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Tutorial Beginners guide to Rocket League

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Did you just discover the epicness in which we call Rocket League? Having a tough time getting going? Seeing people do things and ask "WTF? How did he do that?!"? Well, I'm here to help you out.

Update July 24, 2018 - I have roughly 1500 hours into this game now and have some new/more information.

Training
This is vital. Unlike most games that you can figure out right away, this is one of those games that will propel you faster in the direction of awesomeness than any other training in other games. If you have started playing but haven't done the TUTORIAL training yet, snap to it. You need to learn all the different things you can do.

Practice all the training modules. Especially when starting out, practice the GOALIE training as this is a must as you will likely be attempting to save more goals than anything else. Practice this often.

Aerial training is my favorite. Start with rookie and once you feel good with that, move to Pro. Once you get decent at pro, don't mess with doing Pro anymore, keep practicing with All Star as that will give you the most "game like" training; though this tip could be said about all the rest of them as well.

Striker training - If you have a tough time judging the ball and what type of flip you need to do to get it into the net, as opposed to totally missing or hitting it too high, this is great one for you.

Since posting this, there are additions to the trainer program. There is still the RL Trainer 3rd party program that many people still swear by but I get sick of updating it every time the game is updated but it offers more options than the current one in the game.

Custom Training
As you get better, you will get bored with the All Star trainers so it's time to move to Custom Training. I would get some codes for everyone but I think the codes may be different for each platform unless they changed things (which I have a feeling they have).

Go through the browse tab and look through the titles. Ones that sound interesting, try them out. If you like them and they push you to be better, then "favorite" it so you can find it faster next time.

I recommend getting ones that will improve:
Wall clears
Difficult goalie clears such as awkward positions
Ground to air dribbles
Wall to air dribbles
Difficult aerials / angles (I think one of them that I like is called "::thinking::" or something like that.

Tips & Options
Controller configuration (based on Xbox One controller)
Update: After watching many of the pro's on Youtube, I don't think any of them have really remapped the controller so take my remapping with a grain of salt. If you keep it default, get use to being able to hold your boost (B) while being able to press the jump button (A) once or twice to be able to take flight and keep your momentum going. I still see so many people unable to boost and jump/double jump to aerial all at the same time. I couldn't get my fingers to do that so I remapped.

Update: Here's a list of what the pro's use.

Here's mine:
Boost Button - Changed to LT
Push to talk - Changed to LB
Air Roll - Changed to X
Power up activation - Change to B
Reverse - Changed to RB

I think those are all the changes I made. I'm not sure if it is default, but X I use for the slide.

Now, with this configuration you'll be able to jump and boost at the same time if you couldn't before, flip and boost at the same time, and do an aerial + flip + boost at the same time. This can give you the extra "jump" (no pun intended) over your opponents at early ranks.

Camera Settings
This is a must. Most pro's have changed their camera settings and I've modeled my own based on theirs. So instead of saying what I have, here's a list of the pro's settings. See what they all have in common, use that, and then make changes to suit yourself.

Pro settings

I also recommend turning controller vibration to off.

Dodge and Sensitivity (Update: About 6-12 months ago, they added these new features/options)
Mess with these settings to see what suits you the best. If you are doing a lot of backflips instead of double jumps to aerial, set your dodge settings higher. Otherwise, the more sensitive (lower numbers) will be better.

For ground and aerial sensitivity, the higher the numbers, the better you can recover but if you are over rotating, then you will need to bump it down. I highly recommend going as high as you can handle as it will let you have a lot more control in the air and on the ground. Will definitely help give you an edge and even hit the ball harder if you are able to rotate in the air faster with a great sensitivity setting.

Out of boost and need to chase? No problem.
When you are a rookie, most people try going around collecting all the boost they can get so they can go faster than everyone else. Did you just run out of boost and have to chase a ball down at the other end? No problem. Just do 3 front flip moves and you will hear that "boom" and see the speed trail that you get like when you've boosted until you change your direction (can change slightly and keep the boost but when you angle it so much, you will slow down). Just keep holding down your accelerator button and you will continue to drive at warp speed.

Be a good teammate - learn the rotations
No one likes a ball hog, especially if you screw up a great shot for someone. Learn how to rotate with your teammates to give your team the upper hand.

