Bandai Namco has announced via X that Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero servers for all platforms will be going down this Thursday evening (Friday morning if you’re in Japan) for some important maintenance for online modes.
The official Dragon Ball Games account shared the news early Wednesday morning across two X posts, the first announcing the maintenance and projected 5-hour down time, the second clarifying exactly what changes are rolling out.
Developers will be taking Sparking Zero offline on Thursday November 29, starting at 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Both Custom Battle: World Library and ranked matches will not be available during this maintenance period as developers are recalibrating point totals that have gone awry.
You can view the pair of posts embedded here:
The DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO servers will undergo maintenance on all platforms on November 29th at 06:00 CET | 14:00 JST | 28th 21:00 PST and will last around 5 hours.
Unavailable modes:
Custom Battle: World Library
Ranked MatchThank you for your patience. #DBSZ
— Dragon Ball Games (@dragonballgames) November 27, 2024
This update comes less than a week after developers made changes to more effectively punish rage quitters (those who disconnect from online bouts prematurely to avoid losing). It’s unclear as to whether these two pieces of maintenance are directly related since details are sparse, but re-tweaking point totals for nefarious online actors and those they’ve robbed of points does fit the bill here.
This all comes under the shadow of a more conspicuous issue distracting fans from enjoying Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero right now as last weekend’s French leg of the Dramatic Showdown Tournament circuit concluded in controversy.
As the game exists now, the most effective strategy in Sparking Zero involves spamming evasive maneuvers in efforts to score 10-minute time outs. The action is horrific to watch by competitive fighting game standards, and so right now many in the community are eagerly awaiting Bandai Namco’s plan to fix this, which is currently expected to roll out in a promised December patch.
These early issues may point to why Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero has already gone on sale, though we are entering the Black Friday/holiday season.