Friday, January 4, 2019

[Rocket League] Awareness Guide

This Rocket League guide is about awareness: It will improve your skill of predicting your opponent or teammate's next move when solo queuing, improve your playstyle in solo queue games, teach you how to deal with toxicity and give other important tips and tricks. This guide is mostly meant for 2v2s and 3v3s, but there are quite a few useful tips for 1v1 players as well.
If you want a quick run-down of the guide you can simply read the short summaries I've written, but if you want the full info, you can read the whole paragraphs.

1) Opponent prediction

At times it may be hard to predict what an opponent will do, but you must keep your focus on both them and the ball. If the opponents are side by side, they might try a passing play. Try keeping your eyes on every opponent, the ball, your teammates all at once. 

It is hard to do but if you can master this you will know how to adapt to most situations, for example you will foresee an opponent go for a demo towards you if you keep an eye on them or you will notice your teammates going for it, therefore you won't have to go for it as well (double/triple commit scenario, which is a likely way you will get scored on). 

You should also keep an eye on the opponents taking boost pads if you can, so you know wheter or not they have boost, and this goes same for your allies, you should know whether they have boost or not in order to know if they will go for it or not, unless they use the text chat (I got it, Take the shot, Defending)
Rocket League Opponent Awareness
In the picture, you can see an opponent circled in red, this means he could potentially go for a demo. It is not likely, because the ball is going towards their side of the field, but if it were closer to your side and rolling towards net, you would have to either worry about them passing or about the red-circled player demoing you, and it's important to know how to predict this.
To avoid a demo you should probably jump once, and don't jump too high otherwise you won't be able to save the shot from the other opponent(s). You could also side-flip but this will make it significantly harder for you to save the shot.
Last but not least fakes and shots in general will be very hard to predict, however if you see the ball bounce, you should always be ready for a power shot from the opponent, and if your teammate(s) can go for a ball that is too close to your goal, he absolutely needs to because those kind of shots are very hard to save, unless you have God-like reflexes and know how to fast aerial very well.

A short summary of what you should keep track of:
  • The opponent's boost (Did they take any boost pads?)
  • The opponent's positioning (Will they go for a demo, a passing play, or potentially both in a 3v3 scenario?)
  • Your teammates's positioning (Will they go for it? Will you know? Hint: Try using text chat to say you will go for it, defend or tell your teammates to go for it instead)
  • You need to tell your teammate(s) to go for it if the ball is close to net or you need to make a risky challenge if you're alone. You can also try to fake challenge but the opponent might panic and shoot it really hard, which will make it a struggle and near-impossible to save the shot.

2) Boost Management

Boost management is extremely important in this game, therefore I can give some tips on how to manage your boost. 

First of all, you need to always try and keep track of the boost pads timer (10 seconds till a new 100 boost pad will respawn) therefore you need to kind of get a feel of how much time 10 seconds is and if you get used to this, you will know exactly when the boost will spawn and go for it in a pinch and take it just as it spawns, which can really be helpful in situations where the opponent is quickly approaching the goal and noone is defending. 

Second, you must always be able to keep an eye on your boost amount, this is important because if you don't have enough boost you will go for an aerial that you can't hit and inevitabily miss and get knocked out of position, which can be very bad for your teammate(s) especially if the opponents are preparing a well coordinated attack (passing and bumping). 
Going for an aerial without much boost will also leave you with no boost on ground, so you need to look out for that as well. A good way to fix this problem is with one of the most well-known and obvious tips: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE SMALL BOOST PADS! They are actually very useful if you can flip into them and you can get a lot of boost just from them. 
You should only go for the 100 boost pads when someone is defending or when the opponents are struggling on their half of the field; another golden rule: DO NOT GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO GET BOOST! If you go get boost all the way at the opponent's corners, you will have to use atleast half or 1/4 of it to get back to your field and you are leaving your teammate(s) alone. 

One big mistake new players make is that when you reach supersonic speed (when the camera zooms out slightly, light particles appear on the screen and your trail shows), any boost you will use will not increase your speed, and double flips won't either, so don't waste any boost and don't use flips if you're already going supersonic unless you want to for some reason lose momentum (can be useful if the opponent does something unexpected) or if you want to save it. 

Another important thing not many people know, backf lipping is actually slightly faster than front flipping, so if you want to do a powerful shot and don't know how to add some more power to the hit, you can try turning your car over and flipping into it so you hit the ball with the beak/tip of your car (works very well with breakout, you might be able to even hit it on the ceiling and make it bounce back with enough strength and momentum).

A short summary:
  • Use small boost pads and don't underestimate them.
  • Try to get a feel for when you think the 100 boost pads will respawn, so you can drive over them and instantly get them as soon as they spawn.
  • Don't go too far for boost. If the ball is on the opponent's half and your teammate(s) is/are pushing, you could possibly go for the middle boost and follow up your teammates if they decide to pass.
  • Don't go for aerials you can't hit, you can get a feel for this by turning off unlimited boost in freeplay and going for some high shots
  • If you are in a pinch and need a strong clear, wait for the ball to bounce and do what is called a power shot.
  • Don't waste boost and momentum on flips if you're already supersonic speed unless you have to save or stop for some reason. (Backflipping stops you almost completely but takes you about half a second to get back on the ground so keep that in mind).
  • Back flips are faster than front flips.

