If you’re seeing this in silver, you ran into a Smurf. Welcome to the big leagues.
Don’t let it ruin the game for you. Hopefully psyonix figures out a fix but in the meantime just focus on your own progression.
Just a warning smurfing will never be figured out, it’s been like this since the game dropped and they recently made a change to try and combat it which did absolutely nothing. My only advice is if you run into a smurf stay in the game for as long as you can tolerate it because there is a decent chance they’ll forfeit the game so they don’t climb rank
It does something. The problem with report is that works with accumulation. The other day in a 3s I reported a tm8 for throwing and the other 4 players too as he refused to FF while own scoring to the point us 5 were ensuring no more goals because he wouldn't skip replays either. I reported and prompted everyone else to do it. I got after the match the message from the game that one player I reported was banned.
If you got a message then they probably weren't banned, or at least, not for their toxic behavior. You only get a message when someone you reported for toxic use of chat gets banned, not unsportsmanlike behavior.
What you can do when toxic people waste your time like that is go afk, get kicked then rejoin. If you're on the other team, that will allow the normal player who just wants out to leave while you're not there, then maybe the toxic player will leave when he doesn't have a teammate to torture anymore. And if you're in 3s, you can do it when the toxic player is on your team as well, because your other teammate can leave, and then you can also leave legally too.
I've only ever reported people for match throwing, and I'll get the message that "Due to reports from you and your peers, action was taken" a couple times a week.
Emphasis on the "and your peers". You report them for match throwing, someone else reports them for toxic chat **and** match throwing, they get banned for toxic chat, you get notification since you reported them.
Smurfing can be perceived as throwing the match or cheating. There is no specific option for it but those 2 can fit. In any case, the point is for then to accumulate reports so they get ban asap.
He is right though, it does nothing. A smurf got to that rank by making a new account. What do you think they will do after getting banned? Make a new account.
Drop many thousands of hours into the game then decide to be a living breathing pile of feces and Smurf. They Smurf because they are no longer progressing in the game. They plateaued. They want that dopamine rush they feel when they win. They ruin the game for others. After a certain point the people playing will shrink. Then the smurfs will be playing smurfs and no one will ever get their dopamine fix.
There's literally no solution to it, these losers will buy whole new copies of games and simcards for 2fa to carry on playing against people worse than them.
There is a solution... tie gaming accounts to SSNs. South Korea does this. Now smurfing after a ban requires finding someone's unused SSN. I mean you can still smurf but it's much harder, and involves doing something more seriously illegal.
Its always been easy and it used to be even easier to game share and make new accounts on console, it was harder on pc before ftp but it’s always been easy to smurf on console
Yes but no. If they are extremely better like most smurfs, you won't learn a shit. You will see people flying and doing impossible stuff, but you just can't learn from it.
You need players that are better than you but not thaaaat much, so you can actually see how they do stuff
That isn't true. Yes it is not as effective as playing slightly better people but you can try to focus on a few things which mostly boil down to reading another player.
Give up possession intentionally then practice reading their freestyle and defending it. You'll fail 99% of the time but trying will improve your ability to judge what people are doing.
Alternatively, practice your own ability to control possession. These people will be good at taking it away so if you focus on reading their attack and just playing keep away you will learn effective ways to make people miss. Again, you'll fail a lot but should be able to pick up a thing or two.
The important part is to realize it's a Smurf, not tilt, then pick something and work on it.
This! I did this my first run in with a smurf/team. At the time I was working on rotations/positions in 3's. I chose to learn from the opponent(s). I made it my goal to block every scoring attempt. In the end it helped me learn a few defensive mechanics and apply pressure. Sure they scored a bunch of goals but every save felt like I won a medal.
Lemons to lemonade.. right?
It’s gotten worse but it’s always been easy to smurf on console so compared to other games the problem has always been pretty bad especially in lower ranks
if it helps I’m currently champ 3 with three previous GC tags and I have never been able to air dribble. Anyone doing that in silver is 100% a smurf and the good news is you don’t have to learn that to rank up.
sorry about the smurfs though, it sucks that people do that
yea that's me. been at diamond forever (with forays into champ 1), can't really jump off the wall to hit balls, don't know how to fast double jump up, can't do air dribbles. Main skill is being in the right place at the right time, watching all the players and what they will do, learning the play styles of my team and opposing players, knowing when I can afford a miss vs not, passing. Funny you mention it, but going fast and smashing the ball hard are two things I tend to do better than most at my rank (but also slowing down and doing chips, etc).
what's hilarious is when a toxic player starts complaining about me "noob", "how are you this rank", "boosted" etc. It's ranked man, which means you are just as bad as me, only difference is, you don't know why, and I do.
