## Before anything else I have over 1,000 hours in Rematch, and honestly, I’m already tired of reaching Elite solo in both 3v3 and 5v5. I’ve also played competitively and have played against Blade himself several times, the player who created the Blade Shot. Everything I’m talking about here comes partly from my own observations after an extremely long time playing the game, but it is also heavily based on **Sloclap’s own patch notes, dev blogs and developer updates**. I’m not presenting these points as if everything here is purely my personal interpretation. In several cases, I’m building directly on problems, goals and design directions that Sloclap itself has already discussed publicly. I’ve also been giving feedback to Sloclap about Rematch for a very long time. Long enough that some of my feedback threads were locked back when feedback was still handled directly through Discord. I was one of the first people to write extremely detailed feedback about Teams, including a full tournament system built around them. At the time, Sloclap privately archived the thread because, as they explained, working on Teams or Tournaments wasn’t part of their plans yet. I’m mentioning all of this because what I’m writing here is basically a **summary and compilation of the things that matter most to me about Rematch**, based on everything I’ve experienced with the game over the years, together with what Sloclap itself has said about the direction and problems of the game. I also took a while to write this because, honestly, I disappeared for some time after starting to feel that feedback wasn’t really changing much. There was a period when I became more confident that feedback could actually make a difference after getting replies from GoldenZidane, Pyakura and our beloved Dawnson. Dawnson is an absolute legend, and at that time it genuinely made me feel like the feedback was reaching someone and maybe could make a difference. But after seeing how some things have been going again, I started having doubts about how much of what the community says actually makes it into the game. Even so, I still think it’s worth putting all of this together. Not because I expect every point to be implemented, but because these are the things I believe would genuinely make Rematch a deeper and better game. ## The bigger problem I think a lot of the feedback being made today is actually connected by the same underlying problem. Rematch doesn’t necessarily need more content. **It needs more depth.** What makes this even more important to me is that I actually agree with the direction Sloclap says it wants to take Rematch in. In the Core Gameplay Dev Blog, you said that the main objective for the competitive experience is built around **“fairness, balance, and depth”**, and that depth should come from **“more options in inputs, and more organic outcomes.”** That is basically the same direction I want for the game. My issue is that I don’t think we are there yet, and sometimes I feel that when a mechanic is removed or simplified without enough depth being added somewhere else, we end up losing more than we gain. There are already a lot of requests from the community for things like better dribbling, meaningful stamina, a much more complete and customizable **Free Play closer to what Rocket League offers, with a Workshop and tools to create, share and modify different training situations**, bots, replays, spectator mode, better matchmaking, progression beyond Elite, Teams, tournaments and more advanced options and customization within Custom Matches. I agree with many of these ideas, but I don’t see them as a collection of unrelated features. To me, they all point toward the same underlying goal. **Rematch needs to give players more reasons to learn, improve, experiment and become genuinely better at the game.** ## Dribbling and skill expression Dribbling is probably the clearest example. Players naturally started discovering advanced movement techniques because they wanted more ways to outplay defenders. Some of those techniques were exploits, and I completely understand why exploits would be removed. What I don’t agree with is removing the skill expression that came with them and leaving nothing meaningful in their place. This is actually very close to something Sloclap has already acknowledged. In its Core Gameplay discussions, the team explained that some advanced dribbling techniques relied on ball magnetism or animation exploits, while also emphasizing that the goal is to continue improving the legitimate dribbling kit and **“add options and skill expression.”** That distinction is important to me. If players spend hundreds of hours learning a technique, that should tell the developers something. It doesn’t mean the exploit needs to stay. It means there was something about that mechanic that players found valuable. Instead of simply removing it, turn the idea behind it into an intentional mechanic that is balanced, consistent and actually worth mastering. Give us real high skill dribbling mechanics. Give us dummies, nutmegs, advanced feints, different ways to change direction, different ways to manipulate defenders and more opportunities to win a duel through mechanical ability. Even something inspired by the Vexis Dash could work if it were redesigned as an actual mechanic instead of relying on teleporting or an exploit. I don’t want exploits to be the skill system of Rematch. **I want the official mechanics to be good enough that players don’t need exploits to create skill expression.