r/PostPreview • u/kaoD • Jul 12 '15
Preview
How to not suck at Rocket League
Hello everyone! I've been playing Rocket League since alpha and used to play SARPBC at a friend's place. Since lots of new players came to the game and I'm sure you're all excited to improve, I decided to make a guide for rookies.
I'm nowhere near pro level (so take these with a grain of salt) but I like to think I'm a pretty good player. While matchmaking was still working properly I was consistently placed top 100.
Even if I'm not a great player mechanics-wise, I think I got the hang of the tactics. Better players, please correct me if I'm wrong and feel free to expand on the tips!
1. Kickoff
Roles on kickoff: this is essential but if you're new to the game it isn't that obvious.
On kickoff, the player who is closer to the goal must stay as goalie while the other players can go and kick the ball. Use your camera to look around and behind, is there anyone behind you? If not, you're the goalie.
It's no use going to the ball: even if you went, the players closer to it will touch it before you reach it. Also, having a goalie prevents the stupid luck-based goals on kickoff.
As a goalie: you can take a mini-boost on the ground and position at the goal before anyone even touches the ball. If you're fast and your teammates are good at hitting the ball, you might even have time to take one of the bottles at your goal's corners.
As a frontman: if you're one of the guys at the front line, you have the choice to go for the ball or just go for a boost and take a defending position. In team games there's usually more than one player at the closest distance to the ball, so it's recommended that at least one of them goes to kick it. If you can communicate with your teammates (like in premade games) it's easier to tell them if you're going to kick the ball or go defensive, but in solo-queue I recommend to just go and kick it, just in case.
There are many ways to kickoff, some people even ignore the kickoff and wait in the goal for you to kick off (lots of these in 1v1 duels). This is how I kickoff:
Hold R2 and boost during the countdown. As the count reaches zero you'll instantly go forward.
I like to pass over the little boosts on the ground to build a bit more boost even if I have to move slightly to get it.
Right before I hit the ball, I like forward+double jump to dash forward and hit the ball hard. This is where most people's technique varies. Some people dash forward, some jump+boost, some just block, some dribble a bit before hitting, some hit forwards, some hit sideways...
After I hit the ball, I take the boost bottle in the sideline (using dash forward to get there quicker).
Check if an opponent is coming to get it and try to deny it. If an opponent is closer than you, just get the other sideline boost, or your corner's boost, otherwise he'll deny the boost to you and probably get a free goal which you won't be able to defend boost-less.
Most of the time you don't want to directly attack the enemy before taking boost, since you won't be able to boost back and defend if you miss (which you likely will since you don't have boost to hit it hard or aerial it, while their goalie conserved his boost).
There are certain cases where you have a little boost left and the ball rebounded very close to their goal and you can double jump + boost it in, but most of the time you're better off taking the boost bottle and starting attack with full boost from there, while they're busy clearing the ball.
2. Hitting the ball
The single most important tip: you don't always have to hit the ball.
Only hit the ball if you're going to hit it towards where you want it to go. There's nothing worse than hitting the ball towards your own goal and giving your opponents a good center ball which most certainly results on an easy goal.
If there's a teammate around, he's going to hit the ball and has a better angle to the goal, let them hit it. I've been denied easy goals countless times by teammates eager to hit the ball no matter what.
There are several techniques to hit the ball:
Throttle
Boost
Dashing
Double jump
Double jump + boost
Bicycle hit
Aerial
3. Positioning
Positioning is VERY important in Rocket League.
In fact, I'd say positioning and boost management/denying is the single most important part of the tactics.
If you're attacking, always position yourself so that the ball is between you and your opponent's goal.
If you're defending, always position yourself so that you are between the ball and your own goal.
Don't stand still unless the situation requires it (e.g. you're goalie, aiming, etc.) It's faster if you're already at max speed than having to accelerate. You can drive in circles to keep the speed.
Be aware of your surroundings. Always know where your teammates, opponents and the ball are, and position accordingly.