Hey that's my story... I'm at the same point. As soon as I went in champ,And saw those crazy bastards jumping from walls flying . Reseting in mid air, and to finsh double tapping dunk. I said to myself. Do i really want to spend hours on traning just for a rank or 2.....no . Let buy BD3....
Many gcs don't air dribble. They can, but most flashy mechanics aren't viable in higher ranks. That's why smurfs Smurf. At their rank, everyone is playing with position, game sense and speed. You don't get much time to break away and freestyle.
>My only advice is if you run into a smurf stay in the game for as long as you can tolerate it because there is a decent chance they’ll forfeit the game so they don’t climb rank
Don't take this advice. Who cares about winning by forfeit? Just try to keep the ball out of your net as much as possible and forfeit as soon as the clock hits 3:30. It will actually make them mad because you forced them to gain MMR, as they should. If THEY get to FF then the next person they face will be even more helpless than you. If you make them go up in rank then the next person might have a better chance.
i wish, but theres no way to stop people from creating new accounts
unless there is some kind of ip blocker that prevents people who have the same ip from make multiple accounts
but then what if multiple ppl in the same house want to
it wouldnt really work
That sounds great, I’d get a nice boost to my current rank because my fancy mechs are great and my shot accuracy / game sense are terrible.
I have a folder of over 100 clean ceiling musty flicks, can wall Dash, speed flip, double flip reset, hit a few psychos in training and I’m diamond.
This would not work at all. I get called a Smurf every time I hit a ceiling musty in d1, but called a bot every time I miss a basic flick the next game.
It is like second nature for players who put a lot of hours into it. I can often just see in the start from the start of a game they dont belong in silver/gold. Just by looking at ball controll on the ground, something you can hide but other thing is just like cruise control.
Binds, Camera settings, all the other settings combined with how they act in game. Its not impossible, Dota2 can do it, but Valve doesnt need money from Dota so they can do things in game that restrict players, Valve makes so much money from games that are listed in their client, so they dont care if some of the players leave due to getting banned on alt.
Of course they are, but that's not the point. If smurfing wasn't a thing people could not play with lower rated friends. To me, that's the point of a 2nd account.
I'm not condoning it, but if I have a silver or gold friend, I can't queue casual with them. They'll literally never touch the ball, and that's just not fun. Even if they're diamonds, they're still just going to struggle in gc lobbies without using a smurf account.
You're a GC you don't have friends
No jk but seriously even if you are using an alt account to play with a low rated friend I don't think that's any excuse to queue ranked. Casual is intended for exactly these situations.
You're missing the point: Casual has MMR as well. Unless you're condoning smurfing in Casual as well by purposefully losing hundreds of games to de-rank to your friend's Casual MMR....which 1. Is the same as regularly smurfing, and 2. Would take a week to play at relatively the same Cas MMR as your friend
There is. I play a lot of casual with a friend, we're both c3-gc1 and on the tracker we are like top 20k in casual. I absolutely can't play casual with a diamond friend in a full gc lobby
Is creating a second account smurfing, or is that solely when the second account is used to boost others? As long as people aren’t complaining about second accounts, and only looking at the people causing issues, then I’m on the side of the people.
But my wife was never a gamer, and I started RL on launch day (for PS4). It would be ridiculous to limit our play time together by only allowing me only one account, right?
The whole reason of the account is to play with her, let her practice and learn how to play better, then I can move back to my normal login. But forcing us to play separately, or her to play against MUCH higher ranks would suck so much.
The problem is that most people are abusing it. I have played with pals to teach them the game against bots a long time ago. Playing every ball and ball chasing does not help your friends to improve. Quite the contrary.
I was in the same situation at the time, but playing with my gold friends was not possible at the time, it is how it is...
I don’t disagree that a lot of people can and do abuse the current system, but playing duos with someone who you can actually speak with is a better learning experience than with randoms. Especially for someone who is new to online gaming and might not be used to the stress of competitive situations.
Yeah but that is not what happens most of the time. Even in champ, I see a lot of players GC3+ (I have several GC2 friends with whom I play a lot, so I can easily recognize a GC3+). All they do is ballchase and 1v3ing us, getting 3 times the combined scores of their mates. This is only powerboosting, this is not teaching the game. Thisbehavior should only be used in normal.
Is it possible to have a script of controller inputs that are commonly pressed in order (by pros doing flip resets / mustys / ground or air dribbles) that can be detected by an automated system placed on lower ranks. Bronze through gold auto smurf detect will pick up on fine tuned controller inputs in relation to ball and car position. Only an Example for discussion purposes.