** And I don’t think this would hurt new players either. You can keep the basic mechanics accessible while giving experienced players a much higher ceiling to work toward. ## Stamina should actually matter The same philosophy applies to stamina. If there is a stamina bar, it should actually matter. This is one of the areas where Sloclap has already clearly identified a problem. In the Core Gameplay Dev Blog, you said that **“low stamina doesn’t impact abilities enough, and especially dribbling,”** and that you were working on refining the impact of low stamina on abilities. That is exactly the direction I want to see pushed further. I don’t think reaching 0 stamina should make someone completely useless in every possible way, but there should be real consequences. The less stamina you have, the less capable you should be at things like dribbling, dashing, jumping, passing and shooting. You should still be able to play while exhausted, but you shouldn’t be able to perform at the same level as someone who managed their stamina properly. For example, if you’re completely out of stamina, you shouldn’t be able to dribble properly at all. If your character is exhausted to the point where they can barely run, it makes no sense for them to still be able to perform advanced dribbling normally. Running, dashing, jumping and dribbling should all depend on having enough stamina. That creates a real decision. “Do I spend my stamina now to beat this defender, or do I save it for the next play?” That isn’t removing skill. It adds another layer of skill. And yes, there will always be the “intellectuals” who insist that being able to dribble perfectly with 0 stamina is completely normal. But if stamina is supposed to be an actual resource, completely exhausting it should have actual consequences. If you can still perform almost every important action normally with an empty bar, it becomes fair to ask what the stamina system is actually doing beyond limiting parts of your movement. I also think stamina could become much more useful as team information. Instead of simply putting a permanent stamina bar above every teammate, there could be a more natural way to read the physical condition of someone close to you. In real life, if someone is close to you, you can usually tell whether they are exhausted just by looking at them. For example, if you keep your camera directed toward a nearby teammate for around 1–2 seconds, the game could gradually give you an indication of their current physical condition. Once you’ve identified how tired they are, that information could remain visible for a short period even after you stop looking at them. After some time without looking at that teammate again, the information would fade and you would have to look back at them for another moment to read their condition again. I think this would be much more interesting than simply showing everyone’s stamina all the time. It would make players actually pay attention to their teammates and understand their current situation. This could be especially useful in situations where there is very little time to make a decision. During a buildup from your own defensive area, for example, you might quickly look toward a nearby teammate before deciding where to play the ball. If you can tell that they are already exhausted, that could completely change the decision. Instead of passing into space expecting them to make a run they no longer have the stamina for, you could choose a safer option or recycle the play. The same applies to fast counterattacks. Sometimes you and your teammates are already sprinting up the field and there is barely any time to stop and think about who still has enough stamina to continue the play. Being able to quickly look at the teammate closest to you and understand their physical condition could help you decide whether to pass into space, slow the attack down, switch the play or keep carrying the ball yourself. It also wouldn’t need to be perfectly numerical. The game could communicate the condition through a simple visual indicator or even through the character’s physical state, with clearer information becoming available after looking at the teammate for a short period. That way, the information isn’t simply handed to the player for free. You actually have to pay attention to the people around you. It would make stamina a part of team awareness and decision making instead of just another personal resource bar. ## Passing should reward decisions, not guesswork Passing is another area where I think Rematch has a good foundation, but still doesn’t go far enough. The current system has already gone through several iterations aimed at giving players more control. Patch 3 introduced three tap aiming options: **Joystick Emulation, Directional Aiming and Crosshair Only**, as well as sensitivity settings for the mouse and keyboard system. I think that is a good direction. My problem is that having more control on paper does not always translate into predictable control in practice. I don’t want the game to simply replace one passing meta with another. I want more situations where the right pass depends on what is actually happening in the play. Better short passing, more control