Some player items that were part of the FIFA 23 Rulebreaker promo in October have seemingly had their stats nerfed by EA Sports ahead of the TOTY event.
Questions have been asked of EA Sports over the last few days, after players began to notice in-game attributes for high-profile player items were changing in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team with no explanation, including FUT Centurions Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The Swedish striker, along with nine other FUT Centurions players from Team 2 of the promo, had their in-game stats 'nerfed' by EA, but not long after this was noticed, EA Sports reverted their stats back to their original state.
But now, it seems more players have had their attributes changed, with Rulebreakers Edin Dzeko and Rulebreakers Frank Ribery both receiving drastic downgrades. Mirror Gaming has approached EA Sports for a comment on these changes and has been told that the issues are currently being looked into.
UPDATED 09.04am GMT, Friday, January 20: EA Sports confirmed via its @EAFIFADirect Twitter account that the attributes for these player items were changed unintentionally and have now been returned to normal.
These attribute changes have been revealed following the changes that were temporarily made to the 10 FUT Centurions Team 2 player items yesterday, with the changes happening just before the highly-anticipated TOTY promo begins. Twitter user @Doumbia_FUT was the first to point out that Dzeko and Ribery have had their stats changed.
According to the screenshots uploaded to Twitter, both Ribery and Dzeko have seen major decreases in a couple of their in-game attributes, but the question on everyone's lips is the same. Why?
According to these screenshots, these are how both players' Rulebreakers items were impacted by EA's latest nerf:
Rulebreakers Edin Dzeko changes
- Vision – 71 to 70
- Crossing – 59 to 60
- FK. Accuracy – 51 to 52
- Short Passing – 75 to 73
- Long passing –73 to 72
- Curve – 62 to 61
- Agility – 78 to 67
- Balance – 80 to 59
- Reactions –86 to 89
- Ball Control – 87 to 91
- Dribbling – 80 to 83
- Composure – 90 to 94
- Stamina – 80 to 75
- Strength – 92 to 94
- Aggression – 62 to 63
Rulebreakers Frank Ribery changes
- Stamina – 84 to 68
- Strength – 65 to 71
- Aggression – 65 to 62
- Jumping – 45 to 42
- Positioning – 95 to 99
- Finishing – 86 to 87
Based on yesterday's events regarding the changes to FUT Centurions players, you can't help but feel that something isn't right. A long-running, and as-of-yet unsubstantiated, theory that has long been talked about within the FUT community is that EA Sports nerfs promo players before the next promo is released, in an attempt to encourage players to try and obtain newly-released items.
And, with all of this happening right before TOTY's release, it does seem a little suspicious, especially after EA's very vague response to the FUT Centurions nerfing issue. On EA's Direct Communication Twitter account, the following statement was released.
The statement read: "We have addressed an issue where some of the Attributes were appearing differently for some Centurion Player Items."
Yep, that's it. As expected, the response didn't go down well within the FUT community, who don't seem to believe that this is just an accidental error on EA's part, especially with the theories flying around.
It just all seems a bit fishy. Why EA would change the in-game attributes of players released in Ultimate Team back in October 2022? There needs to be a clear explanation of what is happening and why. There are also question marks about the actual attributes that are being changed. Changing stats such as Balance, Stamina and Agility will heavily impact how a player feels in-game and would certainly make a previously good item much worse.
The Ribery Rulebreakers item would have been full of energy until the 70th minute, but with his Stamina being decreased to 68, he will be lucky to last 45 minutes at full speed. Mirror Gaming is awaiting an official response from EA Sports and will update this article with any new information in due course.
