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TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
This game's been out for over five years now, and the first post of the thread was hilariously out of date now, particularly this awesome montage of some of the best goals 2015 has to offer. Things have moved on a lot since then, so we figured it might be time for a new thread, and Rocket League going free to play seemed like a good opportunity for a new start. But for the newcomers... what is Rocket League?



If you've ever asked "What would it look like if rocket-powered RC cars could play football (or soccer, for some of you)" then you've just come up with Rocket League. Actually, you've just come up with the previous game made by Psyonix, which was a 2008 PS3 game with the awesome name of Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. It started development as a destruction-derby car game, but someone in testing included a ball as an idea for a minigame and the idea was so much fun they just made it into the entire game. This first game had some success, but wasn't really a hit. They rebuilt the game for a new generation, and in 2015 released Rocket League on PC and PS4. It did much better this time round, maybe because it's a good game, maybe because Sony gave it away as a free monthly game on PS+. Who can say.

Over the years they went on to release it on Xbox, and the Switch (sorry Switch players, there wasn't an all-platforms post icon), and after a lot of back-and-forth on who was holding everything up they managed to make the game fully cross-platform so you could play against people on all the different systems. With the Free-to-Play release, everyone is now on the same system as everyone on each platform is associated with an Epic account. Now it's all centralised so all your items, presets, rank, stats and everything else exists on one system that can play on any available platform, so you can play alongside any of your friends on any platform.

Now that we've had a quick history lesson: What we've ended up with is a fast-paced physics-driven sports-driving game with an incredibly high skill ceiling if you want to put in the time to get good at it. It starts with one simple concept: Drive car into ball, hit ball into goal, and you win if your team scores more goals than the other team. But you can do more than just drive forwards into the ball. You can jump and flip briefly after your first jump, to get more momentum and to hit the ball with more force. You can collect and use boost that allows you to go a lot faster, and can launch you through the air once you learn to control it. The fully enclosed pitch allows you to rebound the ball, drive on the walls, and even on the ceiling. Oh and if you feel like it, you can hit the players instead of the ball, and if you run into people at top speed you can even demolish them to take them off the pitch for a few seconds.

There's a wide variety of techniques and tricks you can learn that combine these mechanics and quirks of the physics engine, which means there are a ton of different ways to get that ball into the goal. Eventually you can reach the level of pro esports players, who have a ridiculous level of control, and can pull off some crazy moves with alarming precision. There's also a community of freestylers, determined to score goals in only the most ridiculous ways possible. There isn't actually much overlap, because being good at the game means playing to win, and being willing to not go all-in on a wild idea. And if you're a freestyler, you're always looking for an opportunity to get that amazing goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSyHhDClzc
(I was looking for a video that shows off how you can go from awkwardly driving and flopping around to banging in shots by learning to control the car and the ball, and also one that was mostly gameplay and not slick edited recaptured footage. This video fits, but I mostly picked it because the guy who uploaded it is called Static, and one of our lot is also called Static. Shoutout to Static. I'm 100% sure they're not the same person. Anyway.)

The main game modes just change the amount of players to change the way the game is played. The Standard format is 3v3, which is where most people focus their efforts and is the gamemode that drives the vast majority of pro-level play. 2v2 is also popular, as you still have room for teamwork but without a third teammate to bail you out any mistakes can be much more fatal. 1v1 has its merits, if you can control the game and cope with the frustration of not having teammates to blame when something goes wrong. There is also 4v4, which is utter chaos and nobody plays 4v4 seriously.

If you'd like something a bit different, you can also play Extra Modes, which are modified gamemodes that play differently to the main game, either more akin to other sports or as something all their own. Hoops is essentially basketball, and is a 2v2 gametype played on a special smaller arena than standard Rocket League with a giant basket for each team near where the goal would be. Snow Day turns Rocket League into a game of Hockey, with a puck that slides around the arena very quickly. Dropshot is a very different game kind-of inspired by volleyball, and in this mode you have no goal, instead you're in a hexagonal arena with a tiled floor; you have to hit the ball into the other team's side of the floor to remove these tiles and then score in the holes you've created. And finally, Rumble is Rocket League but every ten seconds you get a random powerup, such as a boot that can send other players away from you, spikes that can stick the ball to your car, or a grappling hook to send you straight to the ball.