over power and direction and more ways to build a play would make game sense matter alongside mechanical skill. The strongest pass should not automatically be the best pass. The important part is that passing should reward the player’s decision and execution instead of making the player fight the input system. ## Defensive interceptions and ball reception There is also something that has always bothered me about the way passing and interceptions interact with defensive positioning. Sometimes it feels like defenders have an absolutely ridiculous reach when they are in a defensive position. You can try to pass or shoot through what looks like a reasonable gap and suddenly the defender’s leg stretches halfway across the planet to intercept the ball. Meanwhile, on the receiving side, you can have a teammate standing barely a meter away from the ball and they will sometimes completely ignore it as if it wasn’t even there. That inconsistency makes passing feel much less reliable than it should. This also fits directly into problems Sloclap has acknowledged around physical interactions. The Core Gameplay discussion talks about making ball behavior more credible, reducing situations where the ball **“magnets” too much**, and improving the reliability and readability of player and ball interactions. That is exactly the direction I want. I’m not saying defenders shouldn’t be able to intercept difficult passes. Good positioning should absolutely be rewarded. The problem is that the interaction should be consistent for both sides. If a defender can reach a ball that is clearly outside what should be their reasonable interception range, while a teammate can fail to react to a ball passing directly beside them, then the outcome starts feeling less like a result of positioning or decision making and more like the game simply deciding who gets the ball. I would much rather see a more consistent and readable interaction system where a player’s effective reach is based on their actual position, movement, orientation and animation. Defensive positioning should give you an advantage, but it shouldn’t give your character an invisible five meter leg. ## More control over passing I think the three main parts of a pass should be clearly separated: **direction, power and trajectory**. The player should be able to aim freely in the direction they actually want, control the amount of power predictably and clearly choose between different types of passes. The game should also give a clear visual indication of the expected trajectory and power while the pass is being prepared. This fits with the same design direction Sloclap described when talking about **“more options in inputs, and more organic outcomes.”** I don’t want this to make passing automatic. Quite the opposite. The player should be responsible for the decision and execution. When the player makes the wrong decision, the game should punish the decision, not the input system. ## Crosshair Only and camera control There is also one specific improvement I would really like to see for players who use **Crosshair Only** for M2 passing. Patch 3 already gave players Crosshair Only as one of the three tap aiming options. When using right click to pass with only the central crosshair, I think there should be an optional setting that automatically centers the camera when preparing a pass. The camera could position itself directly in the center of the play, similar to how the camera behaves when defending as the goalkeeper and having that centered view of the field. The goal wouldn’t be to aim the pass for the player or add more assistance. It would simply provide a consistent visual reference while using M2, so that the center of the screen actually represents the direction the player is trying to play the ball. With Crosshair Only, this could make judging the direction, distance and angle of a pass much easier without taking away any of the mechanical skill involved. This could be completely optional, so players who prefer the current camera behavior can keep it exactly as it is. I think this fits perfectly with the rest of what I’m asking for with passing: **more control, more consistency and more responsibility for the outcome.** ## A deeper first touch system This is one of the more personal ideas in this feedback. I would love to see a more skill-based ball control system when receiving passes from teammates. Imagine receiving a pass from a teammate and having to actually control the first touch depending on the speed, direction and height of the ball. If you get the timing and input right, you could essentially **“put the ball to sleep”** on the first touch. The ball would stay close to you, you would immediately have control over it and could transition into your next action without losing much momentum. If you mistime it, the ball could bounce off you, move further away or result in a much worse first touch. You would still receive the ball, but the control would be messy and you would need another touch to recover it. A slow ground pass could require different timing from a powerful pass, a high ball or a difficult pass coming from behind. The better you understand the ball and the better your timing, the cleaner your first touch becomes. This could create another small skill ceiling without turning the game into something unnecessarily complicated. Two players could receive the exact same pass, but the player with better timing and control would be able to kill the ball instantly and continue the play, while the less experienced player would have a heavier first touch. This is obviously my own idea, but I think it fits surprisingly well with the direction Sloclap has described around more granular inputs and **“more organic outcomes.”