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Rocket League |OT| Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

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AcridMeat

Banned
Normal is fun and all, and a great way to get practice, but I'd like to see some progression and get to the higher tiers, because I feel I've earned that. I'm still hoping one of my friends catches on and starts playing more given a local arcade that's quite popular holds regular tournaments. Like I said, without the competitive side you're left with a fun game, but nothing to really give a ton of your time to, and the current matchmaking makes the competitive side impossible unless you have a partner or 2 depending on your prefered game mode.
Different strokes. I've got 225 hours in the game and maybe 1/4-1/3 of that is ranked.

I do get what you're saying, better competition breeds better play/improvement, but honestly there isn't a dip in quality of opponents in normal/ranked to me. I'm naturally competitive, so I don't need a specific mode to get me in the mood to be so. I like having the freedom of not caring about the outcome while still trying my best and not getting needlessly upset or frustrated with teammates.
 

Machina

Banned
It's insufferable playing this game solo now. The amount of trolls and just generally shithouse players going around is remarkable.
 

The_Poet

Banned
A friend who I play with is getting much better under my guidance. He scored his first aerial goal last night, I'm so proud BibleThump
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Why don't you guys play normals? The ranked changes made it such an unsatisfying experience, but the game is as fun as ever not worrying about it...

I want to feel like each game is "worth" something, so I pretty much only do ranked (except when a bunch of us get together and play each other). A win in a friendly counts for nothing. Still fun, but I want that progression. Sure, losing ranked matches for BS reasons sucks, but winning one is much more satisfying than winning a friendly.
 
I have this on PC as well as PS4 (got that through PS+, ended up buying the PC version to support the dev and because performance there is much better), and I have a couple of questions, one that's been bothering me for a while.

1) How do the "starting positions" work? I play ranked and literally every single time I start a game, the game always, always puts me right in front of the goal, compelling me to play goalie. After the first goal (regardless of which teams scores it), I always, always get put right back into the goalie position, except a bit off center. Not until the third goal do I get to play offense/support, so most matches I have to play goalie for a significant period of time and I don't like playing goalie. This only happens on PC. On PS4 I'm more or less randomly placed, and I get a much better variety of starting positions.

2) With that said, the reason why I dislike playing goalie is because it's a frustrating experience. First off, the nature of the ball's physics with the different hitboxes of each car plus the exact angle that the car hits the ball means that whenever an opponent makes a shot cleanly at your goal, it really can go in any one direction (from the perspective of you, the goalie). Very rarely does it go straight in front of the opponent. It can lob upward, sideways, any combination, etc. May times it's a complete gamble, and to any outsider (e.g., your other teammates), it looks like you derped (omg why you go left when it went right??). I don't think people realize how random the directions of the goal shots can be. Does anyone have any tips on that?

Second is the fact that making a save compromises my ability to get back to the goal and make another one. So if the ball is rolling toward the goal I hit it off to the side but whoops, I'm flying already in that direction. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a goal trying to block it, and then the opposing team easily hits the ball back into the goal before I get the chance to recover from my first block. It's frustrating and makes me feel like playing goalie is useless.

I also have what I like to call "the goalie curse". If I'm playing goalie I'm forever tethered to the goal. Because the instant I leave my post is the instant that the opposing team just happens to score. It also applies if I leave the goal because I'm blocking a shot. If I get bored because I've been sitting stationary for 3 minutes and notice that the other two team members could use extra help on offense? Countless times I've moved up trying to help them out and immediately the opposing team hits something that meanders into our goal uncontested. Now I look like the asshole who left his post.

Is there anyone else with a similar goalie experience? Is there anything you guys have found during playing goalie that help with any of that?
 
I have this on PC as well as PS4 (got that through PS+, ended up buying the PC version to support the dev and because performance there is much better), and I have a couple of questions, one that's been bothering me for a while.

1) How do the "starting positions" work? I play ranked and literally every single time I start a game, the game always, always puts me right in front of the goal, compelling me to play goalie. After the first goal (regardless of which teams scores it), I always, always get put right back into the goalie position, except a bit off center. Not until the third goal do I get to play offense/support, so most matches I have to play goalie for a significant period of time and I don't like playing goalie. This only happens on PC. On PS4 I'm more or less randomly placed, and I get a much better variety of starting positions.

