FIFA 23 players claim World Cup swaps are “worst thing” to ever happen to game
FIFA 23’s World Cup content has added a ton of new cards and content to the game, but the Swaps element has left a sour taste for many due to glaring issues with the concept.
Aside from weekly promos flooding FIFA 23 with tons of content, the major hype for November and December in the game has been the presence of the World Cup.
The Qatar 2022 World Cup has seen the arrival of a World Cup game mode, new World Cup Stories, and a grind for World Cup Swaps that earn players various rewards.
The World Cup Swaps system allows players to collect up to 40 unique WC Token cards that are used for reward SBCs – including special packs, as well as FIFA 23 Ultimate Team Icons.
However, the flip side is that the process for World Cup Swaps isn’t to everyone’s liking with many criticizing the rules for earning Tokens, as well as other decisions such as introducing a game limit.
To earn many of the Tokens, players must win six games of friendlies whilst having six World Cup cards from a certain country in the tournament in their starting XI. Meaning, you can conceivably fill the rest of your team out with the game’s best players, and sub off the WC players for other top names.
“WC Swaps are one of the worst things that EA ever did to this game,” was the blunt message vocalized by one member of the FIFA 23 community on the game’s subreddit.
The user explained that most matches feature opponents that use “Mbappe, Al Owairan, Ginola, Neymar and co.” and that the repetition of OP teams should be counteracted with the following conditions: “Only red WC cards, limit team rating to 85-86, same golden goal rule, it will be 1000 times more interesting to play than this Mbappe simulator, 1-2 pass, spam through balls, press after possession loss, repeat ffs.”
One player chimed in: “I said this day 1, not that it’s the worst, but due to the rewards being good the grind had to be massive. I was going to get all these players, but I changed my expectations immediately. The soft ban and then the limit is the cherry on the cake.”
World Cup Swaps were originally very well-received, with EA making it so that every game was Golden Goal, meaning that the player who scored first was instantly awarded the win – even if the goal took place in the first minute.
But even that joy has been short-lived as EA has now implemented a limit on how many games can be played per hour at just 10. “Super frustrating decision, so now people who do lack time are absolutely limited to finish Swaps in a short time when they do have free time for it,” said the OP.
The line of complaints goes on with the OP also adding: “Let’s say you work 9-5, then you need time to travel home, spend time with your friends or family, then you have only 1-2 hours before you will go to sleep to grind tokens, even if you won 10/20 you have earned just ONE token…it’s insanity, they want players to have a full-time job in FIFA.”
The World Cup Swaps promo is still set to run for another few weeks alongside Qatar 2022, so keep up to date with our World Cup Path To Glory upgrade tracker, as well as our Ones To Watch tracker as WC 2022 wins affect those cards.
Image Credit: EA