Season 5 - Following Up on Your Feedback

First of all, we want to thank you all for joining us for the release of Rematch Season 5. We’ve received a lot of feedback since launch, and we’re actively listening to and analyzing it. Thanks to that, we’ve identified a number of issues that we’re working to address as soon as possible.

We usually run beta tests ahead of major updates to help us identify issues earlier and gather your feedback before release. Without a beta for Season 5, more bugs made it through than we would have liked. It also created some confusion around the changes we introduced, particularly around what was intentional and what wasn’t.

We weren’t able to run a beta for Season 5 because we’re currently managing multiple versions of the game in parallel, which comes with its own technical risks. In particular, we’re preparing for the Netcode 2.0 Beta Tests, the first of which is planned for the first half of October.

Those beta tests are coming very soon, and we’re looking forward to having you involved. As always, your feedback will be incredibly valuable in helping us improve these changes.

GOALKEEPER DIVES AND REBINDING

The goalkeeper rework has received a lot of feedback, with some players saying it is now too strong and others saying it is too weak. We hope the added depth of the role will really shine over time as players get the hang of it, and we are happy with what we’ve seen in-game so far in terms of the variety and depth it brings. However, it is still too early to know how it impacts the balance of the game across all levels of play.

Aside from considerations around the usability and balance of this rework, we made two mistakes.

The first was not taking all possible player input mappings into account when delivering the patch. We will address some of these remapping issues in upcoming patches. Going forward, we will also consider more robust remapping systems a must-have when introducing new features or making changes to existing inputs.

The second mistake was not communicating our intentions and plans early enough to allow all parts of the community to better prepare for this change and give us feedback on it. For future updates, we will communicate these kinds of changes earlier and more frequently. We will also work on better presenting new features in-game, so players can learn and adapt to them through in-game tutorials as soon as they are introduced.

EXHAUSTED DRIBBLE STATE AND MAGNETISM

The exhausted dribble state was a necessary and long-overdue addition to the way Rematch is played and balanced. It gives us a foundation to further improve the balance and depth of the game in the future.

In Season 5, we changed some of the rules around ball control to reduce instances of the ball visually “teleporting” on screen. This is a long-standing issue that can create unfair situations in the game. When the invisible hitbox that allows players to control the ball reaches further than a tackle, judging timing and spacing becomes unintuitive and inconsistent.

Unfortunately, these changes also introduced some bugs that affected dribbling more significantly than we intended. One of these is an issue where Defense Mode and dashing don’t properly take control of the ball. We have a fix for this issue coming in the current batch of hotfixes.

“Magnetism” is a broad term used by players to describe a number of different behaviors, rather than an actual mechanic in the game. Because of this, our patch note on the subject created confusion around what was an intended change and what was a newly introduced bug. We will work on describing fixes and changes more clearly in our patch notes to avoid this kind of confusion in the future.

FIXING BUGS & THEIR IMPACT ON DRIBBLING

By design, a player cannot execute more than two dribbles in quick succession while in Dribble Stance. While setting up the exhausted dribble feature and laying the groundwork for Netcode 2.0, we fixed an issue that allowed players to bypass the two-dribble limit by quickly releasing and retriggering Dribble Stance.

We understand that some players had specifically trained to use this as a dribbling tech, and we know how frustrating it can be to see something you’ve spent time mastering removed from the game. But it is unmanageable and not an intention for us to maintain bugs in the codebase, especially when they allow players to circumvent the rules of the game as they were designed.

There is very legitimate feedback around the role that techs can play in the game, whether in terms of balance, gameplay variety, or skill expression. We completely agree that dribbling needs more opportunities for skill expression. We plan to introduce new dribbles, rework some techs into official mechanics, and upgrade existing systems. Among these improvements, we are actively looking at how to make Volley Tap and Volley Push Ball more responsive.

We’ve been teasing some of these changes for a while, and we understand the frustration if you’ve been waiting for them. Netcode 2.0 has taken up a significant amount of our time and focus recently. Once that work is behind us, you can expect more frequent and impactful improvements across all aspects of gameplay.

DRIBBLING & BALANCING THE GAME

This limit on the number of dribbles is necessary to create an exchange between the dribbler and the defender. It creates clear windows of opportunity for defenders and forces dribblers to “move the game along” by committing to their next move.

As we’ve discussed in the past, addressing these bugs is key to properly balancing the game. Removing exploits will allow us to tune down the effectiveness of some defensive abilities like the Defense Mode. It will also allow us to design and implement new defensive abilities that, just like dribbling abilities, reward skill and game sense.

We’ll go into more detail about our plans for defense and dribbling in an upcoming Dev Blog. This will include fundamental system improvements, such as making sure all hits look and feel right, as well as new abilities and balance changes.

TACKLE ASSIST

Another bug we fixed in Season 5 affected the ''Tackle Assist''. This fix allows it to better track targets based on your input. We feel we can tune the assist down slightly. You can expect this adjustment in Hotfix 2.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN NETCODE 2.0

Netcode 2.0 is a complete rework of how Rematch is managed on the server side and how the server communicates with players’ clients.

This change is intended to make the game much more stable and reliable, with more readable animations, more consistent gameplay, and significantly fewer rollbacks.

Given the extent of the changes involved in this rework, we expect the game to feel and play differently, especially during fast interactions between players, as well as interactions between players and the ball. We’ll be very grateful for any feedback you can share with us during the upcoming beta tests!

You can expect a more detailed explanation of what Netcode 2.0 means for Rematch in a Dev Blog coming later this week.