2) With that said, the reason why I dislike playing goalie is because it's a frustrating experience. First off, the nature of the ball's physics with the different hitboxes of each car plus the exact angle that the car hits the ball means that whenever an opponent makes a shot cleanly at your goal, it really can go in any one direction (from the perspective of you, the goalie). Very rarely does it go straight in front of the opponent. It can lob upward, sideways, any combination, etc. May times it's a complete gamble, and to any outsider (e.g., your other teammates), it looks like you derped (omg why you go left when it went right??). I don't think people realize how random the directions of the goal shots can be. Does anyone have any tips on that?

Second is the fact that making a save compromises my ability to get back to the goal and make another one. So if the ball is rolling toward the goal I hit it off to the side but whoops, I'm flying already in that direction. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a goal trying to block it, and then the opposing team easily hits the ball back into the goal before I get the chance to recover from my first block. It's frustrating and makes me feel like playing goalie is useless.

I also have what I like to call "the goalie curse". If I'm playing goalie I'm forever tethered to the goal. Because the instant I leave my post is the instant that the opposing team just happens to score. It also applies if I leave the goal because I'm blocking a shot. If I get bored because I've been sitting stationary for 3 minutes and notice that the other two team members could use extra help on offense? Countless times I've moved up trying to help them out and immediately the opposing team hits something that meanders into our goal uncontested. Now I look like the asshole who left his post.

Is there anyone else with a similar goalie experience? Is there anything you guys have found during playing goalie that help with any of that?

Before I can give you any tips, I have to ask you this: How are you guarding the goal? Where do you position yourself?
 

Robaperas

Junior Member

I normally play goalie but I just stay on the middle of the pitch, try to get a goal, flip back and clear/save/miss saves, if I'm positioned closer to the ball I just go with the "I got it" which is mostly ignored and try to get the hit and go back to the goal if any team-mate isn't near it. If I left the goal to help scoring or passing and the opposition scores, I just go with "whoops" and that's that; if the other(s) player couldn't score and you tried to, it's not 100% your fault that the other team scored from a counter-attack, after all everyone can play goalie or defend.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Different strokes. I've got 225 hours in the game and maybe 1/4-1/3 of that is ranked.

I do get what you're saying, better competition breeds better play/improvement, but honestly there isn't a dip in quality of opponents in normal/ranked to me. I'm naturally competitive, so I don't need a specific mode to get me in the mood to be so. I like having the freedom of not caring about the outcome while still trying my best and not getting needlessly upset or frustrated with teammates.

what's your rank if I might ask? I don't mean to sound like a douche, but normal games for me are significantly less competitive for multiple reasons. 1. generally there is a much wider variation in terms of skill. 2. people aren't as invested and are playing more casually. What's the point of mastering a game that you can't put to the test is basically my point. Without ranked it's still fun and I don't want to sound like I'm taking it too serious, but I'd prefer ranked.

All of this being said it seems I've found one of the major sources of my recent plummet. I always have it set to east coast only and as I said I play in the 12-3 am range so I'd imagine the amount of people playing single ranked doubles is pretty slim at that point. As soon as I picked west coast last night things immediately changed and including today I've had some really fun intense matches that are back to what it used to be. One thing I like is if I fall down 3-0 early I always feel like we have a legitimate shot, where in this recent slide I knew it was over once we were down more than one, but now it's a ton more competitive, and I'm on a roll :).


edit-
I normally play goalie but I just stay on the middle of the pitch, try to get a goal, flip back and clear/save/miss saves, if I'm positioned closer to the ball I just go with the "I got it" which is mostly ignored and try to get the hit and go back to the goal if any team-mate isn't near it. If I left the goal to help scoring or passing and the opposition scores, I just go with "whoops" and that's that; if the other(s) player couldn't score and you tried to, it's not 100% your fault that the other team scored from a counter-attack, after all everyone can play goalie or defend.

