That was a common phrase I heard during the first week of s&ball's release.

As I tested this game mostly as a host, I did not realise how much of a host advantage there was in s&ball.
With a lot of testing, we moved from a standard "host authoritative" deflection logic to a "prediction based" logic.
Clients (not the host) are more likely to get a successful deflect because the host has this prediction given to the client in which "if the client deflects at any moment in this time frame, it should be successful".

This has been a clear improvement to the playability of the game.

This was another clear improvement for the game.
The previous deflect particle VFX struggled to articulate the range and success of a deflection.

The new deflect particle VFX provide a "success" deflect particle effect which seems quite satisfying whilst the standard deflect particle effect shows a bit more of a range at which you can deflect.

The two changes above have really aided in making this game more accessible. Previously, if you were playing at a ping between 50-100, you were at a huge disadvantage. That seems to be fixed but I'd love to see if we can bridge the gap between host advantages and client a little more.

Testing will continue but thanks to the group of people on the discord (https://discord.gg/XNC6BERZtV, shameless plug), we've been able to iron out some obvious kinks in the first week.

One of my favourite experiences with this game so far was a Russian that joined our game. After a couple deaths from him, he said in Russian "How the f*ck do you play this POS?". We were only able to translate this with an image to google. This made me realise that the game doesn't explain itself too well. This is why I added a little instructions screen for when you join.
In the end, the Russian stayed around for a while and didn't give up even with 200+ ping so good on him and in the end, the feedback was very helpful.