[Top 10] Rocket League Tips and Tricks To Improve Your Gameplay

Updated:

17 Mar 2023

There are three inevitable things in life. Death, taxes, and bad teammates in Rocket League. Whilst you’ll forever be at the mercy of the matchmaking system, you can take things into your own hands. By applying these 10 tips below to your game, setup, and more, you can break out of elo hell and start hitting those tasty double taps.

10. Get your camera settings right

Fov needs to be maxed out

I’ve seen way too many people with their cameras way too close to the back of the car. You’ve got to zoom that out. Head over to the settings and make sure your camera distance is further back.

While we’re here, go ahead and change that FOV (field of view) slider as well. Crank it up. You need to be able to see more of what's around you. If you’ve been playing with a low FOV, you’ll more than likely instantly improve with just these two changes.

The rest of the settings here are mostly preferences. Turning the camera shake off is also highly recommended for getting better, but it’s not too bad if it's left on. You may just find the shaking to be distracting from truly reaching your sweaty potential.

9. Change your key binds

How does anyone play with the default key binds please?

See, the first two aren’t even related to your abilities yet. They are just basic things that will make the game 100% easier to play. The most important aspect of your key binds is comfort. You need a configuration you can actually use without contorting your hands.

But but but... there are a few key things you need to change in order to not limit yourself in the future. Firstly, you should be able to air roll while using boost. If you can’t because Air Roll is still bound to Square or X (who even knows the keyboard bindings!?) This is a massive problem.

Secondly, you are going to want to bind a specific button to Air Roll Left or Right. This will make learning half-flips and other intermediate-level plays much easier. It can even help with learning the most advanced things in the game. It just all starts with a simple reconfig of your controller settings.

There is no right or wrong answer here. I, for example, have my scoreboard on Square, Air Roll left on L1, and 2 keybinds for R1, Powerslide, and Air Roll. You’ve got to experiment to see what works for you; just make sure you can perform more than one action at a time.

8. Start warming up before sessions

You wouldn't play sports without warming up first

Not warming up is a serious issue. Believe me. Warming up in free play, followed by casual, is the best way to ensure you’re ready for the ranked session. If you make the mistake of jumping right in, you are going to end up playing people at the top of their game while you’re just getting into the swing of things.

By first hitting up free play and working on loosening up your fingers, you’ll be way better off. Follow this up by having about 1-2 minutes of targeted practice—you know, dribbling and flicking—and a few power shots. Anything just to check you’re properly focused before going for it.

A couple of casual games before going into ranked does wonders as well. These games will bring you up to the pace of a competitive-ish game while giving you a low-risk environment to still make mistakes in. When you’re cleaning up back-to-back games, now is the time to start hitting ranked.

7. Save time for targeted practice

I hate practice.

Not this word again... Targeted practice. Listen, if you want to get better, you have to work on your flaws. Knocking it around in free play is great for bringing you back up to speed, but you aren’t really progressing in that time.

If you want to get better, you’re going to have to actively work on your flaws. If your goalkeeping is poor, download a training pack and start working on it. If you can’t hit a power shot, then work on it. Training is a must if you want to improve your gameplay.

Just make sure that you are working on the fundamentals before adding style to your play. That one ceiling shot you tried for 20 hours to hit in practice will be time poorly spent if you can’t do the basics. Honestly, it stinks. But you just have to put in the time to get better.

6. Gotta work on that recovery

Slow recoveries = easily conceeded goals

I don’t play 1s anymore. 1s suck. Even at a high level, you’ll get blown out in some games 6-0 and consider throwing the controller. 1s are great for one thing, though: teaching you to get to your goal line as quickly as possible. With no teammates, there is no one to blame but yourself.

Slow recoveries are one of the easiest problems to fix today. If you lose the ball, return to the goal line immediately. Do not go to your opponent's corner for a boost. Do not drive the scenic route back. Get back on the line.

