Things That Every Rocket League Player Should Know

There are a lot of Rocket League guides out there, but most of them only give you the most very basic, obvious tips. Hopefully my guide (the first guide I've ever written) can be a bit more useful! Please leave a comment if you think I missed anything.

Here is a link to my newer, more advanced guide! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=507006789

My even newer guide for 1v1! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648719947

Know when to go for first touch!

This is such a problem that this had to be #1 in my guide, even when I’m playing with level 20+ players. If you aren’t one of the players to get the closest spawn to the ball at kickoff, DO NOT RUSH THE BALL!

There are 3 possible areas where you can spawn at a kickoff: far out to the left or right sides, further back and more in the middle (still slightly left or right), or the goalie spawn (right in the middle). The far side spawns are the closest to the ball, so if anybody gets that spawn, then nobody with another spawn should rush the ball. If nobody gets one of those spawns, then someone with a middle spawn can go instead. Someone with the goalie spawn should NEVER rush outside of a 1v1 match.

I don’t know how many goals I’ve seen scored because the side spawn DIDN’T rush, and the goalie spawn DID. If you don’t get the closest spawn, but want to be aggressive, then close the distance between yourself and the ball and wait to see where the initial rush hits the ball. Often, the people going for first rush will cancel each other out, leaving the ball sitting in the middle. If you get close at the start (Without rushing at it too soon), you can slam it towards the goal right after first touch, before anyone else can act.

One problem is that it is kind of difficult to know where all of your teammates have spawned. Instead of looking around to see where they are, look at where the other team has spawned. Your team will mirror their positions. If you do need to see exactly which teammate is where, you can move the right stick around to move the camera, or press it to look directly behind you. (Assuming you are using a controller. PC controls must have a way of doing this as well.)

Full-time goalies usually aren’t a good thing.

Many players decide that they want to be defensive, so they sit in their goal and wait for shots to come their way. While making your team basically immune to runaway shots is very useful, you’re crippling it in other ways if you rarely leave the goal. First of all, you spend most of your time not helping the team, meaning that your teammates will feel like they are playing a 2v3 (or 1v2 match in 2v2 matches) match while on offense. A better solution is to sit halfway between the ball and your goal during offense. This way, you’ll still block the ball most of the time when it passes your teammates, but you’ll also be ready to boost in and help with offense if a shot presents itself.

You don’t always need to be going for the ball

This game has a tendency to cause tunnel vision, which often has players spending 100% of their time flying towards the ball. In a match with these players, it is common to see them all clustering at the ball, hitting it in random directions until it eventually finds its way into a goal. DON’T BE THAT GUY!

Watch the other players. If another player is closer to the ball than you are and is going faster than you, get ready for where he is going to send the ball, rather than speeding straight towards it. This applies to both friendly and opposing players. Often I’ll have perfect shots ruined simply because my teammate never stops trying to hit the ball, even if the hit is going to do nothing to help the team. Be aware of when your teammates might have a shot lined up (or when they simply have the ability to send the ball somewhere better than what you can manage at the moment). Also, be mindful not to ram teammates. I have seen many replays where the defending team went into panic mode, accidentally ramming each other so that none of them could block the shot. If a teammate looks like he is ready to do something, let him. Trusting teammates is hard, but if you crash into them because you didn't trust them to do their job, you're both in a bad spot.

Let's say that you're near the goal with the ball, which is perfectly centered, but you don't really have a great angle to make a shot. You juked past the other players, and they're not going to be at the ball for a short while. 90+% of players in this situation will try to take a shot that they don't have. What you need to do is wait. You have teammates, and if they're half-decent, they'll see the situation and go for the easy shot. The idea to take away from this example is that "can I hit the ball right now?" is not always as important as "can the other team hit the ball right now, or should I consider waiting a second?" If the other team isn't in a position to hit the ball, then it's sometimes okay to let the ball sit still for a moment, especially if it means that your teammate can swoop in and make an easy goal.

Manage your boost, and use flips instead!