This definitely not always the case. Leaving the goal or leaving position to attempt offense requires an understanding of how the play is developing. For instance when the game first launched, a simple center by using the bank to wrap it out around the goal was sufficient, now if you do that you're basically conceding possession to the other team. What's worse is if you (or any teammate for that matter), flies in aggressively for an attempt at a strong shot to the goal without seeing how the d has lined it up, they could easily sail a ball over your head for a wide open goal. Lining up shots long distance like that is very simple, and it's easy to see when somebody is cheating up and you have them, just pop it right up and over.

edit edit- another overly aggressive and all too common mistake you will see is when a teammate attacks the ball and hits the ball haphazardly without considering where it's going. Sometimes that actually can work, because it can destroy the rhythm of the offense, however most often what I see is a teammate launch at the ball to get it out of the line of fire, blasting it straight into the wall which essentially centers it for the offense, which the rotater has lined up at this point. It puts a ton of pressure on the goalie and is one of the toughest situations to defend given the speed of the shot.
 
I have this on PC as well as PS4 (got that through PS+, ended up buying the PC version to support the dev and because performance there is much better), and I have a couple of questions, one that's been bothering me for a while.

1) How do the "starting positions" work? I play ranked and literally every single time I start a game, the game always, always puts me right in front of the goal, compelling me to play goalie. After the first goal (regardless of which teams scores it), I always, always get put right back into the goalie position, except a bit off center. Not until the third goal do I get to play offense/support, so most matches I have to play goalie for a significant period of time and I don't like playing goalie. This only happens on PC. On PS4 I'm more or less randomly placed, and I get a much better variety of starting positions.

2) With that said, the reason why I dislike playing goalie is because it's a frustrating experience. First off, the nature of the ball's physics with the different hitboxes of each car plus the exact angle that the car hits the ball means that whenever an opponent makes a shot cleanly at your goal, it really can go in any one direction (from the perspective of you, the goalie). Very rarely does it go straight in front of the opponent. It can lob upward, sideways, any combination, etc. May times it's a complete gamble, and to any outsider (e.g., your other teammates), it looks like you derped (omg why you go left when it went right??). I don't think people realize how random the directions of the goal shots can be. Does anyone have any tips on that?

Second is the fact that making a save compromises my ability to get back to the goal and make another one. So if the ball is rolling toward the goal I hit it off to the side but whoops, I'm flying already in that direction. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a goal trying to block it, and then the opposing team easily hits the ball back into the goal before I get the chance to recover from my first block. It's frustrating and makes me feel like playing goalie is useless.

I also have what I like to call "the goalie curse". If I'm playing goalie I'm forever tethered to the goal. Because the instant I leave my post is the instant that the opposing team just happens to score. It also applies if I leave the goal because I'm blocking a shot. If I get bored because I've been sitting stationary for 3 minutes and notice that the other two team members could use extra help on offense? Countless times I've moved up trying to help them out and immediately the opposing team hits something that meanders into our goal uncontested. Now I look like the asshole who left his post.

Is there anyone else with a similar goalie experience? Is there anything you guys have found during playing goalie that help with any of that?

STARTING POSITIONS: I always thought they were random but when starting in front of the goal your job is to stay in net for the 2-3 seconds to prevent a shot / deflection on empty net after KO. Once you've done that duty you don't need to play goalie until the next starting position. You should move up to at least midfield if your team pushes the ball into opponent's territory to stop their clear attempts / take shots. Ideally you can join in on offense where applicable and one of your teammates will cycle back to play "goalie" when they see you move up. After about a minute of play you can usually tell how competent your teammates are in terms of situational awareness / rotating back on D. For the other starting positions, you should go for the KO unless another teammate says I GOT IT, then you can go grab the nearest boost or sit back to help defend in case the ball ends up on your side of the field.

