After a dodgy SBC inadvertently handed out more Team of the Year Lionel Messi awards to EA Sports FC 24 players than they deserved, EA has announced its response to the incident . Unfortunately, the gaming community isn’t convinced that the publisher’s math correctly reflects the number of cards that were issued in error.
With the final bits of Team of the Year cards making their way into Ultimate Team, many have returned to the mode to grab a few of them after the final men’s and women’s teams were revealed. Many of them probably weren’t expecting the SBC to give TOTY Messi, as the SBC’s design flaws caused it to send the Argentinian striker out so often, but that’s exactly what happened.
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EA has now released an update that addresses what happened to TOTY 86+ Leagues SBC when it went live on January 30, and allowed Messi fever to descend on it for 24 minutes before EA removed it after realizing what was going on. It goes to the player who completes the task.
Why do this, you ask? Well, the purpose of the SBC is to award a non-tradeable 86+ rated TOTY player from one of the 13 leagues who has been awarded one or more TOTY cards. The list includes Major League Soccer (MLS), where there is only one card that fits this bill – you guessed it, it’s 97-rated Messi. So if SBC ends up choosing MLS as its bonus league, you’re sure to get a very useful and highly desirable card.
Yeah, no weird/game-breaking bugs or glitches involved, just an oversight on the part of EA.
In an update to the issue, EA apologized to UT players and claimed that “an estimated 0.7% of Ultimate Team players have earned TOTY Messi items through the game.” However, many EA FC players don’t seem to think so, aside from still being upset that the bug happened, and that EA’s current solution is just to redesign the SBC to let people keep the Messi it gives. I think the percentages quoted there fully reflect the gravity of the situation.
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In a community note responding to EA’s tweet about the update, someone claimed: “The data cited in this article is unclear/misleading. The report states that 0.7% of players have obtained the TOTY Messi item. It fails to state what it represents.” We don’t know if that’s active players, total players or just players who completed 86+ league SBC.”
Regardless of whether the above is accurate or not, the 0.7% of the game’s player base likely represents a noteworthy portion of the game’s active hardcore players, and they are likely the ones who completed the SBC immediately after the game’s release.
So, we’ll have to see how things pan out, but judging from the game’s Reddit subreddit, this is something EA FC players aren’t planning on giving up on anytime soon.
If you’re planning on playing EA Sports FC 24’s Ultimate Team of the Year again now that, you know, the whole Messi debacle has put to rest, be sure to check out our guide to the best cheap top players in the trouble-free SBC as well as EA FC What’s included in the latest game updates.