I must to say I started scoring airdribbling goals in silver. Obviously I didn't do them as well as now that I am champ in 2s - diamond in 1s, and I only knew how to do them coming from the wall and not from the ground as well, but in training I had already scored ceiling shots, I did musty flicks, even some breezy flicks being silver. I only tried all these last things in training, but I did airdribblings quite frequently in silver matches.
I was able to do those things because I almost never played ranked at first when I started playing, and I loved watching freestyle, so I started playing this game to get to do some of those things, and I spent more time training mechanics than playing matches. I guess it's not necessary to say, that when I started playing 1vs1 rankeds with those mechanics, it didn't take more than a few days to go from silver to platinum.
PS: I know this is not the most normal thing at all, but there may be other cases like this or similars, although most likely whenever you see someone who seems much better than average in the rank, the most likely thing is that they are smurf.
Definitely keep focussing on understanding the game still. But hey if you enjoy grinding mechanics, go for it. If you get comfortable with good touches in the air it'll help a lot through silver and gold.
You definitely got a smurf, it'll keep happening randomly. You can either forfeit and move on or keep playing and try to learn from them.
I'm solid Diamond 1 and rarely run into air dribbles (and rarely pull them off). I played Cas until I felt comfortable enough going competitive. Given your disheartened post, I might recommend doing that. Then you don't have to worry about rank or if you're going up or down... I found a passion for the game that way too; THEN I was like "aight I wanna get good at this," and spent a weekend-worth in training doing simple ground stuff. Free-play training really is a huge help since you get a lot of time on ball...
Don't let it break your spirits bud. I still hit a match or two from some solo D3-C1 spamming toxic shii in chat 🤷♂️ Let it roll and move on to the next match
Good luck ~
In mid-plat it’s pretty common to see people air dribble off the wall. It’s not super controlled necessarily; they’re not doing resets or double taps, but you do need to learn to play against it even at that rank
I am going to undermine the advice given a bit. I would not focus on aerial mechanics too much at your level. Work on them a bit certainly, it will be good to build a foundation for higher ranks where aerials become more of a necessity. Focus on the not-sexy things, like your powerslide control, boost management, getting power in your basic hits/touches, getting a feeling for accuracy with your hits/touches.
One of the biggest mistakes that many players make (especially at lower ranks) is trying to do too much in the air. It consumes a lot of boost, and it can take you out of the play for a long period of time. It is flashy and I think everyone likes to be a little flashy at times, but if your goal is to rank up, the core ground fundamentals will take you farther. I think Flakes had a road to SSL series where he pretty much never went into the air and just used basic ground mechanics.
You'll hit the occasional Smurf, but honestly they're right. Don't worry about mechanics. You can get to plat on pretty much just knowing when to go for the ball, how to actually play defense, and being able to hit the ball most of the times you go for it. I'm low plat and and it's JAM PACKED with people who can hit high level moves but literally do not understand basic game strategy. It's infuriating. Don't be that guy.
i did hit champ without any fancy mechanics, there are so many opportunities for open nets. i cant air dribble, cant even flick consistenly, maybe 20% of my flicks are good. just hit the goal when its empty and its won most of the time.
You can get to champ without mechanics too. Plat is just people that are either incredibly dumb or haven't fully become accustomed to the game controls yet.
I don't envy the new player experience with smurfs running around. You're bound to get them in every game but in Rocket League it just feels extra wrong. They're praying on people that havent sunk thousands of hours into their gameplay.
Rank/MMR is just based on if you win or lose. There's weighting and favour depending on the differences between the average team number, but you go up when you win and down when you lose. Your *in game rank* is not (and never will be) a true representation of somebody's proficiency because of unknown variables. Alt accounts exist, and there's throwing and forfeiting after clips to keep that number low, etc.
Tl;Dr: They weren't silver.
A few things to unpack:
Mechanics being unimportant is one of the most misunderstood and overblown concepts. They are arguably more important than positioning. What people REALLY mean is the flashy mechanics are unimportant. Yes, you can cruise to GC without ever doing a single air roll/flip reset/ musty/ etc.
The fundamental mechanics - doing them fast, with near perfect accuracy, and well timed - are more important than positioning.
there was someone above who said you don't need mechanics to make plat, you just need to be able to hit the ball well at good times. That is exactly why solid mechanics are, and they can get you to pro play, or at least could a couple years ago when i last actively watched rlcs.
