Movement: the whole game runs a step faster. Speed pads launch harder, the top speed ceiling is higher and drag bleeds less of what you have, while base acceleration comes down a touch so a carve still costs commitment. Oil is slicker and tar stickier than before, and bounce walls give back a little less. The mini-boost hits harder on a longer cooldown. Brace's deflect gets twice the window to land on a shorter cooldown, and throws the attacker a little less far. Frostbite's chill is deeper but shorter. Live matches and bot matches play the same numbers; existing replays recorded before today will not play back identically.
Power-ups now look like what they do. Live Wire crackles with magenta arcs and throws sparks; Frostbite rimes the ball in ice crystals and cold breath; Burst smoulders behind a racing fuse; Nitro streaks and leaves afterimages; Gravity Well bends the air inward; Wall Shift goes spectral. A player across the pitch can name the buff from the motion alone.
One icon set, everywhere. The kit HUD, the live scoreboard strip, the pickup toast and the score strip all now show a power-up as the exact chip it was on the floor — same silhouette, same colour, same glyph — and the HUD gained a held tray with a draining ring for every power-up you are carrying, not just the one Space fires.
Respawn ghosts. When a player pops, a translucent ghost of their ball stands on the exact tile they will return to, with a team-coloured landing ring that closes as the countdown runs and a materialise in the final beat. Both teams see them — except that a Live Wire holder is denied the enemy's, so a pop-on-touch buff can never turn into a spawn camp with a timer.