MAKING SAVES: Ideally you deflect the ball to where another incoming attacker can't hit it back but your number one job is to stop the first shot. I feel your pain as I will make an awesome epic save only to have no teammates cover net for follow ups. Like aerials there is a tendency for people to stop and watch to see what happens. Your teammates if they are paying attention / rotating / able to should be there to block any follow up shots (and then you for them). If they don't that sucks but you did your job as otherwise they would have scored on the first shot. So worry about making the first save and hope your teammates have your back.

GOALIE CURSE: This is a combination of above issues. If you are playing goalie the whole game there will be stretches where you just sit there and get antsy to pitch in on offense and likely moving up at the wrong times (boredom, frustration). Keep an eye on the opposing cars vs where the ball is. Are they driving toward a wide open ball in your direction? Sit back and wait to see if they hit it then counter. If there is a lot of traffic around the ball (no wide open shot) odds are the opponent will not get a clean shot off without at least a deflection. So move up to midfield. Once you are at midfield you can then mirror the ball... if it's in front of the net stay near middle of field... if it's a corner shade toward that corner. This is not a perfect strategy but odds are if the ball is in a corner it will either end up in front of the net or it will be cleared to the side its on.

Whatever you do it won't be perfect. You will miss clears and centered shots and give up goals. There is only so much you can do. Even the best players screw up. The replay / hindsight is always 20/20. So do your best and have fun and hopefully when you are out of position / make a mistake a teammate is paying attention and there to back you up and no one else is the wiser :) When this happens it's a beautiful game and you will play much looser and make better decisions on both sides of the ball.
 

ThatStupidLion

Gold Member
cuz i dont have any friends who play this game :(

i haven't had many issues with randos so i wonder where all this "the randoms suck in this game" comes from lol

hey! i dont have friends either to play this game with.... all I can do is play randoms.

most of the time it's not bad, i have run into some shitty players whether talent or just verbally annoying.
 
Tried 1 on 1 ranked for the first time even though I'm a good player that's been playing since launch. Went 25-2 playing against noobs probably which seemed unfair, though half their ranks were vets.

Also turned off chat because lots of salty people. 3 people just sat there and wouldn't play anymore leaving the goal open? Is this a thing in 1 vs 1? Two people claimed lag when they were down 10 goals.

1 guy beat me in overtime, and 1 guy beat me me 9-2 by using some sort of strategy on kickoffs( I think wanting me to hit it 1st then ricocheting back at my goal) Not sure if Ill play it anymore. I guess in higher ranks you would just defend and wait for an opportunity for a full court shot but doesn't seem that much fun.

Side note I think Sweet-tooth is by far the best car for setting up assist off the the wall. Maybe its the shape of the car but it seems like 90% of my passes end up perfectly over the goal with this car.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Tried 1 on 1 ranked for the first time even though I'm a good player that's been playing since launch. Went 25-2 playing against noobs probably which seemed unfair, though half their ranks were vets.

Also turned off chat because lots of salty people. 3 people just sat there and wouldn't play anymore leaving the goal open? Is this a thing in 1 vs 1? Two people claimed lag when they were down 10 goals.

1 guy beat me in overtime, and 1 guy beat me me 9-2 by using some sort of strategy on kickoffs( I think wanting me to hit it 1st then ricocheting back at my goal) Not sure if Ill play it anymore. I guess in higher ranks you would just defend and wait for an opportunity for a full court shot but doesn't seem that much fun.

Side note I think Sweet-tooth is by far the best car for setting up assist off the the wall. Maybe its the shape of the car but it seems like 90% of my passes end up perfectly over the goal with this car.

The tip off trick is easy to counter, you can shoot off angle, or you can counter it by checking his approach and mirroring it. It can rack in some easy goals if not played right.
 

J. Bravo

Member
It's interesting how often someone tells me I suck, then the next game I play the same team with a different teammate and we crush. And it's not like I'm getting carried; far from it, actually. I really could use a consistently good teammate for doubles. Who also plays as much as I do lol.
 

Ran rp

Member
are pc names not filtered?

ddsxsf.png
 
Gibbs is doing awesome videos. Playing with Potatoes is him showing people how to get out of the bronze/silver ghetto without the help of your awful teammates and just with smart play and nothing fancy. The first game he plays with no jump button just to show it's all about playing smart and not huge aerials. I already learned a lot from.

