Agree with everything you're saying; it's a really sad state the game is in. It's painful playing competitive game modes like Champs when the connection lets you down. Some weekends I'll literally be on fire at 6-0 and then my players are walking thru mud for the remaining 9 matches where I go 50% at best, at which point I just want to see decent rewards.
I'm on PS5 and currently don't accept games unless the ping is below 20ms - usually ranges from 14-18ms with some spikes above 20ms. I promise you that no matter what I've tried this number doesn't really indicate how my games will go. On top of that, the delay isn't even consistent in itself, and most certainly doesn't translate the same for my opponents.
If it's any consolation those record revenues are a bit misguiding and don't indicate the FC or especially FUT/Pro Clubs bases. Anecdotally it's shrunk, as almost every friend has moved to a different game. But I've also heard via FUT Weekly Pod and other social media influencers that the sentiment is shared, despite lots of clickbait posts about how the "game is gone." It's legitimately not improved this server issue since it became super prevalent ~10y imo.
From my FUT experience I've noticed that as the game goes on and player items get faster/better, the gap in connection becomes even more noticeable. It's probably partly related to them only adding features/functionality which bogs down gameplay over time until it's partially pared back in the summer.
Self reflection as a community, I think we also need to accept that even if there's a little bit of a "meta" it doesn't always need to change. This often leads to a very vanilla, AI-heavy, connection-driven hellscape like we have now and in past years.
Major fixes in this game are needed but #1 is making the game playable even if the actual gameplay is contentious. Even if they don't fix the actual connection/netcode, they could have more meaningful indicators than "ping" which means next to nothing. Just some ideas:
- Show us what server we're on and give us a choice - like in Apex legends (EA game)
- Prioritize connection-based matchmaking over skill-based
- Server health indicator: show the actual tick rate and load so we know ahead of time if it'll be a bad time to play
- Release their lag compensation algorithm (or just delete it!)
- Opt into server queues for better placement
All in all we're probably shouting down a well here, but if no one says anything they surely won't change their ways.