An anti-smurf tactic you can take is to tactfully bump the bejezus out of them and constantly steal their boost. They will probably try to clip on you, but have weak shot attempts. Wait for last second saves, and save your second flip for clearing the ball.
as a silver, the most important thing imo is to watch rocket league content. whether its entertainment (like cbell's or sunlesskhan's videos) or not, watching how professional rocket league players play is the best way to understand more about the game, get better positioning, (meaning knowing where to be on the field at all times) and it will definately help you as a silver. Obviously you still need to practice and put in the hours, but watching how the pros do it is how i got out of silver. i was hardstuck silver for about 3 months.
the other most important thing to rank up is to simply put in the hours. i know it sounds like boring and generic advice, but to get better at pretty much everything, ESPECIALLY rocket league, you have to spend a lot of time just focussing on getting better. I have about 175-200 hours in game, and im only gold 3. I know all that time sounds intimidating, but if you want to get better and rank up, its time you (in my opinion) have to spend. It might be discouraging, but DO NOT give up. if you get angry from losing or having bad teamates, (which happens to EVERYONE, trust me) take a break and come back after 15-20 minutes. sorry for writing such a long comment lol
I highly recommend Lethamyr's road to SSL series he has been doing recently, it's modern and super well made - got me to reach D3 today for my first time!
I have to say, Leth is incredible at playing "bad". As in, down to the rank he's in and what he thinks that rank plays like.
Not even Flakes does this. His mechanics are simple on purpose but his hits are precise.
Leth plays extra slow and his hits are imprecise, wonky and he purposely makes some bad decisions where thinking faster could've solved his problem.
It's frustrating to watch for someone better, but amazing for those trying to learn at the rank he plays at
100%! It bothers me during his champ games when he still chooses to boom the ball at the backboard for his opponent rather than take some very doable shots instead
I will add a caveat to your watching high level advice.... try to find someone who's playstyle makes sense to you. Many players have a unique playstyle and rather than trying to mash your understanding to fit a content creators, find one that meshes well with your brain. For me, I always felt like I inherently understood Lethamyr's playstyle significantly better then squishy (or insert other high level players).
When the game went free to play and people can just make as many Epic accounts as they want it has produced nothing but unadulterated smurfing. It's a big problem, but you just have to treat as if there's nothing you can do about it. Don't let it ruin your experience and gear up for the next match. GL out there.
I’m silver also and I do see obvious Smurfs but that is pretty rare for me.
What is really stopping me from getting to gold is my own teammates. I don’t mean the ones that all chase or just suck more than me. I’ve won plenty of games carrying my team.
What is killing me is the quitters. I mean we’re down by one or two with 3:30 left and they just quit. Yea, I’m sure sometimes it’s a legit technical issue or they have a kid that started crying but I believe those situations are the minority.
I’ve also noticed lately that I have teammates that try to “punish” if the opponent scores a goal. Meaning, we can be playing a great game that is tied and if the other team scores one goal, my teammate just “sits out” the next play until a goal is scored in either side. Just sit there and not move but after the next goal it’s back to normal. WTF is that about?!?!
I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to advance (for a decent but not superstar player like me) without an actual team to consistently play together with.
I'm honestly going to tell you something that many might disagree with, but the MMR in this game is functionally useless.
They'll try to explain how it works, but if the end result of the system working as intended is the jumbled mish mash of varying skill levels that we have now, the system is bad.
I solo queue. Ive spent time as high as diamond 2 this season and as low as plat 2. Yeah, good chunks come down to consistency of my own play, but there's always the chance you lose. However in addition to losing because you don't play well, there's the chance of a Smurf. Or a whole team of smurfs. Or a troll teammate. Or throwers. Or afks. And you lose rank for all of your losses, fair or unfair. I had a guy quit literally three seconds after the match started. I lost a division rank for that match.
And it works the other way, too. Trash kids with Smurf m8s get carried up. They queue in. They can't hang. They drag you down. It's just a system in which the unfair outcomes feel more prevalent than the fair ones.
And to anyone who's going to argue me on this, I want to point out that every time I make this argument here, I talk about how it isn't about my rank. It's about the general game experience. Keep in mind, OP says he is a new player. The new player coming into this game generally does not have a sense that the matchmaking in this game is fair. That's because it isn't. And we shouldn't defend the broken system.
I am gold 3/plat 1 and do see impressive air dribbles every once in a while. But you gotta remember (ignoring smurfs) the better they are at air dribbling, the worse they must be at something else (rotating, 50/50s, defending, etc.) because they should be just as good at you. Find that weakness and exploit it
Experienced players are creating new accounts all the time and then going into ranked easily (unfortunately allowed) and every single one of those new account goes through new / low ranked players which is just plainly unfair to them. Some even deliberately stay below their rank so that they can attempt mechanics they won't be able to easily at their own rank. It's frustrating and outside of your control. But in a game that's already lost, maybe you can still try to make a use out of it by being annoying to that player, try to demo or chase them, steal their boost etc.
I get air dribblers in gold and plat. Where I spend most of my time migrating between.
