EA has nerfed some Centurions from Team 2 in a cloak-and-dagger operation. Especially Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marco Verratti are affected. It is not the first time in FIFA 23 that cards get an unannounced hotfix.
As if the FIFA 23 Centurions weren't bad enough already, they were made even worse overnight. Especially the popular Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been hit hard. EA has, without informing the community, "adjusted" important in-game stats of the Centurions Team 2 players.
With this FIFA 23 admits the next mistake, the bug list is getting bigger and bigger. The Centurions already had to correct some things in Team 1, we think of the pace stats of Trent Alexander-Arnold. But the faux pas from a week ago cannot be compared to today's, as Ibra has become almost unplayable.
Update from January 19th:
EA has announced via Twitter that this is a bug that has been fixed in the meantime. In fact, other cards from previous promos were also affected. You can read below what exactly happened to these players and what speculations about various hotfixes and nerfs this has caused.
An unintended issue lowered some Attributes for 4 Player Items in FUT following the most recent Price Range update. This issue has been addressed and the Attributes have been updated to their correct values. (1/2)
— FIFA Direct Communication (@EAFIFADirect) January 19, 2023
FIFA 23: Centurions Heavily Nerfed
It didn't take long for the news to spread on Reddit and Twitter. Because something like that naturally catches the attention of the community. Ibrahimovic has had 24 stamina and 24 balance deducted! The price of his card is currently dropping rapidly. And that doesn't surprise us, because stamina and balance are the most important attributes for every player.
But it's not only that, because at the same time, other stats of Ibra's Centurion card have been buffed. Yes, you read that right. So, EA basically released a card with completely wrong in-game stats on Friday.
If you're thinking to yourself now: Yeah well, that's one player, it can happen... wrong! Almost every player from Centurions Team 2 is affected.
FIFA 23: These Players Have New Stats Now
This unannounced hotfix impacts a total of nine players from the latest FIFA promo, which we rank as one of the worst FIFA promos ever, by the way. And we didn't even include this stats bugs then, it was generally about the players and their stats being way too bad. Now the cards are getting even worse.
A Reddit user compared the current stats with the previous ones from Futbin. It's simply crazy what EA is doing. The nerfs and buffs always refer to similar attributes. For most of the players in the table, the fixes mean clear downgrades.
Ibrahimovic now only has 61 stamina, so the old man has to be replaced after 60 minutes at the latest, which is a real shame. His poorer balance will limit him so much in dribbling that the other buffs won't help either. The first Ibra owners have already sold him out of panic, and he will probably continue to drop in price.
Even though we are talking about buffs and nerfs here, which they are in fact, this is almost certainly more of a bug fix. EA didn't watch the gameplay and think to themselves "oh, we need to nerf the players now". Rather, the cards were simply released incorrectly. And those bugs have been fixed. Was that so necessary? The Centurions are already extremely unpopular...
FIFA 23: Does EA Secretly Nerf Cards?
The community has now noticed for the first time that players' stats have been changed retroactively through live tuning. Now the question is: Has this always happened? Did EA already nerf players in the past, but never entered this in the stats? Maybe the entry of the changed values was a mistake that EA has never made before.
Let's take Ángel Di María's World Cup Team of the Tournament SBC as an example. Di María was so insanely good after his release, but for a few weeks now, the card didn't feel as good as before. His passes are not getting through, his dribbling has slowed down, ball control is poor and his finishing is inaccurate.
I'm sure you have players at your club where you feel the same way. From one day to the next, some cards just get worse. Is that the way it's supposed to be? Are these hotfixes from EA? That might have been confirmed by the Centurions nerfs.
We have addressed an issue where some of the Attributes were appearing differently for some Centurion Player Items.
— FIFA Direct Communication (@EAFIFADirect) January 18, 2023
It would be more than fair if EA corrected the Centurions back to their old stats. Many players paid millions of coins for Ibra because his stamina and balance were so good. They are now making a big loss because of it. Theoretically, these could also be coins from FIFA Points.