Playing With potatoes

Solo 3's is higher level stuff once you reach gold.

Solo 3s

If you feel stuck watch these.
 
I really like Gibbs. He is a lot of fun to watch live also. I really prefer solid, basic gameplay over flashy aerials like kuxir does. Not to say it isn't fun to watch, Gibbs just plays similarly to me
 

tm24

Member
So i played guys with the name of some of the devs, yet their titles were ranks and not developers. Impostors or are the devs trying out the new change title system?
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
That video is solid tips for low levels and it helped on the early on to play this style when i had a horrible teammate, but you'll rarely find easy openings like that past silver 2.
 
That video is solid tips for low levels and it helped on the early on to play this style when i had a horrible teammate, but you'll rarely find easy openings like that past silver 2.

That's true but like he said he's going to progress through the ranks and continue giving tips for each level. Patience, though, is a good reminder to have. I tend to find myself getting caught up in the speed and just remembering to slow down has opened up so many opportunities I've been blowing recently because I wanted to go 100% all the time just because I thought I could.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
That's true but like he said he's going to progress through the ranks and continue giving tips for each level. Patience, though, is a good reminder to have. I tend to find myself getting caught up in the speed and just remembering to slow down has opened up so many opportunities I've been blowing recently because I wanted to go 100% all the time because I could.

That's very true and patience is a huge key to victory, the problem is there gets a certain point where even Gibbs wouldn't be able to beat 2 high tier players with the garbage the matchmaking sometimes hands. Not meaning to call anybody garbage, but Damon at least match tiers up or something.
 

ErichWK

Member
That video is solid tips for low levels and it helped on the early on to play this style when i had a horrible teammate, but you'll rarely find easy openings like that past silver 2.
Not all of us have developor tags. What were the names?

I have a dev tag. My name is Bubble Butt Crisis!
 

Bread

Banned
we go down 1-0 and a guy starts complaining about me and the other guy on our team, while he's typing we allow another goal because he didn't rush the ball at the start. the absolute idiot.
 
STARTING POSITIONS: I always thought they were random but when starting in front of the goal your job is to stay in net for the 2-3 seconds to prevent a shot / deflection on empty net after KO. Once you've done that duty you don't need to play goalie until the next starting position. You should move up to at least midfield if your team pushes the ball into opponent's territory to stop their clear attempts / take shots. Ideally you can join in on offense where applicable and one of your teammates will cycle back to play "goalie" when they see you move up. After about a minute of play you can usually tell how competent your teammates are in terms of situational awareness / rotating back on D. For the other starting positions, you should go for the KO unless another teammate says I GOT IT, then you can go grab the nearest boost or sit back to help defend in case the ball ends up on your side of the field.

MAKING SAVES: Ideally you deflect the ball to where another incoming attacker can't hit it back but your number one job is to stop the first shot. I feel your pain as I will make an awesome epic save only to have no teammates cover net for follow ups. Like aerials there is a tendency for people to stop and watch to see what happens. Your teammates if they are paying attention / rotating / able to should be there to block any follow up shots (and then you for them). If they don't that sucks but you did your job as otherwise they would have scored on the first shot. So worry about making the first save and hope your teammates have your back.

GOALIE CURSE: This is a combination of above issues. If you are playing goalie the whole game there will be stretches where you just sit there and get antsy to pitch in on offense and likely moving up at the wrong times (boredom, frustration). Keep an eye on the opposing cars vs where the ball is. Are they driving toward a wide open ball in your direction? Sit back and wait to see if they hit it then counter. If there is a lot of traffic around the ball (no wide open shot) odds are the opponent will not get a clean shot off without at least a deflection. So move up to midfield. Once you are at midfield you can then mirror the ball... if it's in front of the net stay near middle of field... if it's a corner shade toward that corner. This is not a perfect strategy but odds are if the ball is in a corner it will either end up in front of the net or it will be cleared to the side its on.