Standard / Solo Standard
Here's a picture that will explain offense and defense for you. If you need further explanation, I've written it out in the spoiler.
SLH6krmxGd6elGyICPbK2eWDXptMcM1mVl6v0OQjpGU.jpg

Typical scenario on offense. The ball is in one of the corners (let's just say the right corner to explain easier), one person should be there in the corner to pressure the other team and to try to center the ball. Another person needs to be about the half field mark but on the line on the right side. A lot of times the ball comes straight to you. If it does, try to angle yourself so the ball pops straight up center (if you have the control, try to pop it up half way to their goal so the 3rd guy can hit a goal; you can also try to bait a player by popping it up over the goal so the centered guy can have a head on touch to hopefully score the goal).

So that 3rd guy, as I've mentioned in the example above, will be either center or slightly to the left of center in case the ball goes too far to the left side, he/she may be able to get a good touch then. But this person will be waiting for that pass to the center to set up for a good shot.

Now, let's say the ball comes out to the line guy, most of the time the line guy pushes the ball back to the corner. The guy that was in the corner will need to rush back to get boost, the center guy will have to determine whether a pass will be made or not. If a pass is possible, stay center for the pass. If the line, now corner guy is being pressured now and it's likely to not be centered, the center guy now moves to the line. The guy that was first in the corner and then having to come out for boost, will have to collect boost and then take the center position...and a round and round you go.

For defense, you'll want 1 guy pressuring, which will usually be in a corner, if it's not in the corner, coming out to pressure a guy if he's trying to dribble or make a move, pressuring him will force him to make the move earlier, usually giving your team the time to see where the shot is going and saving it.

The other guys will position themselves like in the graphic above, named "front post" and "back post" (soccer/futbol terms). The back post is probably the most important position in this rotation. That person has to know when to go up the wall over the goal to clear the ball or judge if the ball will be beyond the front post's ability to save the ball if it's a shot on goal, thus having the back post to make the save.

So the rotation is, if the pressuring guy hits the ball and it stays on your side of the field, instead of him trying to pressure if he doesn't have a good angle, he needs to get back to back post, front post will then be the pressuring guy, and the back post will become the front post guy. Just think, if you are the pressuring guy and the ball is in an awkward position for you but you think you can touch the ball, also think you have a front post guy that is likely facing the ball and can get a good directional clear on the ball, one that is better than anything you can produce. So don't be greedy as that can screw your team over. Let the person with the best angle to go for it while you go back to the back post in wait of a shot on goal or above the goal.

The biggest thing on defense is to not "double commit" (or "triple commit"). When more than one person goes for the same ball, disaster is usually waiting around the corner. This can leave the goal wide open on a miss touch while the pressuring guy tries to get back, or if he is able to get back, it can result on a 3 on 1 play, making it really hard for him to save your a**es.

Chaos mode
Same as above but with the extra guy, he'll be playing closer to the goal on the opposite side of the goal as to where the ball is. A lot of times in Chaos, that ball will shoot passed the goal and this guy can be in a great position to catch the whole defense off guard.

2v2
I'm not the best with 2v2's. Usually if my partner is up pressuring on offense, I'll stay behind the center line, usually "down the line" unless I see him setting up to send the ball center and I will adjust accordingly. You have to be confident in being able to get to the ball before the other team can or else you'll both be stuck on the wrong end of the field while the ball rolls toward your goal. Here's a video of a guy explaining his rotations:



Half flips
You have to learn the half flip. This helps you go in the opposite direction much quicker than just sliding into the "reverse direction".




Aerials

There is a point in the aerial that you are unable to do a flip. I've never counted but I'm assuming it is around 2 seconds. It will become innate for you but just know that if you are counting on the flip and you've been in the air for too long, it won't work.

Air Dribbles
I only recently figured out this little tip. When attempting an air dribble, usually you will start with ball cam on. Once you get up in the air and don't need to air roll, change off of ball cam. This makes it easier to judge where your car needs to be to keep the ball up. And remember, always let up off the boost right before you touch so it doesn't send the ball flying away from you. Once you touch it, boost again until you are about to touch the ball then stop the boost. Once it gets rested on your car, depending where you are and where you want the ball to go, you can hold your boost down or feather your boost.

Rank up
You can rank up by playing a season! This will give you some practice and if you win every game with the Dominus or Takumi, you'll also get an achievement (for PC, not sure one Xbone).

