If you catch the ball in Rematch, there's a small chance you didn't—Sloclap's desync issues are upsetting players in a game I otherwise can't stop playing

Rematch is great—I've already sunk about 40 hours into the thing and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Just one small problem, though: the desync issues are still rough. In any given match, there's a chance you'll make a dive towards a ball—only for the fabric of time to hiccup, subjecting you to an avalanche of vicious 'good jobs!' and a wash of unearned shame.

Sloclap's already made efforts to help in a recent patch, but they haven't quite taken root. I've had plenty of encounters with the wobbly netcode myself, and while I'd usually show you what I mean, I don't have to—just a quick jaunt over to r/Rematch sees clips up the wazoo of goalies making tekkers saves, only to have their victories cruelly ripped away from them.

Amazing update guys! Not sure why everyone is complaining from r/Rematch

Here's another, and another, and another, and another, and another. Here's one poor sod whose premade goalie uninstalled the game over repeat desync issues. "It's already difficult for anyone to be predisposed to learning GK, but if it DOESN'T WORK, then it will be even more difficult to find someone who wants to fill that role."

I'm fine to suffer this sports-based dread on occasion—my doctor recommends no more than one or two stints as goalie every match—but I can't imagine trying to get a dedicated team structure going (in a game with tremendous competitive potential) and watching as your goalie, who's trying their best, has to roll the dice every time a literal curveball comes their way.

In the latest patch notes, Sloclap has pled patience and promised there are improvements on the way: "Please remember that some major priorities like netcode or crossplay are the work of specialists in their domains (gameplay replication, server infrastructure, user interface...), and that we can't put all our resources on these topics to make them happen faster—that being said we are making very good progress on these topics, more news soon!"

I'd argue that a lot of the doom and gloom I've seen (especially on the subreddit which, and I mean no offense, can be a little negative) is premature. Per SteamDB, Rematch still has a very healthy 24-hour peak of 21,000 players—but I do think Sloclap's on a bit of a timer, here. I hope the dev team sorts it, because I'm otherwise having a ball.