** ## Training should support mastery This is where I think the current Free Play could go much further. We already have Free Play, but I don’t think it should stop at being a place where you can freely move around and kick the ball. I would love to see it become a proper training sandbox, much closer to what Rocket League offers with its highly customizable training environment and Workshop ecosystem. This isn’t about adding Free Play from scratch. The game already has it. The idea is to make the existing system much more powerful. Being able to set up specific situations, change rules and settings, control things like stamina and Extra Effort, position defenders and goalkeepers, and create different scenarios would make Free Play dramatically more useful. A Workshop could take that even further by allowing the community to create and share custom training scenarios. Players could build drills for dribbling, passing, finishing, defending, positioning or even very specific situations that are difficult to recreate in a normal match. Bots would also be extremely useful here because they would let players practice against actual defenders or goalkeepers instead of having to rely entirely on another player being available. Sloclap has also discussed AI bots as part of the game’s training and learning ecosystem, so this isn’t completely disconnected from the direction the team has talked about before. If the game wants players to master difficult mechanics, it needs to give them a place where they can experiment, fail hundreds of times and keep improving without turning every real match into a training session. ## Replays, spectator mode and Custom Matches should become real tools for the community Replays and spectator mode fit into the same idea. If I make a mistake, I should be able to look back at it and understand why I made it. If I want to improve, I should be able to watch better players and understand what they are doing differently. Spectator mode has already moved forward in Season 4, including the ability to join ongoing matches and use different camera modes. The patch notes also show continued work on spectator related issues and replays. That is a good step, but I think these systems can become much more useful for actual learning, coaching and competitive analysis. The same goes for Custom Matches. Custom Matches already exist and already have useful parameters. Patch 8, for example, made 1v1 Duel available indefinitely as a Custom Match game mode, while later updates continued expanding and fixing Custom Match functionality. What I’m asking for is not “add Custom Matches.” The goal is to make the Custom Matches we already have much more powerful. I would love to see Custom Matches become a proper sandbox for teams, training and competitive communities. A big part of that would be bringing some of the ideas from a customizable Free Play environment into Custom Matches as well. Things like Workshop support, custom scenarios, more gameplay parameters, training settings and bots could turn Custom Matches into an actual place where teams can work on specific parts of their game instead of simply playing another normal match. And I think one of the most useful additions would be the ability to have **two or more balls on the pitch at the same time**. This might sound strange at first, but it could be incredibly useful for team training. Imagine having five players on the field and being able to split the team into different exercises happening simultaneously. Two players could practice passing combinations on one side of the pitch while another group practices finishing on the other side. A defender and goalkeeper could practice defensive situations while the midfielders work on passing. You could even have separate drills running at the same time without constantly stopping and resetting the entire session. That would make Custom Matches feel much more like an actual training facility. You could also use multiple balls to create more chaotic and realistic training situations. One ball could be used for a passing drill while another is already in the attacking third, forcing players to communicate, reposition and react. The important part is that the game wouldn’t necessarily need to create dozens of dedicated training modes for every possible situation. It could simply give players the tools to create those situations themselves. That is where Workshop support could become extremely valuable. Let the community create and share training scenarios, custom drills and competitive practice setups. A team could create its own passing drill, finishing exercise, defensive scenario or set play and then share it with other teams. I would also like Custom Matches to have much more control over things like player positions, ball spawns, game rules, stamina, Extra Effort and other gameplay parameters. Bots would be another huge addition here. They could fill missing positions, act as defenders or goalkeepers or simply allow a team to practice a specific situation without needing another full lobby of players. There is already clear demand from the community for more powerful training and customization tools. I think the best direction is not to turn Custom Matches into a second ranked mode. It is to make them into a real sandbox where players can build the exact situation they want to practice. ## Matchmaking is a completely different problem This is something I’ve already talked about with you guys several times, and after more than 1,000 hours I honestly think **the matchmaking system in this game is horrible.