Things that can get you more points
First touch - If you touch the ball first on a face off, you'll get points.
Back flips - Every time you make a back flip, you get extra points. Make a back flip goal, get even more points.
Reverse goal - This one is easy to get as you don't really have to reverse to get the goal. You can hit the ball with the back of your car, like on a side flip, into the goal and you'll get a reverse goal. The easiest way is on a breakaway, just before the goal, hit the A button to jump, don't hit the A button again, use the left joystick and pull it back to do a half back flip, let the ball hit the back of the car and you'll get a reverse goal.
Aerials - for every aerial hit or every wall hit that is halfway (?) up the wall, you'll get aerial points.
Turtle goal - this is if you are upside down when you hit the ball into goal.
Juggler - If you touch the ball so many times without it hitting the ground you will get extra points for juggling the ball.
There's more I just can't remember them all.

Advanced Guide
Dribbling - this can be one of the greatest assets you can learn. To really learn this, Low5ive has created a great video tutorial on how to do it and learn quickly.


If you have the PC, the BEST way to practice this is going to the Workshop mods in Steam and subscribing to the "Dribbling Challenge #2" (you can play this by going to Extras in your RL menu > Workshop > selecting the one you want to play that you've subscribed to). It's a tough one but keep practicing it. It took me doing this about 20 min every day to warm up for about 3 days until I could make my way up past level 5 and beyond. I think I'm stuck on 9 though but you can go past those points by not touching the ball and flying to the next position and running into the ball that is usually located in the corners.

Aerial control
In the Workshop mods, there are different obstacle courses you can subscribe to. When playing this, you'll have to aerial without hitting the walls or objects in your way or else you'll be reset. This is extremely good if you are trying to improve your aerial control to be able to get to more balls in the air.

Other Resources
There are more videos on RL now than when I wrote this guide. Here's some channels that I think you should watch as it will help you see how the pro's or high champ rankings set themselves up for success.

Huge guide playlist - Found this gem that has a huge list of guides on how to do various tricks or improving your skills.
Sunless - Great at explaining things, teaching you ways to practice and train. Even though he's a lower rank (which is some people's complaint as to why to not watch him), his tips are good especially if you are Champ or lower ranking.
JHZER - Just fun to watch. He does some crazy things for his montages but by watching him, you'll see how he sets himself or his teammate up. Most people want to just "hit the ball wherever" when starting out. You can see he slows down to pop the ball up, then aerial to it to set up a pass or shot for himself.
Sir Timbers - just a few videos showing you how to do various things. Wish he was more active.
Squishy Muffinz - very technical guy. Lot's of "head gaming". Calculating when a boost is taken, when it will be back so he can decide whether he should go for a boost or just pick up the small packets.
Rizzo - A good pro player to watch, I don't think he has any guides though.
List on reddit - I'm lazy so I'll just link to reddit with the list that their users have come up with as to who's good to watch.
 
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Gardzz

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I'm so happy, the man himself has written something in here.
I didn't know you used different buttons to me! I'm still using the standard ones! I may have to go into to training with your ones and see if I can get the hang of it!
 
AzzidReign

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I'm so happy, the man himself has written something in here.
I didn't know you used different buttons to me! I'm still using the standard ones! I may have to go into to training with your ones and see if I can get the hang of it!
I literally just changed them today and played a season to get use to it. It's killing me...I wish I did this from the start. It's amazing how much higher you can get in less time. It's definitely something to get use to in terms of speed towards the ball.
 
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Did you just discover the epicness in which we call Rocket League? Having a tough time getting going? Seeing people do things and ask "WTF? How did he do that?!"? Well, I'm here to help you out.

Training
This is vital. Unlike most games that you can figure out right away, this is one of those games that will propel you faster in the direction of awesomeness than any other training in other games. If you have started playing but haven't done the TUTORIAL training yet, snap to it. You need to learn the different things you can do.

Practice all the training modules. Playing with some noobs over the past few weeks/months, doing the GOALIE training is a must. Practice this often.

Aerial training is my favorite. Once you get decent, don't mess with doing Pro, keep practicing with All Star as that will give you the most "game like" training; though this tip could be said about all the rest of them as well.

Striker training - I never really needed this but it seems many people do. If you have a tough time judging the ball and what type of flip you need to do to get it into the net, as opposed to totally missing or hitting it too high, this is great one for you.

Tips
Controller configuration
Something that I didn't learn until late in the game and am now "relearning" the game as this changes sooo much. I'm going to talk about this as if you had the Xbox controller (bc we all know it's the best on the market! Plus, RL just came out on xbone so why not? If you are on PC...xbone controller is a must!). Now, I haven't played this on the Xbox One yet so I'm hoping this is quite similar to the PC configuration.

Boost Button - Change this to your LT
Push to talk (not sure if on xbox or just pc) - Change to RB
Air Roll - Change to B

I think those are all the changes I made. I'm not sure if it is default, but X I use for the slide.