Running out of boost at the wrong time can mean an easy goal for the other team, or a missed opportunity for your team. Boosting can allow you to swoop in front of a runaway ball that is heading towards your goal, to slam a ball into the opposing goal, or to fly up and hit the ball out of the air.

As you navigate the field, get into the habit of driving over boost pads and boost orbs. Each pad gives you 12 boost, and the orbs fill you to 100. To conserve boost, use forward dodges (jump, then press jump again while tilting forward) to gain speed. With 2 or 3 consecutive forward dodges (depending on your starting speed), you actually hit supersonic speed, meaning that you can blow up opposing players without even using any boost!

The corners are tricky, and so is the bottom of the wall!

If you want to be the guy that sets up perfect shots for your teammates, or the guy that can block shots that come in from crazy angles, you have to understand the corners of the stadium.

A ball that is running alongside the wall as it hits the corner will make a 90 degree turn, which will often throw the ball right in front of the goal if coming from downfield, or sent downfield if hit from next to the goal. Most set ups for teammates and many defensive plays utilize this. However, if you hit the ball straight at the corner (rather than having the ball run along a wall), the ball will be more likely to shoot straight back rather than directly towards or away from the goal.

Besides the corners, you will also want to understand how the bottom of the wall affects the ball. Getting used to how the ball interacts with the wall can be tricky because of how the bottom is shaped. For example, a ball that rolls across the ground into the wall is liable to roll up the wall, while a ball that is just barely off the ground when it hits the wall is likely to shoot upwards and away from the wall. While simple in theory, it causes predicting where the ball will be to be much more difficult.

Flying is hard!

Honestly, flying in the game is pretty awesome. The ball is up in the air, everyone is waiting for it on the ground, then you swoop up there, slamming it across the stadium and into the goal!... Except that you missed, tumbling through the air, recovering just in time to watch the other team score.

Flying is very difficult, and even more punishing. Accurately hitting a ball that is way up in the air takes A LOT of precision, and usually flying for an aerial puts you in a really bad position, where it takes a long time to get back to where you need to be. Don’t go for crazy aerials that you never hit, start small!

Often, all it takes is to hit the ball just a moment before the opposing team can hit it. I have found that very few players expect a simple double jump. Usually, when the ball is falling, players will do a forward dodge to slam it into whichever direction they want, or they’ll fly through the air and miss it. All you have to do to beat 90% of players to the ball is to double jump (jump twice without any directional input) and boost to go forwards. Not only will you hit the ball first, but you’ll do it RIGHT before everyone else, meaning that they went for a dodge and missed, putting them in a bad position while you take the ball wherever you want to go! Seriously, it catches most players completely off guard, and has scored tons of goals for me.

You should practice flying, but know your limits and don’t keep going for shots that you will never make.

Powerslide to turn around, and don’t be afraid to go in reverse!

When I started playing, after doing the tutorial, I quickly dismissed powersliding as kind of useless. However, if you’re turning around by doing a huge half-circle, you are wasting a lot of time, and often leaving a big hole in your defense (that half-circle can be quite large, meaning that it would take you a while to get back to where you started). A powerslide is faster, and doesn’t require you to leave your position.

If even a powerslide isn’t fast enough, consider going in reverse. If you utilize backflips, you can actually go supersonic speed in reverse! It’s awkward, especially since your left and right controls are reversed, but it can occasionally save you. Do remember that you can powerslide while in reverse to get yourself facing forward!

Play dirty!

Isn’t getting rammed just as you’re about to take a shot or make a save just the worst thing ever? Heck, even if you’re not about to do either of those things, it can really mess up your rhythm. The opposing players feel the same way when you ram into them, which is good for you! While you should spend more time hitting the ball than hitting other vehicles, sometimes sending a player flying or exploding him is exactly what your team needs.