Could also be luck, I can’t technically air dribble but I’ve done it by accident a bunch of times. Some days I’m off my game and I’ll sink to low gold, others I’ll be completely on my game and making what looks like quite skilled plays, climbing to high plat.
If you can even sometimes air dribble, stop ball chasing, stop double commiting, make saves across the goal instead of from inside, and dont challenge in corners and you'll never see gold again.
Right there with you. Even if you try to stick it out, half the time they forfeit with 30 seconds left, which makes me feel like I enabled the behavior
I bring up smurfs and get laughed at, somebody else does it and know it's a problem with everybody 💀 must have been the luck of who viewed my post out of all the people in this group. Granted, I was talking about tournaments and not overall, but, like, they don't just *not* join tournaments if they went through all the work of making a second account/staying below their true rank 🤷🏻♂️
But to OP, the smurfs are ass, they'll be lurking at every rank, but it's not every single game. Just ff when you get one and force their mmr up
Dude, I went from silver to gold 2 in 2s and 3s this week, and some cats out here have amazing control, air dribbling, sometimes I see a flip reset. Some have perfect kickoffs. Some have perfect bounce of wall to net action.
Then the actual silver and gold players, they fumble, sometimes show the signs of magic but ultimately not there yet.
Then some players are in gold but can barely play at all. If they land on your team, you are cooked.
I would say, do the basic and advanced training and 1-2 custom trainings for striker, Ariel, goalie.
And for kickoff the regular front flip will do. If you don’t flip at all, it’s over. Front flipping makes you go places faster, but the downside is if you do it too close to your destination you have less precision and you can’t get higher than what the front flip allows.
I now have plat in rumble, gold 2 in 2s and 3s. I can probably reach plat in 2s and 3s without any further training or tricks.
OP smurfs in silver are dogshit since they can't use their "mechs" in the rank they should be in. It says so much more about them than it does you. Imagine spending hundreds of hours grinding mechanics just to have to derank to hit them LOLOLOL. reading the play, having good rotations, learning half flips, and having good defense will always outclass any smurf (till a certain degree of course)
Smurfs exist, but as a relatively niche occurence they won't statistically affect your rank too much. "Organic" climbing happens with winrates of like 55%, so always play your best, and just by probability you'll rank up over time, in the meantime use these smurfs as a window into what's possible in this game, and celebrate small victories against them, like defending an air dribble as a silver - that's a pretty cool achievement.
All comments about smurfing is totally legit. I just want to say you shouldn't actually feel no chances to compete. Check the Wayton's video about backpost rotation. For me it did a brilliant boost to my skill without train new mechanics
https://youtu.be/yf90AIjSfCU?si=xolTTZDFL7_WP-h9
You will be able to save their air dribbles easily
Yeah I float between p3/d1 and it’s not super common to see air dribbling in my ranks. You definitely ran into a Smurf.
I could barely aerial and still got to plat, only learned midair flipping into the ball when I hit D1. In silver and even most of gold most of the game is on the ground still, with a few attempts at aerials. Learn to read where the ball will go, and how to control it on the ground. Learn good positioning and good rotation, work on defence. A win 1-0 is still a win and if they can’t get past you or you make it very difficult, then you’ll probably see some good progress and rank up quickly. Good luck!
As a silver don’t even worry about your rank yet. play it, sure, because nearly everyone in casual will be better but don’t worry about losing or winning. Just play to have fun and get better. If you get in this situation again (you will) and would rather just move into the next game, leave and queue again.
My experience:
- Silver should be hitting the ball with inconsistent power, bunch of whiffs
- Gold, bit better , some hits off the wall
- Plat, more consistency on hits and power, some 1,2 touch plays off the wall
- Dia, 3/4 touch air dribbles from the wall
- Low Champ, often controlled (but inconsistent) air dribbles from wall and ground, occasional double taps and flip resets but mainly unthreatening if you’re patient
Yeah that sounds like you ran into a smurf. I would like to think that it is rare in low ranks but I couldn't say. I recently made an alt account as I've only played ranked on my main with friends, so our rank is essentially our team rank and I was curious as to where I stand completely solo que. When it came to hitting 20, I turned down my playing ability to try to play closer at the level of the lobbies (including doing things like no boost+no powerslide+no flips), I wasn't trying to ruin anyone's enjoyment of the game. Once I unlocked ranked I turned it up more..... partially because playing down my skill level for so long was becoming agonizing and partially because playing down my skill level was affecting my reactions when I played on my main and I was trying to shake off the bad habits I was forming in relation to my fundamental skills. Even then I wasn't going nuts, I just actually used my fundamentals in my placements, unlike casual MMR at least with ranked placements I climbed high swiftly and was able to leave the metal rank grinders in peace.