Now, with this configuration you'll be able to jump and boost at the same time, flip and boost at the same time, and do an aerial + flip + boost at the same time. This can give you the extra "jump" (no pun intended) over your opponents.

The front flip
When you are a rookie, most people try going around collecting all the boost they can get so they can go faster than everyone else. Did you just run out of boost and have to chase a ball down at the other end? No problem. Just do 3 front flip moves and you will hear that "boom" that you get when you've boosted for a couple of seconds. Just keep holding down your accelerator button and you will continue to drive at warp speed.

Be a good teammate - learn the rotations
No one likes a ball hog, especially if you screw up a great shot for someone (*cough* Swifty *cough*). Learn how to rotate with your teammates to give your team the upper hand.

3v3
When on offense and the ball is in the corner, you'll have one guy trying to center, one guy playing center waiting for a ball to come his way in hopes to score, and one guy just behind the half line on the wall of the side that the ball is on. The guy furthest back has to be set in a way that he can run quickly to the goal in the event of a long shot/pinch. A lot of times the ball will shoot along that wall and that back guy can keep it in. If he does get a hit, *usually* the guy that was playing the corner will rotate to the back guys position. There are exceptions, such as the ball being set in just the right spot that the guy can make a great shot at goal, so just be conscientious of your surroundings.

Chaos mode
Same as above but with the extra guy, he'll be playing closer to the goal on the opposite side of the goal as to where the ball is. A lot of times in Chaos, that ball will shoot passed the goal and this guy can be in a great position to catch the whole defense off guard.

Aerials
There is a point in the aerial that you are unable to do a flip. I've never counted but I'm assuming it is around 2 seconds. It will become innate for you but just know that if you are counting on the flip and you've been in the air for too long, it won't work.

Rank up
You can rank up by playing a season! This will give you some practice and if you win every game with the Dominus or Takumi, you'll also get an achievement (for PC, not sure one Xbone).

Things that can get you more points
First touch - If you touch the ball first on a face off, you'll get points.
Back flips - Every time you make a back flip, you get extra points. Make a back flip goal, get even more points.
Reverse goal - This one is easy to get as you don't really have to reverse to get the goal. You can hit the ball with the back of your car, like on a side flip, into the goal and you'll get a reverse goal. The easiest way is on a breakaway, just before the goal, hit the A button to jump, don't hit the A button again, use the left joystick and pull it back to do a half back flip, let the ball hit the back of the car and you'll get a reverse goal.
Aerials - for every aerial hit or every wall hit that is halfway (?) up the wall, you'll get aerial points.

I will add to this guide if I think of anything else but this should be a great start for all those Xbone players that are now able to play this great game!
Wow! Very detailed, thanks azzid!
 
Jacob Frye

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Nice thread mate. I'm glad you wrote this. I'm learning something new about this game everyday. :smile:
 
TerminatioN

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Wait wait wait... so if you get the sonic boom thing you don't need to boost anymore? Never knew that, lol... Been wasting a lot of boost to that.
 
AzzidReign

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Wait wait wait... so if you get the sonic boom thing you don't need to boost anymore? Never knew that, lol... Been wasting a lot of boost to that.
Exactly why I wrote it :wink:
 
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Did you just discover the epicness in which we call Rocket League? Having a tough time getting going? Seeing people do things and ask "WTF? How did he do that?!"? Well, I'm here to help you out.

Training
This is vital. Unlike most games that you can figure out right away, this is one of those games that will propel you faster in the direction of awesomeness than any other training in other games. If you have started playing but haven't done the TUTORIAL training yet, snap to it. You need to learn the different things you can do.

Practice all the training modules. Playing with some noobs over the past few weeks/months, doing the GOALIE training is a must. Practice this often.

Aerial training is my favorite. Once you get decent, don't mess with doing Pro, keep practicing with All Star as that will give you the most "game like" training; though this tip could be said about all the rest of them as well.

Striker training - I never really needed this but it seems many people do. If you have a tough time judging the ball and what type of flip you need to do to get it into the net, as opposed to totally missing or hitting it too high, this is great one for you.

Tips
Controller configuration
Something that I didn't learn until late in the game and am now "relearning" the game as this changes sooo much. I'm going to talk about this as if you had the Xbox controller (bc we all know it's the best on the market! Plus, RL just came out on xbone so why not? If you are on PC...xbone controller is a must!). Now, I haven't played this on the Xbox One yet so I'm hoping this is quite similar to the PC configuration.

