Week 10: Back to the Basics

After struggling a bit last week worrying about rank and focusing too hard on dribbling, I decided to go back to the basics. I had forgotten that as I progress and learn new subskills, I still need to practice the original ones that I started with, because those are the backbone of playing Rocket League.

I split my time this week between reinforcing the original skills I practiced and working on the new skill of dribbling. As I did earlier in my training, I spent some time doing Ball Beat up to get good contact with the ball and also worked on bounce hits in Pro Goalie Training. I finally realized how to mechanically tilt the nose of my car up as I jump and then jolt forward into the ball with my second jump to hit the ball with the nose of my car. I make much better contact with the ball using this technique, but the motor control didn’t click with the mental model until now! It’s really amazing how all of a sudden, certain parts of the skill really do “click.”

To top off my practice of original skills, I also hopped into competitive matches to just play and focus on making good contact with the ball, and maybe dribbling here and there if there was an opportunity for it. By putting emphasis on practicing the knowledge and skills I know and forgetting about winning or any expectations I had for myself, I was able to play really well! Using emphasis training to train my mental state to remain calm helped me stay focused on the game, even if I was losing or messed up. This is probably the most valuable subskill for RL I am cultivating during my skill acquisition journey.

The other half of my week put emphasis on dribbling. In these sessions I would do some warmup dribbling in freeplay to push the ball around and practice directing the ball off-target, and then cutting under the ball to take a shot on goal. This is a fairly realistic action that happens in game when dribbling toward the opponent’s goal. In addition to some freeplay dribbling, I also practiced catching the ball in Pro Goalie training. This helped me assess where the ball would land and also how fast I needed to move to get under it without hitting it too hard. I also used this exercise to practice turning ball cam off as I got under the ball. This is something that I still struggle with, so it was helpful to work on in training packs.

Last, but not least, I played some exhibition matches against advanced bots to work on dribbling in-game. To start I tried dribbling any time I came in contact with the ball, but in reality, this is not the strategy I would use in a real match. Typically, it is helpful to dribble when you are not being pressured by the opponent and you have more freedom to control the ball. I am realizing that dribbling is not always appropriate. So, going forward I will try to remember the strategy involved in dribbling, and not just the technique.

I think this training approach seems to be working since I keep climbing the ranks, but I may have been too ambitious and naïve in thinking that I could reach Platinum by the end of the semester. Given the challenges I’ve had with certain skills and how difficult RL is on its own, I think my amended goal will be to reach Gold Rank.