Week 15: The Final Evaluation

After all of these weeks, I definitely have seen improvement and believe that I have acquired some level of skill in Rocket League.

I started at Silver 2 Division 3 back in January with the hope of getting to Platinum. That was quite the ambitious goal since I was really playing more at the Bronze 3 level making several Rookie mistakes like driving backward, not using ball cam, having poor perceptual judgements of the ball and missing it, and not challenging the ball more to gain possession.

Implemented Training

Based on what I noticed in my baseline games, I decided to work on basic skills of Rocket League like controlling boost to get comfortable with it, making good and solid contact with the ball, and also eliminating extraneous load like the chat. Once I did that, I was able to practice more patience while playing and improvement started to come naturally.

I also started to watch my matches more, critique them, and learn from my mistakes moving forward, constantly adapting my training plan to what needed the most work.

By the halfway point I was starting to feel comfortable enough with the basics to move on to some emphasis training for dribbling. Since 1v1 play is mainly possession based, it is really critical to learn how to dribble and do it well to gain and keep possession of the ball. Dribbling is also a defining ability between Bronze level players and Silver level players. Once I started to practice it more, and improved at that subskill, my overall Rocket League playing improved as well, taking me up to Silver Rank!

My Final Performance

All of these weeks have led to my final matches, incorporating all of the lessons I have learned about playing Rocket League; how to manage and control boost, using ball cam, challenging the ball, performing bounce hits, drifting, the list goes on.

In the end, my final rank was Silver 3 Division 1! Not at all close to Platinum, but I broke out of Silver 2 and finally advance to a new tier. I am very happy with this placement, especially considering where I started. I am nowhere near being an expert at Rocket League, but I am also not a novice anymore either.

I asked some fellow Rocket League players to rate my performance as well to see if they agree, and they did! I asked them to watch my first match and most recent match (posted above) and rate my performance from 1= Very bad to 5= Very good. The majority of them rated my first match overall playing skill as “Bad”, and my final match as “Good,” indicating some perceived improvement by my peers!

I also asked them to rate my ability, using the same scale, to challenge the ball, shoot the ball on target, and get into defensive positioning to assess my offensive and defensive capabilities. Most of them rated my ability to challenge the ball as “Good” or “Very Good,” whereas my shooting on target and defensive positioning abilities were split between being “Neutral” to “Good.”

There is always more room for improvement since Rocket League is incredibly difficult to become an expert in, however, in this relatively short period of time I was able to learn enough about the gameplay and mechanics to break out of novice level play, and learn a rudimentary level of Skill in Rocket League.

Thanks for keeping up with this blog to watch my journey in learning how to play Rocket League! If you’re interested in seeing the data trends, visit the Data page!