3) Solo queueing, communication and dealing with toxicity

You should only solo queue if you can deal with teammates that ballchase/do something wrong/don't have a similar playstyle to yours and can't adapt to it. It is very good to use voice chatting platforms that aren't too outdated (Skype) such as Discord and Teamspeak. I personally prefer discord because the layout is just way easier to get used to. Back to the matter at hand, you should use voice chatting platforms if you're playing with your friends in 2v2s or 3v3s, but this is just a small tip. 

A very important aspect of playing the game when solo queuing is being able to communicate with teammates well. For example you need to always say if you're defending, going for it (important on kickoffs) and if you want your teammates to go for it. This is pretty self explanatory however not many people get it and end up losing a lot of games because of this. The most important tip when solo queuing is, if you get paired with 2 people that are partied in a 3v3, you should let them go for it more often as they are most likely voice chatting and they can do passing plays more often. 

You should mostly defend (also specify you're defending in chat) and go for demos, however absolutely do not hesitate to go for a pass if the other party member is not there for it. If the opponents are all partied together, that hints you to know that they will probably be voice chatting as well, which means they will be able to do team plays way more efficiently, which takes us back to the first section of this guide, where you can tell if they will pass, go for demos etc.
It is really recommended that you find people you can play with at your same rank and voice chat with them, you will win way more games if you can coordinate well all together and definitely reach a new rank. 

This next part of this section is dedicated to toxic players, for example people that won't stop spamming what a save, or even teammates that can't get over a single goal and will potentially even stop playing or leave the match without forfeiting. The best way to deal with these kinds of players is to show positivity, for example if an opponent is spamming "What a save!" you shouldn't spam it back, because that will just get both players tilted. If you really want to, you can tease them at the end of the game for losing if your team wins. 
Otherwise, if your teammate is being mean, just try to take the fault for any mistakes he makes and pretend it was your bad, or forgive him all the time if he misses, this will most likely make your teammate(s) rethink his/their actions and forgive you as well, which leads to better teamplaying in general. It is important to appear calm if anyone is being toxic, especially to your teammate.

A short summary to this section as well:
  • If you can adapt well to other people's playstyles, solo queuing is a good option.
  • You should find people of your same rank and voice chat with them for more efficient team plays and overall communication.
  • Communicating with your solo queue teammates will lead to a better playstyle and most likely lead to a win.
  • Make sure you check whether anyone in the game is partied up, so you know wheter to stay back and let your teammates do passing plays, or to be on guard for major opponent team plays.
  • Do not fight toxicity with toxicity, it just makes it way worse. Instead, try to point out what your teammate(s) is/are doing wrong or maybe even ask them yourself what you are doing wrong, in order to adapt to their playstyle.
  • Be calm when people are toxic, as I said, arguing won't lead to winning.

4) Rumble-related things

Not many people play rumble now but I figured making a section for this will help some people to get better at it. The most important thing you should do in rumble is not only teamwork or communication, but also prediction takes a big part in rumble. 
This takes us back to section 1) once more: You should always try to predict what power-up the opponents have, and very importantly you should try and keep track of your opponent's power-up reset time, however this is extremely hard to do and requires a lot of focus and attention, it is not recommended if you're not good at multi tasking, but if you're in net you should definitely try to. 

For example, if the opponent is sitting in your goal he probably has a plunger ready to steal a goal, if he's sitting in his goal, he's most likely got a haymaker to make a powerful clear (haymaker is the red boxing glove). If he is trying to catch the ball he most likely has spikes. 
Remember, a good way to save spikes is to use the teleport so if you can call out to your team if they have any teleports in voice chat, it would be very useful, but another good way to save spikes is the kick, the tornado maybe and the grappling hook. 

One very important thing many people forget: Absolutely DO NOT USE THE BOOSTING POWER-UP ON AN OPPONENT WHEN THEY HAVE SPIKES! This will make it obviously way easier for them to score a goal, but many people still do this and it leads to many losses.

Finally for the last hint/tip I can give you about rumble, if you get the golden fist that can demo anyone no matter what speed, you should either go for a strong clear, opponent demos or both if you can. This makes it very easy for your teammates to score a goal and sometimes resets your opponent's power-ups. There are definitely more rumble tips for each specific item, but it's hard to think about all of them unless you actually start thinking yourself. A good way to think about this is to make like a chart of all the power-ups and field positions and see which match really well together so that you can better predict what your opponents are doing.

A short summary:
  • Try to predict what power-up your opponents have by thinking a little like this: Why is he on that part of the field? What can he use to change the course of the game? Is he trying to catch the ball with spikes, or getting it to a vantage pinch position to use the grapple hook on it?
  • This point takes us back to point #1, you need to know wheter the opponent(s) are sitting in their goal or your goal in case they try to use a specific power up. In this case, a demo might be handy, but remember they can always dodge it so it is risky.
  • Do not boost opponents that are using the spike power up, it only makes them faser.
  • Use the golden fist power-up to demo opponents or clear balls to buy your team some time.
  • If you really care about Rumble, you can make yourself a chart of the field positions and power-ups, mix them and see which goes best (for example haymaker can be used in your goal to make a strong clear).
Guide by Kektus Erektus
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