Whatever you do it won't be perfect. You will miss clears and centered shots and give up goals. There is only so much you can do. Even the best players screw up. The replay / hindsight is always 20/20. So do your best and have fun and hopefully when you are out of position / make a mistake a teammate is paying attention and there to back you up and no one else is the wiser :) When this happens it's a beautiful game and you will play much looser and make better decisions on both sides of the ball.

Thanks! Yeah I've been following the whole "if you start off next to the goal, be a goalie for the first ~20 seconds just to be sure the ball is not coming your way then you're good to go" thing and i've had much better results. I'm moving up toward the center and keeping and eye on where to go, then do my best to toss the ball back over to their side and generally just mess up the opponent's ball trajectory. Keeps pressure on the opposing team and generally results in more goals from our team.

I've also noticed that people tend to rotate into a goalie position the more I do that. Ironically I think me playing glued to the goal all the time only encourages the rest of my teammates to never think to rotate me out, because if I've been there for 2 minutes they just assume I'll be there all the time. I don't know if it's a placebo or anything, but seems to me that playing more loosely around the goal is making the rest of my teammates keep an eye on the goal as well, whereas before I'd move an inch and then the ball would bounce into the goal with my teammates still on the other side. Staying on the goal the whole time was inadvertently giving them the idea that I got that whole side covered, which cemented my position as "never move, ever".
 

amnesiac

Member
Does anybody have this glitch where you can't select anything on the menu after you play a match online and have to wait for the timer to run out? I'm on PS4.
 

AcridMeat

Banned
Hey guys for those interested the 3rd place game as well as the final of the GAF 2v2 tournament should be happening this weekend. I'm not positive on the 3rd place schedule but as of right now the final is Sunday at 7pm EST unless anything changes. I'll be streaming it as always. Should be intense as it's a best of 7.
 
You where dead on Acrid. After playing so much ranked I forgot how fun this game could be in unranked(where I am a God) . People actually have fun and compliment each other. It's really good to take a break from the toxicity and stress of ranked every now and then.
 
I had that happen to me yesterday. Never happened before the most recent update.

Happened to me after one of the previous updates but not this one (yet).

You where dead on Acrid. After playing so much ranked I forgot how fun this game could be in unranked(where I am a God) . People actually have fun and compliment each other. It's really good to take a break from the toxicity and stress of ranked every now and then.

Unranked can still be toxic but not as often. You'll see some trash talking from opponents but not as much from teammates. For some reason some people just can't handle mistakes by teammates in ranked. I hope they never played real sports or need to work in a team environment. They'd be terrible to work with.
 

AcridMeat

Banned
what's your rank if I might ask? I don't mean to sound like a douche, but normal games for me are significantly less competitive for multiple reasons. 1. generally there is a much wider variation in terms of skill. 2. people aren't as invested and are playing more casually. What's the point of mastering a game that you can't put to the test is basically my point. Without ranked it's still fun and I don't want to sound like I'm taking it too serious, but I'd prefer ranked.
I'm hovering around 900 in 2v2 and 3v3, again haven't played ranked much since it was reset, and 900 was where I was placed. The thing is, with the changes to their ranking system, it's more like a fight against that system, than doing well in each game. It's far too weighted on the numbers and not on the individual games now.

I was playing ranked 3s whenever I didn't have a party in the first couple months after release, the changes just sucked the fun out of that queue for me. Again, I understand wanting to play a ranked queue, I just don't find the experience rewarding or satisfying now, while unranked is just as fun as it ever was for me.
You where dead on Acrid. After playing so much ranked I forgot how fun this game could be in unranked(where I am a God) . People actually have fun and compliment each other. It's really good to take a break from the toxicity and stress of ranked every now and then.
Nice to hear someone else is having a similar experience. :)
 

tm24

Member
Not all of us have developor tags. What were the names?

I have a dev tag. My name is Bubble Butt Crisis!
Psyonix Travis, tbull and I forgot the last one but bubbles sounds familiar. The other 2 stood out because they gave me so much trouble
 

Lunar FC

Member
Is there any confirmed method to get online split screen to work when only one person has ps+? I've never been able to get it to work and it's super annoying.
 
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