Bugs are a part of a gamer’s life that we simply have to accept. No video game comes completely bug-free. There are levels to this, however, and being prevented from playing your go-to title is definitely crossing the acceptable line. That’s precisely what FIFA 23 players are enduring since the start of the 2022 World Cup.
World Cup Swaps were introduced to FIFA 23 Ultimate Team as a way to naturally mix the largest international football event and the most popular FIFA game mode. You can complete challenges in the World Cup Swaps section to earn various rewards and Tokens, which you can use to purchase even greater rewards.
Everything is fine and dandy until you get soft-banned for playing too much. Developers usually try to increase the players’ time with their games, but EA of all companies is currently setting a precedent.
How do you get soft-banned in FIFA 23 World Cup Swaps?
Like every other aspect of Ultimate Team, World Cup Swaps work better the more you play. Objectives are usually about playing and/or winning a certain amount of matches within the game mode. The more time you spend in World Cup Swaps, the better the rewards. EA even incentivizes playing a ton of matches because World Cup Swaps employs a Golden Goal rule, which makes bouncing from one match to the next lightning fast.
The only problem is that doing so would result in a soft ban. How soft ban work is that if you play too many matches in a set period of time, you trigger the soft ban and can no longer achieve any progress. The general consensus about the actual numbers is a limit of 15 matches within an hour or 75 matches within 24 hours.
No one is 100 percent sure about it, though, not even EA. Some players claim the soft ban triggered for them after 10 matches, and others haven’t encountered the issue at all. The same goes for the length of the ban. Some are banned for 24 hours, others for up to 72.
The ban itself is super annoying because it comes in the form of an error message after a game is finished. So not only are you not recording any progress, but you’re also wasting your time.
In any case, the threat of a soft ban is leaving the community in a confused state. The uncertainty is best reflected in the developer’s own actions. Instead of introducing a proper fix, EA went for damage control by limiting the maximum amount of World Cup Swaps any one player can play in 24 hours to 60.
This technically solves the 75 games in 24 hours ban, if that is indeed the exact number at which the soft ban triggers, but does nothing for those getting locked out of the game for playing too much within a single hour. Furthermore, another theory championed by FIFA 23 content creator NepentheZ is that the soft ban accounts for all matches played across all online game modes. If this turns out to be true, then this whole situation becomes a hundred times worse than it already was.
How to fix the World Cup Swaps soft ban issue in FIFA 23
Sadly, the only guaranteed fix to the FIFA 23 soft ban is to not play that many World Cup Swaps matches. Go off the most feasible theory, that the ban triggers on the 15th game you’ve played within the hour, and simply stay below that limit. You can no longer trigger the 24-hour match cap, so this is by far the safest option.
If you still get soft banned despite playing less than 15 games an hour, lower the number of World Cup Swaps you play until you reach a number that won’t get you banned. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we got until EA delivers an actual fix.
As with most weird bugs, and as far as we’re concerned this ban is a bug, there’s at least one whacky solution that could work for some players. This alternative fix for the FIFA 23 World Cup Swaps soft ban is playing a Squad Battles match and watching all of the cutscenes, then going back to World Cup Swaps. The success rate of this fix isn’t great if we’re judging by the Reddit thread that popularized it, but it doesn’t hurt to give it a try.
Published: Nov 30, 2022 07:47 am