** The problem isn’t simply that different ranks can end up in the same match. The bigger problem is how those players can be distributed between the two teams. You can have one team with **5 Elite players**, while the other has **1 Elite player and 4 players who are Gold at best**. At that point, this isn’t just a difference in individual skill. The entire match is structurally unbalanced. One Elite player cannot realistically be expected to compensate for four players who are several levels below them, especially in a game where positioning, passing, decision making and coordination between all five players matter so much. Meanwhile, the other team has five players who are already experienced at the highest rank. This is especially bad for solo players. You can reach Elite, queue alone expecting to play against people around your level, and instead end up having to carry players who are nowhere near the same level while the other team is stacked with Elite players. **That is not balanced matchmaking.** And what makes this even more frustrating is that Sloclap already knows there is a problem here. In the ranking system update, you explained that the system uses a matchmaking skill rating to create balanced games, while also acknowledging that premades can create larger differences in skill levels within matches. You specifically said you were looking into the **“Solo queue vs Premade”** issue. So I don’t think the answer is simply “add MMR” anymore. The game already has skill rating. The problem is how that information is actually used when the two teams are created. This is why I’ve been pushing for a **Rank + MMR system** for a long time. Rank should represent progression. MMR should represent actual skill. And matchmaking should consider the **overall strength of both teams**, not simply look at each player individually and decide that the match is acceptable. If one team has five Elite players, the other team shouldn’t suddenly become balanced because it has one Elite player. The goal should be to create two teams with a similar overall level of strength. I also think solo and duo players should be protected from constantly facing full five stacks whenever possible. Team coordination is a real advantage, and matchmaking should take that into consideration. ## Elite should not be the end There is also a progression problem. Once you’ve played for hundreds or thousands of hours, reaching Elite stops feeling like the same achievement it once was. This doesn’t mean Elite should become easier to reach. Quite the opposite. I think there should simply be something meaningful after it. A system like Legend of Elite, a higher skill-based division, regional leaderboards, or another competitive progression system could give experienced players something to continue working toward. This also fits the direction Sloclap has already taken with dynamic ranking and skill rating. The stated goal was to **“better match player rank to their MMR”** and make rank a better representation of player skill. If someone reaches Elite and there is nothing meaningful left to pursue, eventually there is no longer much of a reason to keep pushing themselves. ## Teams and tournaments This connects directly to something I’ve been asking for a very long time. Teams and tournaments are not just extra features to me. They are part of giving skilled players somewhere to take their ability. I already gave very detailed feedback about Teams and an entire tournament system years ago, back when feedback was still being handled through Discord. At the time, Sloclap archived the thread because Teams and Tournaments were not something they planned to work on yet. At the time, that was simply the situation of the game. But the community kept moving in that direction anyway. Since then, Sloclap has supported and highlighted community competition in different ways, and Season 4 introduced the Nations Cup as the biggest community competition the game had seen at that point. That makes this idea even more relevant now than it was when I first brought it up. A good competitive structure should not end with ranked matchmaking. Players should eventually be able to form teams, practice together, participate in tournaments, create leagues, spectate matches and build a competitive environment around the game itself. That gives all the mechanical depth and mastery somewhere meaningful to go. ## Nobody asked for this yet, because they don’t know they need it This is where I want to separate some more specific ideas from the bigger problems above. These aren’t things I think the game absolutely needs to add. They are ideas I think could make the systems above much deeper if Sloclap ever wanted to take them further. ### A deeper first touch system Imagine receiving a pass from a teammate