Remember what I said about not always having to drive at the ball? Well, if your team is about to make a play and you aren’t at an angle to help by hitting the ball, then consider targeting the opposing players. One of my favorite strategies to set up my teammate (in 2v2 especially) by rolling the ball around the corner so that it’ll end up in front of the goal. After I’ve sent the ball, there isn’t much I can do besides wait for the ball to land in front of the goal so that my teammate can spike it in. However, I’ve found that good defenders can sit on the goal line and knock the ball out before it is fully in front of the goal. So what I’ll do is send the ball towards the corner, then immediately boost towards any potential goalies waiting to knock the ball away (these goalies usually sit still while waiting for the ball to come). Whether I blow them up or just send them flying away, it often leaves a perfect opening for the ball to get in front of the goal for my teammate.

However, goalies can play dirty too. Often, the player waiting for the ball to be centered will stay fairly still until they can dash in and spike the ball. If you see an enemy player that is about to have a good chance to score, boost-bash them away. Even if this means letting the ball sit in front of the goal, now there likely won’t be anybody ready to hit it in.

Also, as a final note for this section, take into account that demolitions (when you actually blow a player up) are better for defense than offense, since players spawn on their own side of the field. A blown up player will be far away from YOUR goal, but they will be back on their own side, ready to defend.

Do a barrel roll!

This is something that I found out quite late, but did you know that you can do barrel rolls? If you end up upside-down, landing on your tires can be a bit awkward, but possible, when simply moving the L-Stick around. However, if you hold your "Air Roll" button (default is the same as the powerslide button, you can find it in the controls), you will roll instead of turn when using your L-Stick. To test how useful this is for you, drive straight into the goal so that you go up and fly out of the goal upside-down. Try landing on your tires without using air rolls, then see how much easier it is with air rolls.

Stay Between the Ball and Your Goal

Some of you may be wondering "When I'm not going for the ball, where should I be?" Well, the exact distances are difficult (too close and the ball pops over you, too far and you aren't ready for the ball to be centered), but you should be somewhere between the ball and your goal. I've never seen an instance where a player was on the other side of the ball and then thought "Oh, I'm glad that he was there!" It doesn't happen, so if you end up on the wrong side of the ball, circle back around.

If someone shoots the ball towards your goal, you'll want to be between the ball and your goal. If the ball is centered, you'll want to be between the ball and your goal. Offense or defense, that's where you're the most useful. If you're on the other side of the ball, you're more likely to accidently deflect a shot that is going into the other goal than you are to do anything useful. (The only exception being when you're demolishing enemy players that are clearly set up to block a shot, but afterwards you immediately need to turn around or you'll do that player's job for him after he's gone.)

[Peanut Butter Jones]

I say that you SHOULD go for those aerial shots that you miss every time. How else are you going to learn to hit them? If you never get out of your comfort zone and try somethings that's hard you will never make any gains in the game.

[rSkiCSGO]

#usefull!

[dohku]

#SAYNOTOOCTANES BEST CAR AND ONLY SCUMBAGS NEED TO USE BEST CAR

[Beau the Eevee]

"However, if you hold your "Air Roll" button (default is the same as the powerslide button, you can find it in the controls), you will spin instead of turn when using your L-Stick."

Grammar error. Roll is the word instead of spin.

[TraianvS]

thanks, i was desperate because i can't fly, this guide helped me too much

[The Law]

I'm glad to hear it! Thanks for the feedback!

[☽ Coraline Castell ☾]

Awesome guide! It seems like I have a lot to learn still, but you pointed me on the right direction.

[The Law]

Thanks for the kind words, broshu! As for all the trading, I'm constantly removing trade spam from these comments, haha. People go a little crazy over trading in these kinds of games.

[Quite curmudgeonly of you]

Fantastic guide! Every single point just drives home to how my friends (and I) play, and really reinforces the small things I've noticed while playing casually. Plus it's not one of hundreds of trading guides and instead actually a gameplay and mechanics guide, thankfully. Keep up the good work!

[The Law]

Just an fyi, I'm still deleting trade spam from these comments. No need to waste time by posting them. Although comments have slowed down drastically, I'd like to reserve this space for legit comments.