One of the current hot topics in the community is the presence of what we call “emergent mechanics”. What we are referring to by “emergent mechanics” are gameplay mechanics and techs that players are using regularly in games, but that were not part of our initial design intentions. A few notable examples would be: the Blade Shot, the Ippy Slide and the Golden Boost.

These “mechanics” appear because of unintended interactions between mechanics (the Blade Shot) or bugs (Ippy Slide and Golden Boost). Players are divided on the place of these techs in the game. Some see them as bugs that must absolutely be fixed, while others now see them as an irreplaceable part of the game’s mechanics, allowing them to express their skill with the controller. Our position is more nuanced, and we want to address each of these techs and emergent mechanics with specific care.

• Patch 4 brings many big and small bug fixes

• Some of these impact “emergent mechanics”, specifically the Golden Boost - changing the way Extra Effort interacts with the ball, especially during turns

• Our short term intention is not to remove depth or speed from the game, but we cannot leave bugs in the game intentionally

• There are also two specific, intentional gameplay changes that affect the Blade Shot, keeping it in the game but in a more controlled and balanced form

• Ippy Slide will see some fixes in Patch 4

One side-effect of fixing glitches and removing some “exploits/advanced mechanics” is that the game can seem slower for some players. This is not an outright intention but if and when we do want to increase or lower the tempo of the game, we must do it with controlled changes, and not by relying on leaving bugs in the game.

A key objective of Rematch is to make the game more and more stable, and as we fix bugs, it will have an impact on these emergent mechanics. As much as we are interested in keeping and adding mechanics that add depth to the game, we cannot do so by leaving bugs in. These bugs have other consequences, and mean that we have no control over the balance of these mechanics, or the stability of the game over time.

• There are a number of emergent mechanics in the game that were not intended

• We want to leave space for player expression and are curious to see if it adds depth

• But we do want to make sure these new mechanics are interesting for the game

• Not only should they be balanced, but they should respect the core principles of the game, and bring something positive to the table

• We need our game to be stable and consistent in the long run. This means we cannot stop a bug fix because it changes the way these emergent mechanics works

To address some of these more specifically:

The Blade Shot

• Blade Shot is an unintended result of two mechanics interacting (Short Lob Tap + Extra Effort Volley)

• It has both positive (creates variety, but limited by Extra Effort) and negative aspects

• The Blade Shot will stay in Rematch for now

• But we will iron out issues around it to make it a mechanic that is more balanced and better respects the principles of the game

Being the result of two intended mechanics, it is relatively stable and we can start building on it to try and make it a more balanced part of the game.

In Patch 3, two things ended up affecting the Blade Shot:

• A gameplay change, where your shots will have less of a power bonus when hitting the ball while your character has a high locomotion speed.

• A bug fix, where we reduce the speed you can reach a ball to volley it while using Extra Effort - this will reduce the visual effect of players “snapping/teleporting” to the ball

• In Patch 4, this speed will be reduced even more, to be identical to the Extra Effort current speed (11m/s)

The intent here is to let the Blade Shot exist as a way to fix things up, but fix it visually, and make it less optimal as a way to shoot at goal.

The Ippy Slide

• Ippy Slide is the result of a bug, intensified by network conditions

• It is very visible and very common because of how easy it is to trigger, and because it uses no resources

• It is divisive because, while it can feel like a cool mechanic to master, it also looks like an ugly bug where the ball slides or “teleports” a long distance

• The “feint” effect mostly happens because the defenders are visually misled (i.e. the ball moves without anyone visually interacting with it)

• This goes against the concepts of credibility and fairness of Rematch

• We do have a number of fixes in the works, but they could have a lot of unintended effects on the ball control mechanic in general so we are being cautious on our timeline to deliver them

• The first fixes should arrive during Patch 4

The intent for the Ippy Slide is to treat it as a visual and gameplay bug and to fix and debug it - removing all aspects of it that don’t make sense visually.

The Golden Boost

• Golden Boost is both the result of bugs as well as unintended interactions between the Extra Effort Push Ball and the Volley System

• A lot of these advanced use cases for the Extra Effort and Extra Effort Push Ball are interesting to us: they add a layer of mechanical depth and are restricted by your resources (Extra Effort gauge)

• On the other hand, everything that is caused by a bug, or is visually unacceptable must be fixed

• Which is why Patch 3 feels different when trying to trigger fast turns and push balls with Extra Effort - the bug fixes help us to build upon a stronger foundation

The intent in the short term is to fix the bugs linked to it, and in the mid-to-long term find ways to make dribbling with the Extra Effort deeper and faster.

One concrete example is a bug which allowed you to instantly do a 180 turn with Extra Effort while pushing the ball. We started fixing this bug because we could not rely on this behavior technically, and we are looking at how to make this kind of mobility available to players in a more controlled manner.

For some players, emergent mechanics are simply glitches. To others, they are the “advanced” mechanics that allow players to express themselves mechanically.

Beyond the issues of bug fixes and stability, there is a question of what “advanced” dribbling mechanics bring to Rematch. This is actually a core question in Rematch’s design.

The more advanced and complicated mechanics are present in the game, the longer a single player will keep the ball until the confrontation is resolved. This means we see less passes and less constructive team play. It also means that you as a player might be spending a lot more time just watching your teammates play with the ball rather than actually interacting with it. Football is a team game, and Rematch is a team game, so we want to keep this behavior to a minimum.

Paradoxically, having glitchy and snappy dribbles might make the game feel faster to the player dribbling with the ball, but it will make it feel slower to almost everyone else on the field because they are spending less time with the ball or making meaningful positioning decisions.

On the other hand, when the skill required to act and beat defenders is too low, it reduces the intensity of gameplay, and the variety of games. Football is also a game of skill and dribbling, and creating that little extra bit of space through a creative dribble is a core component of it. This is why we are looking at adding more depth in the game, and we have plans to build upon our mechanics and widen the variety of their utilization, relying on a foundation of stability that we are first building through bug fixes. As we do so, we will do it in a way that is balanced by our other gameplay mechanics and resource management systems.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2138720/REMATCH/