and having to actually control the first touch depending on the speed, direction and height of the ball. If you get the timing and input right, you could essentially **“put the ball to sleep”** on the first touch. The ball would stay close to you, you would immediately have control over it and could transition into your next action without losing much momentum. If you mistime it, the ball could bounce off you, move further away or result in a much worse first touch. You would still receive the ball, but the control would be messy and you would need another touch to recover it. A slow ground pass could require different timing from a powerful pass, a high ball or a difficult pass coming from behind. The better you understand the ball and the better your timing, the cleaner your first touch becomes. This could create another small skill ceiling without turning the game into something unnecessarily complicated. Two players could receive the exact same pass, but the player with better timing and control would be able to kill the ball instantly and continue the play, while the less experienced player would have a heavier first touch. ### More physical ball interactions Another idea is to make the interaction between players and the ball even more physically consistent. Sloclap has already said that ball movement should be justified by physical impacts and that some interactions can still feel too magnetic or unclear. My suggestion would simply be to take that philosophy even further. A defender should have a believable interception range based on their position, movement, body orientation and animation. A teammate receiving a pass should also have a believable opportunity to reach and control a nearby ball. The goal isn’t to make defending weaker. It is to make the rules more consistent for both sides. ### Crosshair Only camera option For players using **Crosshair Only** with M2 passing, I think an optional camera centering mode could work really well. When preparing a pass, the camera could temporarily position itself in a consistent central view, similar to the centered perspective used while defending as the goalkeeper. It wouldn’t aim the pass for you. It wouldn’t add assistance. It would simply give the player a consistent visual reference for direction and distance. Again, this is just a specific idea of mine, not something I’m presenting as an existing community demand. ## What I actually want from Rematch At the end of the day, I don’t think Rematch needs to become complicated just for the sake of being complicated. I also don’t think every exploit should come back, and I don’t think every popular suggestion on Feature Upvote needs to be added. What I want is for Rematch to **go deeper into what already makes it special.** I want mechanics that are actually worth mastering. I want stamina and decision making to matter. I want passing to allow more expression. I want better ways to practice and analyze the game. I want matchmaking that actually uses the skill information it already has in a way that produces fairer teams. I want competitive progression that continues to mean something after Elite. I want Teams and tournaments to give players somewhere to take all of that mastery. Most importantly, when you remove something that players spent hundreds of hours mastering, **replace the skill expression instead of simply removing it.** I’m not saying every exploit should stay. I’m saying that when players repeatedly find ways to create depth that the official mechanics don’t currently provide, that should be treated as useful information. The answer shouldn’t always be to remove the mechanic. Sometimes the answer should be to ask **why players wanted it in the first place.** I’ve been giving feedback in this direction for a long time, and I’ll keep doing it because I genuinely believe Rematch has an incredibly strong foundation. I’ve played enough of this game to know how much potential it has, and that’s exactly why it’s frustrating to see some of that potential being left behind whenever mechanics are simplified without something deeper replacing them. I also really hope that a good part of the problems I’m talking about here will finally be addressed in Season 5. At least then I’ll be able to say that I waited an eternity for my half Elite, only to go back and get Elite solo all over again. That last part is a joke, but honestly, I do hope Season 5 gives me a reason to look back at this feedback and say that I was worrying for nothing. After more than 1,000 hours, what keeps me interested in Rematch isn’t having more things added just for the sake of having more things. It’s having more to learn, more decisions to make and more reasons to keep improving. I want the game to reward players who put time into mastering it instead of gradually removing the mechanics that allow that mastery to exist. I don’t think every exploit should come back, and I don’t think every popular suggestion on Feature Upvote needs to be added. I just want the game to take the things that players clearly enjoy about its gameplay and develop them further instead of constantly simplifying them. That’s really the point of this entire feedback. I don’t think Rematch needs to constantly become bigger. **I think it needs to become deeper.** The foundation is already there. I just want to see how far the game can actually go with it.