Unless your opponent is terrible and throwing, they will not miss open goals. They will have to outplay you to score if you are back quick enough to put pressure on the ball. It really is that simple. The faster you return to your goal line when you don’t have possession of the ball, the fewer goals you’ll concede.

5. Enhance your mental

0:00 seconds and you've gotta clutch it up

Rocket League is a mentally taxing game. Considering car football with rockets is such a simple idea, the game can take a lot out of you mentally. And it’s happened to all of us... 1 second left on the clock, you’ve got a wide open net, and you... fail to clutch the game.

You have the ability; it’s an easy shot you would have made with 3 minutes left, but you cracked. The pressure was too much. You need to get used to the 6- to 7-minute cycle of Rocket League games. Deep concentration and mental preparation for the game, with 30-second breaks in between.

If you constantly find yourself missing those late shots, 99% of it is due to a lack of concentration or overthinking. You’ll notice when you’re playing fluidly that things just happen; you don’t think about the play. You just do it. When you build up a strong mental game, you’ll be able to play well regardless of whether it's the last second or 4 minutes left.

4. Live and breathe Rocket League

Thanovic concentrating so hard

Now hear me out. I’m not saying lose your life to the game, but I am saying that you need to be conscious of your effort to improve. Start watching more Rocket League content, for instance. After several years, the YouTube community has been exceptional at producing informative, concise, and worthwhile guides.

If Rocket League is your second game that you play on the side, upgrade it to game number 1. You’ve got to start consuming all this information about the game. Do you know what hitbox you prefer? Is the concept of a hitbox alien to you? Go and learn about it.

Marginal gains over time all add up to big improvements. I spent years avoiding learning the proper way to half-flip out of sheer ignorance. Five tutorials later, and a bit of targeted practice (not this again...), I had nailed it. Start incorporating just a little bit more League into your life.

3. Learn all the fundamentals

A clearance off the back post

This is more of a personal attack on myself than anything else. The game starts getting real just above Diamond 3. People stop making basic mistakes and start playing really fast and consistently. If you don’t have the fundamentals, you will get exposed and remain stuck.

What are the fundamentals? Back post rotations, fast aerials, and half flips are my top 3. If you don’t know how to do these things, combine them with the above tip and watch a guide. These 3 skills are the fundamentals of unlocking clean, fast play.

Back post rotations allow you to be better positioned for any shots on goal while still being able to defend the entire goal. Fast aerials allow you to move about faster. People can’t outjump you if you are already up in the air for the ball.

And lastly, Half flips. Not only are they 100 percent necessary for having a good recovery, but they are the foundation of so many other harder mechanics later down the line. Learning these will teach you to cancel your flips, preserve momentum, and make faster decisions. Speaking of which,

2. "Play faster"

It's all about making decisions faster

I used to hate hearing this tip. Do you not know that I'm playing at my fastest already? Well, you just aren’t. If you want to play faster, you have to preempt the play and react to it at the first opportune moment. If you see the ball get knocked up into the air and are waiting for it to fall back down, you’re already too slow.

Playing faster is about making decisions quickly and then executing them quickly. It often looks like high-level players have instant reactions, but it’s really just them knowing what’s going to happen. If you see a ball bounce against the wall in the exact same way 100 times, you know where it’s headed.

Good players have seen the ball move in every which way off the wall, opponent's cars, the crossbar, etc. 1000s times. While you are still waiting to read its trajectory, they already know where it is going and are going towards that spot. If you find yourself thinking, "I should have jumped," then you are suffering from slow decision-making. Play faster.

1. Know when to double down or fold

Where's the support for the pass?

Sometimes you are just cracked out of your mind and every opponent is getting dispatched. Good. Keep playing. But the opposite is also true. If you are spending your time getting battered game after game, give it up.

Not only is losing five or more games in a row bad for your self-esteem, but it’s also probably a sign that something else is impeding your progress that day. Not every day can be a productive session, and when you think about it, making no progress but not losing any ranks is also a blessing.

Being able to hold your own and not rank down means you are roughly where you should be. Practice and dedication will get you rising through the ranks again.