollars per year on Ultimate Team alone. Driving players away with such a glitch certainly feels bad for business.