If Rumble isn't enough chaos for you, you have mutators which can be used to change the way any gamemode behaves in custom private matches. You can change things like the ball size, speed and bounciness, or replace it with a puck or a cube. You can change the strength of gravity, or up the boost strength and even allow players to boost forever. You can also change the time settings, so I'll warn you now, don't ever try to play with the "time warp" setting. It's awful. For everything else, experiment and see what you like and don't like. There are plenty of options to allow you to bend the rules a bit, make your own minigames, or just absolutely make the game unplayable.

But let's say you decide to take this thing seriously. You want to actually get good. How do you even know how good you are? You play Ranked. In ranked games, you get matched up against people close to your rank, and if you win you gain some MMR (Match Making Rating) points. If you lose, you lose some points. The harder a matchup should have been, the more you get for winning and the less you lose for losing, to make unfair matches slightly less punishing. The more points you have the higher you climb, from the baseline of Bronze all the way to Grand Champion the new highest acolade, Supersonic Legend.


There's Ranked variations of 1s, 2s and 3s, and the Extra Modes are also Ranked modes. This is because if you quit a Ranked game midway through (without forfeiting) you get a brief ban from matchmaking, so it disincentivises quitting a match just because you're upset that your team is losing by one goal. The new Tournament mode also allows you to compete in online tournaments, fighting through a bracket to earn similar rewards for succeeding against difficult opponents. You can play with friends, or queue on your own, but be aware that if you are with a friend whose rank is very different to yours, your team will be judged as near the highest rank in your team. This might be a rough time.

While just playing the game and trying to win more matches is a good way to improve, there are other ways to focus on improving. Rocket League has a few built-in Training Packs that will give you a series of scenarios for you to either score or save, and players can make their own and share them using the Custom Training option. There is also Free Play, which gives you a ball, an empty arena, and the option of unlimited boost, so you can try different things to improve your skillset on your own.

If you're on PC, you can also use the Steam Workshop (for now, nobody knows what Epic wants to do with this in future) to open custom maps that people have built and uploaded. The best of these can really test your abilities, such as car control in the air or on the ground, ball control, or focus on certain moves like dribbling and flicks. Some are just open areas to try things in, and others are attempts to create alternate maps which require some meddling to play alongside other people in. And there is also the Bakkesmod plugin, which can be used to do a lot of different things.

And if you're looking for guidance, there are a ton of Rocket League tutorials on Youtube. Pro players, Esports team coaches, content creators, casters... A whole ton of people have had a go at telling the world how to play this game properly. Some of the best examples are SunlessKhan's expansive Why You Suck At Rocket League series, which goes over a lot of different things that players do which they really shouldn't be doing, with lots of examples and charming self-deprecation. Because it honestly helps if you admit that you're bad, rather than pretending that you're actually good and you just keep losing for inexplicable reasons. Or one I liked was JohnnyBoi's techniques for ranking up which goes over things players can do at different skill levels that can help them improve their rank. There is a wealth of advice out there if you want it. But the best advice is to just play the game, practice things, try things, and overall have fun because it's not worth being good if you hate playing the game.

If you're looking for people to play with, you should join our Discord, where we've got a good amount of people who play this game. Some of them are even good at it. Some of them will never stop telling you how bad they are at it. Sometimes, these are the same people. We play some private matches at random times depending on who's available, and we have dedicated channels for looking for teammates and asking for advice. So if you want people to hang out with, practice things, talk about the game, brag about your car, show off your highlights, or whatever, join in. We also have at least one in-game Club that you can join. There is even a SomethingAwful flag in the game... I'm sure someone uses it, right?

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TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Yeah, solo standard was less than a tenth of the standard playlist, despite being exactly the same game. And the attitude was a lot worse. If I had to guess why, based on my own experiences: Firstly, you've got fewer people in the playlist, so it's slower to find games and harder to get higher ranks. Secondly, because it's harder to get higher ranks lots of players are much lower than they are in 3v3 which irritates them. Third, because the ranks are lower some people feel like they should just be able to solo-carry their team and outplay everyone, and when this doesn't work they only get more frustrated and play worse. I saw a lot of Diamond players going through this cycle complaining that they were Champ elsewhere like they were only in Diamond playing with these awful people due to some error.