Boost Button - Change this to your LT
Push to talk (not sure if on xbox or just pc) - Change to RB
Air Roll - Change to B

I think those are all the changes I made. I'm not sure if it is default, but X I use for the slide.

Now, with this configuration you'll be able to jump and boost at the same time, flip and boost at the same time, and do an aerial + flip + boost at the same time. This can give you the extra "jump" (no pun intended) over your opponents.

The front flip
When you are a rookie, most people try going around collecting all the boost they can get so they can go faster than everyone else. Did you just run out of boost and have to chase a ball down at the other end? No problem. Just do 3 front flip moves and you will hear that "boom" that you get when you've boosted for a couple of seconds. Just keep holding down your accelerator button and you will continue to drive at warp speed.

Be a good teammate - learn the rotations
No one likes a ball hog, especially if you screw up a great shot for someone (*cough* Swifty *cough*). Learn how to rotate with your teammates to give your team the upper hand.

3v3
When on offense and the ball is in the corner, you'll have one guy trying to center, one guy playing center waiting for a ball to come his way in hopes to score, and one guy just behind the half line on the wall of the side that the ball is on. The guy furthest back has to be set in a way that he can run quickly to the goal in the event of a long shot/pinch. A lot of times the ball will shoot along that wall and that back guy can keep it in. If he does get a hit, *usually* the guy that was playing the corner will rotate to the back guys position. There are exceptions, such as the ball being set in just the right spot that the guy can make a great shot at goal, so just be conscientious of your surroundings.

Chaos mode
Same as above but with the extra guy, he'll be playing closer to the goal on the opposite side of the goal as to where the ball is. A lot of times in Chaos, that ball will shoot passed the goal and this guy can be in a great position to catch the whole defense off guard.

Aerials
There is a point in the aerial that you are unable to do a flip. I've never counted but I'm assuming it is around 2 seconds. It will become innate for you but just know that if you are counting on the flip and you've been in the air for too long, it won't work.

Rank up
You can rank up by playing a season! This will give you some practice and if you win every game with the Dominus or Takumi, you'll also get an achievement (for PC, not sure one Xbone).

Things that can get you more points
First touch - If you touch the ball first on a face off, you'll get points.
Back flips - Every time you make a back flip, you get extra points. Make a back flip goal, get even more points.
Reverse goal - This one is easy to get as you don't really have to reverse to get the goal. You can hit the ball with the back of your car, like on a side flip, into the goal and you'll get a reverse goal. The easiest way is on a breakaway, just before the goal, hit the A button to jump, don't hit the A button again, use the left joystick and pull it back to do a half back flip, let the ball hit the back of the car and you'll get a reverse goal.
Aerials - for every aerial hit or every wall hit that is halfway (?) up the wall, you'll get aerial points.

I will add to this guide if I think of anything else but this should be a great start for all those Xbone players that are now able to play this great game!
Pretty solid
 
AzzidReign

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Updated the guide with Dribbling in the advanced section. It's a video from Low5ive and I think it's the best way to learn how to dribble.

Visio Visio you need to read this guide you noob lol
 
Spy

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You should host a game night for this (: im going to change my controller settings when i get home :smile:
 
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I am really bad at rocket league compared to my friends, thanks for posting Ive learned a few things :smile:
 
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Thanks for this great tutorial. Haven't looked at one since I've started playing rocket league. I am a challenger elite already but I definitely learned something.
 
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Game is neat.
It's pretty weird getting accustom to the Steam controller I got though. I came from PS > onto the master race.
Thought you guys were weird back then talking about PCs as such but now I understand. :facepalm:
 
AzzidReign

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Game is neat.
It's pretty weird getting accustom to the Steam controller I got though. I came from PS > onto the master race.
Thought you guys were weird back then talking about PCs as such but now I understand. :facepalm:
lol PC just performs so much better and now with Discord making it that much easier to connect with friends, it's almost like being on a console, except better lol

Why not just move your PS controller over to computer? The steam controller looks a bit weird and not sure if I would like it tbh.
 
Joshy

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lol PC just performs so much better and now with Discord making it that much easier to connect with friends, it's almost like being on a console, except better lol

Why not just move your PS controller over to computer? The steam controller looks a bit weird and not sure if I would like it tbh.


I noticed the extremely fast match-making.
I actually tried that the same night, couldn't find the proper(English accent) software required & getting it to work. Plus I was in a rush to play the game already. I will definitely try hooking it up Friday though.
 
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