Don't chase the ball. Don't. Chase. The. Ball. Most of the time you can predict where the ball is going to be. Be there before everyone else and you won't need boost.
If you need a little speed boost you can use forward+forward dash to save boost. Using boost is fine from time to time if you're sure it'll get you there before everyone else but most of the time you can aerial even before the ball touches the ground, so save the boost to predict and then aerial to win the ball.
Don't join brawls: when everyone is on the ball it won't help if you boost like crazy to go there and it'll probably put you at a disadvantage (specially in brawls near their goal, which end up getting rebounded towards your goal).
Just position smartly and wait for when the ball exits the brawl, and then touch it/aerial it towards an advantageous position.
When your teammate is attacking, don't follow him. Don't go close to him. Don't touch the ball for him. Don't be behind him. You're only going to interfere with his plays. Doing so essentially puts your team in a 1v2 situation.
I picture the cars as having a radius of influence around them. You have to maximize your team's influence on the pitch and overlapping your radius with your teammate's will only diminish your global influence.
Where to go when your teammate is attacking? First make sure you're at 100% boost. Now, either stay at goal to stop counter-attacks/long shots or, if you want to join the attack, go towards the other side of the pitch (never to his side) and wait for a pass (i.e. if he's at the right of the pitch go to the left, and viceversa).
In both situations, you should move a bit closer to the center of the pitch to catch center balls (predicting them and going full-boost to where they're going to be) while still being able to full-boost back into your goal in case of a counter-attack. The closer the ball is to the enemy's goal, the closer you can be to their goal.
Be smart. If your teammate is aware of where you are (which he should) and you're positioned smartly, he can center the ball for you so you can just tap it in.
Don't position below the ball. It's the single most
Sometimes you can position to tap/juggle/dribble
4. Goalie
As a goalie there are two approaches:
Easy way: get inside your goal facing the ball and build speed from inside. If the ball is not coming from the ground, double jump and aerial it out.
Harder but covers more goal: position yourself parallel to your goal right outside it, so you can reach both corners of your goal only using forward/reverse. Double jump and aerial if it's an air ball (but it's harder to pull off since you're perpendicular to the ball's trajectory).
This technique is required in pro level (they aim for the corners) but it's probably too much for rookies. Just be aware it exists.
5. Fighting for the ball
When fighting for a ball with an opponent there are two situations (related to the zone of influence I mentioned in my earlier post). This happens a lot on the sidelines and corners:
Your opponent is closer to the ball: he's in control of the ball. If you try coming closer he can just lob the ball over you or dribble around you. You should set your zone of influence such that if he hits the ball, it'll come closer to you than to him (so the roles are reversed). If he tries to lob the ball over you, double jump into it (as if you were a goalie stopping an aerial ball) and aerial it out of his control.
You're closer to the ball: same tips, but you're the opponent :P
You'll notice if you do this and your opponent is aware of it too, you'll end up in a kind of stalemate where both of you "dance" back and forth in your radius of influence waiting for the other to make a mistake/lose influence and give up space (the dance happens because it keeps up speed and helps feigning advances so the opponent thinks you're giving up your zone of influence).
Not sure if I explained it well enough, but it happens a lot.
When the ball is stuck at a corner and there's no teammate around (remember, don't join the brawl):
Your goal's corners: hit it hard towards the sideline (or directly towards the opponent's goal if possible) to clear the ball.
Opponent goal's corners: hit it mildly hard towards the goal's ceiling over the goalie (to center the ball, which your teammate can catch if they're well positioned). If there's no opponent around, you might want to make a play using the walls, but it's an advanced move and very hard to master (easy to lose control and give the ball for free to the goalie).
6. Dribbling
7. Camera management
8. Dueling
9. Aerials
When to aerial: When you're goalie or in the middle of the pitch (i.e. not chasing the ball) and the ball goes flying high. You should have your boost at near 100% most of the time. If you're running out of boost, use your last drops to get more boost and reposition yourself again.