I did tend to play it when I didn't want to deal with unranked games becoming one team stomping on a succession of different bots, thinking that with matchmaking bans in play people would be less determined to quit after any single goal goes in, but... that didn't really work out.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Holy poo poo I only just hit 70 today. Thankfully I don't need everything in every colour, there's only a few items I want a bunch of painted versions of. Of course the first thing I got was the boring truck wheels, painted gray.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Don't worry about being the solo player letting other players down because if a duo is queueing for 3v3, they're accepting the risk that their third player might kinda suck and some players will always blame their third for losses regardless of how well they play. Also, duos in 3s can have a tendency to either buddy up on every play or treat their third player as a spare defender, which is giving you no good opportunities on the ball and forcing you to fight your own team for any amount of possession. You just have to accept that sometimes you're going to not make the play, and just hope your random teammates don't take it personally.

Also don't worry about being bad even if you don't feel good enough to be whatever rank you've climbed to. Just play your game. If you actually want to get better, don't focus on ranks, focus on what you do in each game and what specific things you can improve on. Think about how you get the ball from A to B, how you can get a better hit on the ball, why you miss shots that should have gone in, what opportunities you could have had that didn't work out, and most importantly what mistakes you make that the other team can capitalise on. Small improvements to mechanics, decisions, rotations etc can all add up to a significant improvement over time.

I've been a PS4 player since the very beginning, but I don't think there's many more left here, most people have moved to PC. It's all good because you can still play cross-platform and the only thing that doesn'tweork is in-game chat (party chat works fine). As Contra Duck says, the biggest downside to console platforms is you can't get your own replay files which a lot of people use for clips, gameplay analysis and other stuff but if a PC player in your game saves the replay you can use that exactly* the same. You might even find your own replays up on the Ballchasing or Calculated sites, some people auto-upload replays of every game they play using third-party plugins.

*Due to some Nerd Bullshit there can be some minor discrepancies in replay files of the same game but they should be otherwise identical.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.

JammyB posted:

Somehow I got promoted to Gold 3 despite being terrible and being carried by the team in all matches. I know what you're saying, but it's properly embarrassing now: I can't fly so I lose every tussle, can't time a clearance, am defeated by any incoming overhead shots and can't get a ball past the goalie. The most I've been able to contribute is to harrass the opposition goalie occasionally, and to play a lot of "dummies" when I pretend to hit the ball and go sailing past.

Would love to improve and I've watched a few videos, but I'm not a teenager anymore and realistically I'm not going to spend time practicing - I just want to get matched against players of a similar ability. Utterly baffling that it can't manage that.

Ok so: I get exactly what you're saying. I was the same and kinda still am. After five years of this thing I'm Champ and my playstyle can sarcastically be described as "being terrible and being carried by the team in all matches". I've still never tagged myself as Champ in our Discord because part of me doesn't think I deserve it, even though I've managed to win plenty of games, get reasonably high in Champ and stay here for multiple seasons now. There are lots of Champ things I can't really do.

You deserve to be where you are because all you need to do to rank up is win more games than you lose, and if you can help your team to not lose then you're going to win eventually. Doesn't matter if you're the monster scoring all the goals or the guy who keeps hitting the ball forwards giving that goal scorer more opportunities, as long as your tean wins more than 50% of the time. You don't need to be able to do certain things to achieve certain ranks because there are no specific challenges and skill-checks to make sure you can do these tricks before you are allowed into the next rank up. You don't have someone checking a clipboard to make sure players can aerial before they're allowed in Gold. You don't have to 100% a training pack of difficult shots before you can be Diamond. You don't get tested to see if you're able to air dribble and flip reset to get into GC, you've just got to win matches. So whatever rank you are, you managed to hit it, you deserve that rank because you got there. Learning these things can improve your game and gives you more options but you're not beneath Gold 3 just because you can't aerial, if your team is winning enough games to raise your rank then you're doing something right.

So, in my case, because I know I can't pull off elaborate solo plays, a lot of my game is positioning and decisions, asking myself what is the best opportunity I have to go for the ball, whether anyone else is defending/pressuring, and where I need to be going after I hit it. It means I'm not an offensive powerhouse, I'm not a points per game machine, but I don't do nothing and I still do reasonably well most of the time. I'm just stubborn and I keep trying to minimise the risk to my team, be ready to cover for my teammates and go for the best opportunities I can make. This is where a lot of higher ranks go awry, players go for high-risk plays, mess it up or even miss the ball and then give a completely free opportunity to the other team.