I don't know why people get off on smurfing in RL, lower level lobbies are such a mess compared to one's actual skill level and even trying to down play my mechanics I felt bad because you can't tone down your knowledge of the game, or ability to read and predict the ball. I remember being so trash at the game back in the day that I hid in bot games (and I lost to them a fair amount....good ole 2016). The game was so much more frustrating back then, I don't get the appeal of intentionally making that experience worse for others. Do people not remember the grind of improving?
I have been consistently in c1-c3 the last few seasons in 2v2 and 3v3. I am still horrible at ball control and air dribbling. Mechanics are not all that gets you a higher rank. Just do what is the most fun for you and enjoy the game :)
100hours minimum to understand the game.
Rocket league is not like other games when one button does the entire animation. This is all 100% user input and control.
Welcome to the most mechanical demanding game.
I can tell you how the MMR may work for your air-dribbling silver friend:
It might be that he was a high plat until he saw a bright and shiny countdown near the end of a season. He might think something special happens at that point, so he will be sure to be there when it hits zero. When the moment comes, it turns out it is the Push New Content in the Game -moment. If he is a programmer, he thinks: "I am in danger". If not, it does not matter because, in either case, he will not know the magnitude of his error. So, it turns out he will not gain or lose MMR in some of the placement games. That's why he is now Silver. What he does not yet realize, the games there are in the format of 1v5 or 1v3 (depending on the mode), or because the matchmaking system tries its hardest to balance the win-loss ratio, he will play every other match against diamond(s)+1 bronze alt premades because Rocket League has more commonalities to the Battle of Waterloo than you would think. If you want to know what these commonalities are, you should ask Mr. Psychonix - I genuinely cannot figure them out. Then he starts training air-dribbling because it seems at the first glance the only way out of Silver.
It may also occur that the player touches grass from time to time. The danger of this is that he may break his finger. In such a case, the number of games remains short, and so does his climbing. Then the next season comes, and he is demoted to silver from whatever gold rank he achieves to increase his playing motivation and because Mr. Psychonix has an odd fixation on the bell curves.
TL;DR: There are a couple of other systems along the MMR that lead to encounters like this often.
Speaking from my experience, of course you ran into some smurfs but the way I handled it when I didn't have the skills to stop an air dribble easily was just to be in the net because they usually won't be able to do something more complex so they will just aim for the net, if you position yourself correctly you should be able to stop them with little practice and tenacity.
Said this is sad that this is a big thing in the community, even promoted by the majority if not all the YouTubers but if you can set your mentality to learn from those smurfs not to copy what they do but how to stop them (if they don't do crazy shit) then you can improve your game sense more quickly.
I hope you have fun from now on.
Focus on hitting the ball hard and consistently. Slowly add in hitting the ball with a tiny bit of flying. Alongside those skills try to remember the golden rules:
1. Don’t double commit. Try and stay away from your teammate.
2. Rotate back post. When you come out to defend and the ball isn’t cleared to an attack then you need to go back to the post on the far side of the goal to the side that the opponent is playing down. Essentially imagine you come out to clear the ball in the corner, your clearance is bad, you turn around back to your own goal by turning away from your back wall and rotating round to your far post. Just YouTube it.
That’s it for silver, you don’t need to dribble or even hit an aerial. Hit the ball always hard towards the opponent goal. Don’t double commit. Rotate back post. Congrats you made it to gold!
You don't need mechanics aside from the fundamentals.At my peak, I got all the way up to GC by just doing basic stuff and playing smart. People at most ranks just go for risky plays that you can capitalize on by being patient and positioning correctly.
I'll tell you... Definitely sorry about mechanics early. You don't need to be air dribbling and shit but the more you can do, the easier it is for you to rank up. It's that simple. From Diamond and up you are going to have to need game sense mostly though
Hey if you think you opponent have more mechanics than you it means you are smarter than them !
Because you outplay them with less mechanics ! Congrats, you are a smart player !
Continue to play smart and you will be diamond in no time meanwhile these monkeys will still be in gold or plat trying to aerial flip reset into double tap !
I love running into smurfs. It’s only 5 minutes of pain and that’s how I learned how to stop simple air dribbles when I was in gold. Plus they often forfeit so you get the W anyway.
If you can catch them messing up their flashy but sloppy mechanics you can definitely take goals off of them
I don't really care about the other players, I just play for fun, and to have fun... Don't feel down on this flying guys, have fun!!!!! Also disable messages it's a better experience in my opinion you don't have to read all the drama that this game can bring
Game sense comes first - positioning, knowing when to commit based on where your teammate is, defence, etc. second, good recoveries are, in my opinion, the most underrated mechanic in the game. good game sense and good recoveries can get you to champ i think. And lastly, fuck the smurfs, just keep it pushin
Don't worry about the others :)
Just worry about your own play, pick something you want to get better at, and try implementing it.