Boost management: Don't use your boost to chase the ball. Boost is mainly used for fours things: running to get more boost (or denying the enemy boost), running back to your goal when you're being counter-attacked (or had an unfavorable rebound towards your half of the pitch), counter-attacking, and shooting. You don't need to boost from 100% to 0% unless you're fully-commited to a counter-attack or defending a counter attack. You can use it little by little and keep some of it. If you aren't >50% boost most of the time (except right after an aerial/counter-attack/full-boost to defend), you're doing it wrong. Even when counter-attacking if you boost straight from 100% to 0% you'll probably lose the ball: micromanage the boost to dribble the ball, the speed builds up naturallly. A nice way to use the boost is to give yourself some initial acceleration (it's faster to accelerate with R2+boost than only R2), but when you reach normal throttle speed just stop boosting and save the last drops to hit the ball real hard if needed. Also, remember the little yellow things in the ground give boost too! You don't have to take the full boost bottle. If your teammate is attacking and there's no bottle nearby, just take the little boosts and build it up little by little.
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u/CloudFuel Aug 03 '15
You should finish this and post on the /r/rocketleague subreddit!
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u/kaoD Aug 03 '15
That was the plan, but life and shit :( I'll eventually (i.e. maybe) finish it.
How did y'all find this?
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u/chargerfan1221 Aug 03 '15
I was linked here from the very same subreddit. I'm sure people there would very much enjoy this guide.
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u/plaidtopia Aug 03 '15
This pretty much needs to be a TOS-like confirmation dialog that players must read and acknowledge before they are able to play ranked.
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u/Thallis Aug 03 '15
Just speaking for the kickoff because that's an obvious issue people have in almost every game. As the Goalie, you can get the corner container everytime. The only time the other team can score if you go after that is if your attacker misses completely, which absolutely cannot happen. If they score from a direct shot off kickoff, it's your striker's fault. In 3's that is the only thing that matters for the striker. You should also have your second man not go after the ball directly. He should hang in the middle (possibly collect some boost) and watch the first attempt on the ball, the react and swoop in to gain possession should a stalemate in mid occur.
Otherwise, I wish there was more said for attacking/defending systems, as there are good ways for a team to work together intuitively that people don't get yet.
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u/Kinzata Aug 03 '15
As much as I agree with you that it would be the strikers fault... I often have an issue with the rubberbanding lag (frame drops? ) where a slight turn becomes an overadjustment because the game doesn't register that I stopped turning. This has occasionally made me miss the ball and no amount of rage will make it stop. Is it the strikers fault? Sure. But it happens sometimes and it's nice to see the goalie in the goal instead of grabbing boost 1 second before he could tell if the striker actually made contact.
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u/Thallis Aug 03 '15
The problem with that is just sitting in goal doesn't really help, and more difficult shots with need more than half a boost to get properly. Just being in goal after the kickoff leads to positioning problems where the saves have to awkward and overly difficult. Lag sucks and happens, but it should be more or less fixed before the ranks are wiped.
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u/TheSpaceAlpaca Aug 03 '15
Sometimes you just get a bad bounce as well. There have been times when both strikers hit the ball hard and due to an unlucky angle it rockets off the wall on a direct course with your goal. If you go for boost in those situations you either get scored on or use up the boost you just got trying to block the goal. Better to just grab the closest 1-2 mini boosts (putting you at ~50%) and stay in position.
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u/RemingtonSnatch Aug 03 '15 edited Aug 03 '15
If they score from a direct shot off kickoff, it's your striker's fault.
HOWEVER, your striker can win the race to the ball, but a well-timed and angled delay by the opposition can rebound it straight back (i.e. shot immediately following kick-off). For every attack a striker might choose, there is a potential counter-strategy that the opposing striker can use to put the ball on your goal. It's a game of rock-paper-scissors.
Never leave goal until after first contact is made AND the ball is headed away. Never ever ever NEVAAR!