If aerials are a problem for you, the best thing to do is to just go for them. You'll learn by doing them eventually. I was put off trying for a long time because I was bad at them, but being able to use the height of the pitch is a real advantage and learning how to aerial will add an extra dimension to your gameplay. Eventually, you're going to need to be able to go ip for the ball; put anyone who can aerial up against bots and you will quickly realise just how advantageous it is to be able to hit a ball that somebody else can't reach.

Just go for any high balls and don't beat yourself up about missing. I would suggest trying the aerial training for a bit, pushing yourself a little further than you're comfortable with without the pressure of being in a game. Or if you're not comfortable with flying at all, spend fifteen minutes or so in free-play training, and just jump up and boost your way forward, aiming to land on the back wall. As you get better, try to land somewhere specific, like aim for a point above the crossbar or some marking on the wall. Every time you start the game, give yourself that fifteen minutes to warm up and try things like this, and you'll naturally get better at a variety of things by just doing them.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
It's true you can get a long way by doing the same kind of things you already do but thinking more about how you do them. You're going to have to learn some mechanics at some points, like if you're determined to never aerial then in Diamond you might go entire games without getting any real chances on the ball. Going for opportunities that actually make something happen rather than just hitting it because you can hit it will help at any rank. It's not even about always making the best play, it's just about not rushing into the bad decisions you can, making sure you're not making the worst play possible.

I'd like to be better at 1v1; it really demands all the things I don't do well and making any mistakes leaves you out to dry. Consistency and accuracy are important, winning challenges and knowing when you can or can't beat your opponent, and more specifically mechanics like fake challenges and shadow defense which do get used in team modes but are substantial parts of not being outplayed in 1v1.

In 3v3 you don't often have time and space to slow down and do anything clever, because you're always 0.6 seconds away from someone on either team just plowing into the ball. 2v2 gives you this space to a degree but you're still going to get smashed aside if you try some kind of slow dribble play when you think you have someone beat. And of course you've always got a teammate to fall back on if you do make that bad challenge or hit that goes off the wall in the wrong way.

fancy stats posted:

This weekly challenge of scoring 1000+ points in a single game is going to be drat near impossible unless you're playing 1v1, right?

I admittedly play a pretty boring positional game that doesn't lead to high scoring games, but I don't think I've seen anyone hit anywhere near that mark playing standard or snow day.

It's doable in 1v1 with like six goals and a handful of saves, clears, etc. But you don't want to be winning too hard! If there's not much time left and you're up by too many goals, or if they're just throwing super hard, 1v1 players will just drop the game and move on to the next one.

Your other option is Dropshot, if you have some aerial ability. Damage can get you a lot of points quite quickly. I wouldn't bother with any other mode for that challenge.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Yeah for the Grid I would pick a team you like and follow whoever is streaming their matches, which is linked at the bottom of the Liquipedia bracket there. I think most teams have their own dedicated Twitch channel now, some are hosted by professional casters like Shogun, Johnnyboi and Dazerin, others are hosted by personalities related to their team like Athena on the G2 streams. Given this and the kinda lower-stakes setup of the Grid, productions aren't consistent. Some are serious casting and analysis, some are more of a biased fan watch party kinda vibe, some do a bit of both there's no consistent voice here so if the RLCS channel really is hosting all four games at the same time (which is such a dumb idea) then I'm not surprised that it's unwatchable garbage.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.

Julius Seizure posted:

Do you guys keep your middle finger on R2 and your index finger on R1? I tried that but it's very awkward for me on a DS4, even though I have pretty (and) large hands. it forces my hand in a weird position because and theres tension in the tendon that connects to my middle finger, if that makes sense.

so I use L1 for turbo, square for power slide, triangle for air roll left and circle for air roll right. I use R3 to switch camera.

