Losing games due to disconnecting, without even playing a snap

This morning I tried playing Superstart KO. I won my first game, got to the "MATCH FOUND" screen with a beige background. There was nothing else on the screen - no player images, no spinning football... then I got kicked back to the main Madden menu and have to re-enter Superstar KO again. 

I have to say it... I work in IT for a living... I do DevOps... I cannot believe you folks would let this product out the door in such an unstable state, and actually make us pay for it! Never in my life have I run into a buggy video game before Madden... 

I bought Madden 20 as well, and by the time 21 was out, 20 was barely playable. I think in the future, I will wait to purchase Madden until the community reports STABILITY so the game is actually playable.

If I was the product manager for EA, I would...

1. Halt all prodution on new features
2. Set up a test team to do nothing but play the game (from remote locations, over typical Internet connections) and TRY to break the game.
3. Have adequate logging set up to capture errors
4. Have Developers fix the errors.

I can't imagine how sophisticated the game is, but if it's bigger than developers can handle, then simplify it so the rest of us can be happy with WHAT WE PAYED FOR!

Regards,

On my next match (after I got back into Superstar KO again after being kicked out), I won my first game, then got to the blank MATCH FOUND screen which only lasted 2 seconds this time. Then I got to the next page that shows the player group images of me and my oponent. Then there was a very quick button popup that said something, but it was too fast - it said something about disconnected.

Now I'm back at the Madden 21 main menu again after KO kicked me there. 

On a side note, my online h2h record is now 63-31... I have recorded each game loss result to determine if it was a loss, or a diconnection. 18 OF MY LOSSES ARE FROM DISCONNECTS. That really irks me since ACCURATE stats are a BIG DEAL in football.

I should be 63-19 if the disconnects didn't count. In the end, users are NOT getting their money's worth.

@kasl33 

The issue looks like it's out of our control as your test has been showing your connection dropping before it hits our servers. Can you check your router to see if UPnP is enabled? Also, is QoS (Quality of Service) an option on your router? If so, make sure it's enabled.

I'm not sure what UPnP would have to do with it... I'm not plugging in anything other than the PS4 via HDMI / Cat6 Ethernet. 

My PS4 is in the DMZ, and Xfinity XFi offers no QoS option on their routers. Everything has worked perfect with this XFI Gateway until the Madden 21 update where Superstar KO games were ongoing until you lose. I was able to win 7 games in a row, had a disconnect, and now I can't even play past game 3 anymore.

If I play online h2h, it works perfectly every time through the entire game -- EXCEPT when a disconnect happens pre-game (which I think is people using a glitch to get more wins on their record which is stupid).

Do you know of any way to test the path to easo.ea.com directly from PS4? Since it's in DMZ, it's going to have different results than running traceroute on my Mac which is not in the DMZ.

@kasl33 

Are you also not connecting any wireless devices to that router? If the only device connected to it is your console, UPnP shouldn't be as important, but I'd still try enabling it to see if that makes a difference.

There is no way to run that test from your PS4. Do you happen to have a PC? We find they generate the most accurate results for the UO Trace.

UPnP was already enabled, although still not relevant in my opinion.

I don't use a PC - I use Linux & Mac (as a DevOps / Network Engineer, I find them to be better for the job).

The problem is not my network. The problem is the game - and it started 3 updates ago. Before then, I never had network issues with the game. I have had the game since about a week after it was released. 

80% of my games work perfectly whether they are Superstar KO or Online h2h. KO has a bug that causes disconnects / kicks, and h2h has a bug that causes other users to win if they disconnect pre-game. I'm almost sure of it. Google around and you will find a lot of people have these same issues.

Thanks

@kasl33 

I'm not aware of any known issues with bugs causing disconnects. If you want to continue troubleshooting your connection, let me know.

I'm willing to continue troubleshooting.

Today I played Superstar KO, went on a 10 game winning streak. After that game, I got to the "MATCH FOUND" screen which is a blank tan colored page with nothing else but a spinning football on it. Usually, that page only lasts a second or two, then changes to the page with the pictures of the superstars on my team and my opponent's team. However, it hung at the MATCH FOUND page this time.

After about 2 or 3 minutes, I saw a very quick pop-up that said, "your peer has disconnected" (something like that) - it was a flicker, then I got kiced back to the main menu of the game. 

Also, I was Googling around a little, and noticed that when I search for easo.ea.com and level3 together, I run into other people with the same issue. I'm an Xfinity customer, but level3 seems like they might have some routing problems. I'm going to report it to them and see if we can find out what they're doing. This appears to affect people all over the US west coast in possibly different scenarios since about June, 2020.