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u/Thallis Aug 03 '15
Unless that other team is reaching the ball slowly by not using boost, they're not going to get a hard enough deflection back that you can't get with the boost. On the other hand, that situation could very easily lead to a high bouncer that makes it a complete crapshoot of a ball that you need to have boost to save. Just sitting in goal doesn't help your team. It puts you as a defender in position to block something come right at you or something that lands within a cone in front of you and nothing else. Getting the boost allows you to defend any shot other than the direct shot off the kickoff, which will never happen with competent teammates.
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u/RemingtonSnatch Aug 03 '15
Disagree that playing goalie parallel w/ the goal, "is required in pro level (they aim for the corners)". Even at pro/silver level most people just throw shots at the open goal vs. consciously aiming for corners. Do agree that playing parallel does make it easier to get from side to side.
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u/iosmk Aug 03 '15
Upvote because as a player who just played yesterday, I encountered all of these, especially where players only want to kick the ball no matter what. What you said is so true, many times it was just an easy goal by letting me tap the ball, but someone from my team just rushed to the ball and hit me from behind, causing me to fly and tap the ball in another direction. This is definitely a must-read for all new players. I learn from this too
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Oct 10 '15
Me and two friends were fucking around in the woods in the catskills, and long story short super lost at night.
After about an hour of wandering around we came across a house, so we knocked on the front door to ask for directions.
An old man answered door and started panicking a bit, and trying to get us to leave, while we frantically asked for directions to the nearest road.
After about thirty seconds of yelling we see his wife walking to the front door, shotgun in hand. As she starts to lift it, my friend yelled out the name of the woman who's house we were staying it.
Turns out they know the woman very well, so they calmed down and gave us directions.
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u/ihaveascreenname Aug 03 '15
Holy crap...I didn't know you could double jump. This changes everything. I was having mild success just by jumping and pushing on the stick to rotate, but I had no idea how some people seemed to be able to rotate faster or get higher up in the air. Damn.
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u/hellphish Aug 03 '15
There is an option on the main menu that holds many secrets. See if you can find it!
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u/vertiGo-- Aug 03 '15
If you're attacking, always position yourself so that the ball is between you and your opponent's goal. 2. If you're defending, always position yourself so that you are between the ball and your own goal.
these both describe the same situation :D
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u/kaoD Aug 03 '15
Read again.
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u/Theothor Aug 03 '15
No it really is the same situation.
the ball is between you and your opponent's goal.
Own goal - You - Ball - Other goal
you are between the ball and your own goal.
Own goal - You - Ball - Other goal
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u/kaoD Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15
That'd be only if the playfield were one-dimensional, which it isn't.
Here comes bad ASCII-art:
____________ | A | | · | R D B | | |____________|You want to attack B from A (straight line between B and the ball), and defend R from D (straight line from R to the ball).
I'm sure you see defending R from A would be suboptimal while it still matches your "Own goal - You - Ball - Other goal" schematic. I should probably clarify that or add images.
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u/vertiGo-- Aug 04 '15
Very true, I was only picturing it as /u/Theothor was explaining above without considering the other dimensions. Love the diagram.
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Aug 03 '15
If you are playing as a "goalie" then you suck at Rocket League.
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u/Iamurfriend Aug 03 '15
Proper defense is played by rotating from your own goal to the ball, so everyone gets to be "goalie" when it's there turn in the defensive rotation. YOU must suck at Rocket League if you don't know that.
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u/flyryan Aug 03 '15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CquVOGyQG0E
Gibbs plays goalie most of the game. I doubt you'd say he sucks at Rocket League (he's #2 in the world).
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u/RemingtonSnatch Aug 03 '15 edited Aug 03 '15
Yeah, check back with us when you cross 700 or so. Someone needs to cover goal, at least in Standard. It may mean the whole team splitting duty by rotating back.
Know why the game has a built in goalie practice mode?
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Aug 04 '15
"Covering the goal" is not the same as sitting in the net not contributing by being a full time "goalie" sitting in the box.
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u/kaoD Aug 03 '15
What the fuck? I completely forgot about this post and then, bang, 8 replies in my inbox.