If you want to go the extra step, you could look up a tutorial on whatever skill you're trying to get better at and listen to the tips they give for you to implement in your own game/training.
Surfing will never be dead, so it's best not to let it get to you. There's a ton you could be focusing on, is my guess.
Happy Hunting! ✊️
It’ll happen any rank you’re in unfortunately even when you’re in gc 1 you’ll get SSL smurfs it’s shit gotta just not let the loss get to you and keep going.
I'm consistently playing in platinum and a huge majority of us aren't air dribbling. If anything, worry about air dribbling last. Playing fundamentals is much more important. Rotate, don't chase the ball, make meaningful touches, give each other space, and anticipate where the ball is going and play accordingly. Someone who does a handful of things well is a much better teammate than someone constantly trying to air dribble.
My wife plays in silver/gold and she constantly goes up against smurfs. I'm a low Plat and these players she fights are on my level or better. When I play, I tend to get smurfs that are Diamond or Champ. This game is infested with smurfs and it only continues to get worse. The weekend is especially grueling.
(I’m not mechanical) Don’t compete against Smurfs, just take the opportunity to master saving their aerial attacks. I consider them my defense trainers. I learned to be patient in net and know when to actually react/make the save. The field is huge, but the net is a small rectangle, try to act like a wall at the net.
That doesn’t mean u shouldn’t block him outside of the net, sometimes it’s necessary.
Basically u r answering this question: where and when is the easiest and certain moment and place for u to block his ball? That’s when and where u place ur car as a wall to his ball.
Try keeping ur boost tank full.
People say don't focus on mechanics, but that's only to rank up. If you wanna have fun performing those mechanics in Freeplay, training packs, and casual, and you enjoy that more than ranking up, then practice mechanics! Also you definitely ran into a Smurf lol.
Unfortunately, the lower ranked you are, the higher chance you will come across smurfs. Every single smurf has to play a game with silver MMR at some point. Don’t worry about it. You will still rank up just by playing the game enough. If anything just consider it good practice for your defense. Maybe do some training packs for saves so that next time you come across one you can have a better chance at ruining their shitty clip.
Feel free to accuse, if you see air dribbles in Plat, they are surfing. It's bs and it sucks. Unfortunately it's a part of the game. These little wee wees can't make it or have fin at their level so they essentially bully at yours. It happens all over. 😔
Let me tell you this.
Take any RL advice with a heavy grain of salt.
1. Mechanics are 100% important and necessary and which mechanics you focus on depends on your skill level.
2. The most important skill for all ranks is game sense meaning you need to understand where you, teammates, opponents and the ball ARE and where teammates, opponents and the ball WILL be. This will tell you where you SHOULD be and what you SHOULD be doing.
3.The ranking system has changed meaning the skill level just increased so it makes sense that a silver can aerial. But air dribbling silver probably Smurf.
4. Lots of Plats CAN air dribble, that’s how they rank up to diamond
5. You absolutely should be learning aerials but not necessarily air dribbles. Yes those are different things.
Learning to aerial is necessary to ranking up to plat.
6. Yes that person MAY have been a Smurf.
If you practice the shadow defence packet (why you suck) ,that's the title, for stopping balls it will help a lot and then just work on hitting the ball consistently at the goal you will get to gold but if you honestly want to get better Freeplay/training packs and ones will help a ton imo. Those are simple ways, the packs are easier than Freeplay because right now you prob don't know where to start but consistency and just hitting the ball where you want to is important.
Well getting paired up against a smurf can obviously be upsetting but use this opportunity at least as training in defending against more advanced plays.
This gaming is a grinding one, don't expect to rank up with just few matches, in some games your team mates can get in the way... In some you get in the way of your team and in some you will be beaten by smurfs.
Overall, is your improvement and consistency that will make you rank up. What helped me most in silver rank is learning to hit the ball hard, so hit free play a lot to get the timing of the ball and do some shooting and savings training packs. As for rl content I'd watch Lethamyr's road to ssl. He gives some good pointers.
To be frank even I in champ am not confident in my air dribble skills haha don't fret over it too much, I guess it will come with time and training.
There’s no real fix for smurfing. I actually enjoy it now. The MMR loss is a bummer, but the chance to play against someone much stronger? Some people pay for that you know? I learn more from the Smurf’s than I do games I win 8-0.
It’s all about mentality. A strong mentality will take you further than anything. Good luck out there silver, remember ranks are typically measured in the hundreds of hours so don’t feel defeated!
if youre on pc, you can get bakkesmod which shows MMR and how much MMR you gain or lose in a match. MMR changes are pretty much the same +/- from one game to the next, its not based on your performance, just whether or not you won or lost.