Yeah I found it really natural to use driving-game style controls, boost on R1 above the throttle, powerslide on L1 above the brake, but it did take me a while to adjust to using two fingers independently like this, that was a fairly recent change. It was easy to shift how I held my right hand to drive and boost independently as my left hand braced the controller more but shifting my left hand accordingly was uncomfortable for a good while and I'd slip back into just using my index for both. Now I've become accustomed to it, it's easy and I don't slip back anymore. I also have air roll on L1, which works quite well tied to the powerslide input for recoveries and wavedashes and stuff, I'm not sure of any situations where those two overlapping is a problem.

I've tried directional air rolls and haven't found a way of doing it that feels intuitive, maybe if a good controller had paddles that were their own inputs, or maybe for maximum stupid you can use gyro controls. I never liked putting ballcam or rear view on the L3 either, I keep trying it and deciding it's too prone to accidentally being hit. And on R3, I mean, my thumb is already on X 80% of the time, so it's less disruptive to go to one of the other face buttons. I don't actually know what my other buttons are, last time I played on PC I had to redo all my keybinds and ended up putting rear view and scoreboard on the same button by mistake.

Also with kickoffs, I find in team games winning the kickoff is fine, whatever, but most of the time losing a kickoff is also fine as long as you lose it to somewhere inconsequential. Don't worry about the perfect way to win a kickoff if all you need to do is avoid losing a kickoff in a way that is immediately catastrophic, and give your team a fighting chance on the next hit. Like when the ball fires straight up and off the ceiling to come down in front of your goal, or similarly when the ball pings high off the sidewall, it makes for a really good centre for the opposing team, your second player is probably already ahead of the ball and unable to get back and your third doesn't expect to have to defend this kind of attack this quickly with no backup. That's the stuff that makes people angry enough to forfiet tied games with more than two minutes left.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
I really don't like the toxicity that this game inspires, I like to have fun and people being dickholes kinda brings that down a bit. Really your best bet is to get teammates you know are chill, not take things too personally, and ignore anything the other team gives you. You can also use the report feature whenever you think it's justified, it's always fun to see the notification when someone actually gets banned.

I think Rocket League, being a sports videogame, attracts and brings out the worst of both worlds, so you end up with some really lovely people being really lovely.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
No, a couple of the licensed cars have their own unique explosions. Batmoblies, and the Delorean, I'm not sure of any others. Previously they've said custom explosions could be too distracting/advantageous for competitive gameplay but I still like the idea.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
One thing you need for good high aerials is having the expectation that the ball will just be sent high at speed and being prepared to do something about it. That means the moment you see someone slamming the ball you aren't going "oh hell where is the ball going now, oh no it's up high and I'm down here how am I supposed to- wait, I can fly. I can fly, I should probably fly for this" which slows you down a lot. It's not just about raw reaction time, there's a lot of dithering and uncertainty that can slow you down too.

If you do get surprised then by the time you've had your moment of panic and actually jumped, the ball has a little bit more of a head start on you and so does the Dominus player on their team who always throws themselves after every ball that leaves the ground. The more you're comfortable with the idea, the easier it will be to react to it. The upper levels of in-built Aerial training are ok for learning to go up for the ball, learning to read its arc, and when you're comfortable with that and think you can fast-aerial well enough there are player-made aerial training packs that will prove a harder test of your speed and skill.

Then once it stops being that panic snap decision of jumping the second the ball leaves the ground and you've arrived at some kind of controlled fast aerial that gets to the ceiling, you can work on the actual decision making of "do I actually have to go up for this". You start to recognise when you're better off not going, like when you're beat to the ball by another player and flying up just throws you across the pitch. Or you can tell when there's actually no danger because that Dominus player has taken off the wrong way and doesn't know how to course correct. Or alternately you can see when they're on the ball but you know it's time to be desperate and get in the way to get any kind of block you can, to give your teammates a moment to get back.

I didn't actually put any training packs in the OP but I probably should have. And I didn't get the second post to put links and other useful content in because I'm as good at posting as I am at RL. There is a collection of them in our Discord, or if anyone wants to reccomend specific training packs I can put them in the OP.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
The system works fine, it's just unsteady at the start because until the system has a decent record of games to judge you on, you gain and lose extra ranked points per game because it's trying to give you a boost in either direction to try and get you near to where you should be. So of course sequential wins are going to power you through the ranks because the game kinda skips you up to the next rank or drops you down to the previous one. I think there's also an amplifier effect like this for win streaks so for example top-level players don't get stuck wrecking thirty Champ level games, which would be worse for both them and the other players in their games.

Once you're set and at that level, all you need to think about is that on average, whether you're Champ or Silver, if you win the same amount of games that you lose you'll end up close to where you started. MMR points, divisions, it doesn't really change that if you're looking to rank up you've just got to do it one game at a time. If you want the stats for nerds, they're out there and you can use stat tracking sites like RL Tracker to see what your numbers are, and click around to see where the different rank boundaries are.

You can go into the options and disable the divisions option so you only get alerts for changing your actual rank, if seeing promotion/relegation messages for individual ranks actually matters to you.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Yeah it's not a scam. Here is a link to the RL website about this issue, if you paid for keys for crates your account will be (or has already been) given 1,000 credits in return, which is apparently not part of the actual settlement. If you live in the US and feel that you have grounds to make a claim related to the settlement, then you may be able to get something more from it. It really does sound like Psyonix/Epic are trying to get away from this as much as they can, considering they also changed the Rocket Pass system so you can't buy new levels anymore.

I don't know what I'm going to do with these credits but you know, I'll take it. Maybe I will spend them if that one car I use ever turns up as a painted version again.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Previously there's been a couple big season events per year for the RLCS but for the last year they decided that they wanted to have three seasons of regional events all tied together into one grand competition, and called them splits. They've shifted the format around a bit for each of these splits, I guess to keep things interesting. They wanted the results from each of these "split" seasons to count towards a big final Major LAN event to cap it off, but that's not happening now for obvious reasons. I think if it's anything like last year, they're going to push a bunch of smaller event tournaments for the summer and then we'll see if they reuse this Split format for the next year. RLCSXI maybe?

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
I'm pretty sure that when they originally standardised the hitboxes there were still small differences in handling, but they've since standardised that now too so each hitbox has its own dimensions and handling but cars of the same hitbox are identical. So whether you're driving a Fennec or an Octane or a Scarab, it shouln't make a physical difference, you should get the exact same hits and turn the exact same amounts. There are like fifty other identical Octane hitbox cars including the Backfire, the Vulcan, the Road Hog, and the Ford F-150%-the-size-of-other-cars. As far as the game's concerned they're all interchangeable.

The difference is how you see the game; you see the model and not the hitbox, so you make slightly different assumptions about the car and how it's going to hit the ball, and these small differences make a bigger difference when you're trying to do something precise. Some cars are so different you can see the edge of the hitbox pushing the ball, or the ball blatantly clipping through the car. So cars with the same hitbox do feel different but they aren't actually different. If it feels better to you, and you think it looks cool (it has to look cool) then go for it.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Using ballcam the majority of the time is so important that I don't know why it's not the default. You don't really need to see where you're going like a standard driving game, as you'll develop a sense of where the walls and goals are. The ball is generally what you need to focus on, as everything else happens around the ball, so you want it in the centre of your screen. That way not only can you see where it is and where it's going, but around and behind it you can also see who's in position to go for it next and react accordingly.

You'll want to turn it off briefly for select situations where either you're off the ball and going for boost or a bump, or if you're bad you might need it briefly for recoveries, maybe you're hurtling through the air, miss the ball ,and need to take ballcam off so you can adjust to land on the wall you're about to crash into. You'd also turn it off for some dribbling moves, because small movements that close to the ball can swing the camera wildly, but you don't need to worry about that until you can actually do it reliably.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Unfortunately, actually talking to your teammates is almost never a good idea. They will always, always, always do things like that. They cut rotations, try to be too clever, try to be the hero and win the game by themselves. They're almost never going to make a meaningful correction, because at that level that is just part of how they play. They're not deciding to cut in, they are just doing it because cutting in is what they have learned to do in those situations. (bad plays are easily reinforced behaviours because as long as you avoid getting scored on you can tell yourself the play worked, and if you do get scored on you can just blame bad teammates)

With the RL community being the way it is, your best outcome is that your teammate ignores you. Flip a coin; if it lands, said teammate is going to take your criticisms very personally and the coin then decides whether your teammate stops playing completely to rant at you about how bad you are, or if they're going to focus on bumping you and scoring own goals.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Casual MMR is a lot more loose than Ranked, and is also entirely separate so someone who plays no casual games will have a low MMR even if they're actually SSL. It doesn't mean too much. So you might get someone who's just persistently made their way up against tougher opponents, or a GC level player just hanging out with Diamonds to make some sick montage goals against people who won't make it too difficult for them.

Don't be scared of GC titles. People who only barely scraped into GC or got there with the help of a much better teammate love using their GC titles because they feel like they achieved something (which is fair), or they might be really good and not taking it seriously. And if they are a lot better than you, hey, it's a good opportunity to learn and actually see how better players play.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
1v1 definitely has its merits, it puts you on the ball for the majority of the time and gives you no backup, nobody to blame for the mistakes you make so you just have to learn to deal with them. But it's also a game mode that can be painfully unfun. I tried to be a 1s main multiple times and never really got in a groove where I was enjoying more than one in every six games, but I am also really bad and don't have the mindset for 1v1. If you're not having fun, why are you even playing?

Besides free-play practice giving you space to just try stuff, 2v2 is good because you don't have so many people to content with, so you get more time to do things, you also have someone who might be inclined to be on your side so your mistakes aren't as immediately fatal. Plus, you get some idea of how to play around people, spacing, rotations, which 1v1 just does not require you to think about.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.

DaveSauce posted:

I mean, I get WHY it's a thing. But there's nothing there that is advantageous over using quick chat. It eliminates any sort of skill, strategy, or spontaneity in the game if left is always taking the kickoff. It's lazy in my opinion.

I get that you are overstating the point you're trying to make here by like a ton, but I'm not really sure why?

Yes people raging over it is stupid. People rage over everything in this game, and it's always stupid. But having in the back of your brain "everyone thinks left goes" especially on the first kickoff of a game with random teammates is good to know. If you want to play it safe, it's a good idea to assume your teammates are probably going to behave accordingly.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
I see a few F1 cars sometimes but not very often at all. There are a ton of different cars in the game but the "car meta" of Rocket League is kinda sad to be entirely honest. The playerbase has largely settled on what is cool and good and it turns out personal taste is heavily frowned upon, and the more you play and the more seriously players take the game, the more you see the exact same three cars.

If you like the F1 car and it feels good to you, keep using it, I just couldn't convince myself to throw that much money into the game for one car. I forget what its hitbox is but as long as you're hitting the ball when it feels like you're hitting the ball you should be fine.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
brb, going to see if I can find a 12hz TV so I can maximise my excuses for being bad at the game.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
When you're stunned mashing that recovers you quicker, it might not seem like much but it's particularly bad being stunned in the air, and if you really hammer the button you can get unstunned and flip just in time to save yourself from being thrown directly downwards. You've got more powerful boost and like half a dozen flips/jumps in the air to use freely, so you can recover from surprisingly bad situations until the outer wall is so close that a throw just immediately kills you.

And yeah flip to attack which sends people flying, backlip to block which sends attackers flying, and grab by flipping while holding brake (KBM players might want to change the binding for grab) and then flip again to throw them, which is a bit like the Gridiorn ball throw. It's actually not a bad little game mode, it's interesting but is kinda rough when you end up against a party who are working together.

TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
Not the case anymore! You have to concede in unranked now, with the same restrictions as forfeiting in ranked, complete with temporary (and much less lengthy) bans for quitting matches that escalate the more you quit. It really limits the amount of utterly goddamn unplayable games you get in unranked now

At a certain point I had a very high matchmaking rating in unranked and every game had people quitting over single goals four seconds in, and sometimes both teams would be utter blowouts with whole teams worth of players joining and quitting on both sides until one team eventually happened to just be bots. This is no longer what happens, games are playable, and even sometimes fun.

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TheDarkFlame
May 4, 2013

You tell me I didn't build that?

I'll have you know I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am today.
That's not really a recent development I'm afraid, it's more a thing as you play more games and you get more into matches with people who forget the game should be fun and start to identify themselves by what rank they can reach and what tricks they can pull off. People who take it extremely personally when their teammate makes mistakes, and is determined to find those mistakes and blame their teammates whenever anything happens that they don't like. I even find that stuff in casual games fairly routinely, and have done for years. And yeah, it sucks, and kinda makes the game less fun, if you can't ignore this stuff I'd suggest partying up with people instead of solo queueing.

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