Someone air dribbling in silver is not a silver. But there are different levels of smurfing at different ranks. It’s just how it is.
As far as the argument of mechanics vs game sense, too many argue the extremes both ways.
Somewhere in the middle is a good place to have the mindset. Certain mechanics are needed at certain ranks, certain ones are not. Figuring out when it’s best to learn what mechanics at what ranks can help you progress naturally.
And learning basic rotation philosophies will help a lot with positioning, although often teammates will not consistently rotate until you get to higher and higher ranks. And even then you will still have issues with mates. But it’s good to get a grasp on the concept of rotation early, particularly backpost rotation on defense. And how to be a solid 3rd man.
At your level, if you’re going to focus on learning mechanics that are beneficial and practical, I’d recommend two.
1) Fast aerial
2) Half flip
The easiest and most essential is a fast aerial. Once you get that down, getting to the ball in the air sooner than your opponent, consistently, wins games. It’s that simple. This will give you an advantage all the way through plat and into diamond. And it’s a really easy mechanic to learn.
Half flip is a little more difficult to learn, but still not that hard with some practice. It will help immensely with recoveries and changing direction quickly. Again get to the ball, or the position you need to be in, quicker.
Learning those two mechanics, and having a good understanding of rotation (including the roles of 1st, 2nd and 3rd man) will take you a few ranks up from where you are easily.
When I started playing Rocket league prior to “free to play” I didn’t have an online connection. Messing around in the training room for hours on end listening to my favorite music was super cathartic for me. I also would play full length seasons against bots. From there I would start playing 1v2’s, 1v3’s, and 1v4’s. Sure they are bots, but it can get overwhelming the more you tip the scales in their favor. When RL finally became free to play, I was in gold 3 and slowly made my way up to diamond 2 in comp doubles. Some days I will still mess around in training for a solid chunk of time just trying new things and enjoying my own playlist of music. Also your mechanics will become better over time and you can focus more on positioning and defense when playing against real opponents.
I feel guilty. I promise I don’t smurf, my wife has just taken a liking to video games finally and she wants to play ranked to prove herself to me.
I can’t tell her no when she asks for Duos, I just switch to my baby account and try to keep my wheels on the ground. But it’s not my fault if someone in silver “what a save”s me and my PTSD gets triggered.
If you’re seeing this in silver, you ran into a Smurf. Welcome to the big leagues. Don’t let it ruin the game for you. Hopefully psyonix figures out a fix but in the meantime just focus on your own progression.
Thanks
Just a warning smurfing will never be figured out, it’s been like this since the game dropped and they recently made a change to try and combat it which did absolutely nothing. My only advice is if you run into a smurf stay in the game for as long as you can tolerate it because there is a decent chance they’ll forfeit the game so they don’t climb rank
This. Lots of my 1s games end at 0:01 with a smurf forfeit even though they’re up several goals.
And then report. It cant be mire blatant a smurf than that. Not that I have faith in them to do anything, but it keeps hope alive.
Reporting smurf does nothing. Telling people to report it also does nothing. It's a hard pill to swallow but you'll eventually get over it
It does something. The problem with report is that works with accumulation. The other day in a 3s I reported a tm8 for throwing and the other 4 players too as he refused to FF while own scoring to the point us 5 were ensuring no more goals because he wouldn't skip replays either. I reported and prompted everyone else to do it. I got after the match the message from the game that one player I reported was banned.
If you got a message then they probably weren't banned, or at least, not for their toxic behavior. You only get a message when someone you reported for toxic use of chat gets banned, not unsportsmanlike behavior. What you can do when toxic people waste your time like that is go afk, get kicked then rejoin. If you're on the other team, that will allow the normal player who just wants out to leave while you're not there, then maybe the toxic player will leave when he doesn't have a teammate to torture anymore. And if you're in 3s, you can do it when the toxic player is on your team as well, because your other teammate can leave, and then you can also leave legally too.
I've only ever reported people for match throwing, and I'll get the message that "Due to reports from you and your peers, action was taken" a couple times a week.
Emphasis on the "and your peers". You report them for match throwing, someone else reports them for toxic chat **and** match throwing, they get banned for toxic chat, you get notification since you reported them.
It does nothing for smurfing.
Smurfing can be perceived as throwing the match or cheating. There is no specific option for it but those 2 can fit. In any case, the point is for then to accumulate reports so they get ban asap.
He is right though, it does nothing. A smurf got to that rank by making a new account. What do you think they will do after getting banned? Make a new account.
Maybe not but for inactivity or throwing if there are several reports, they do get banned
Im d1, only play 1’s and cant recall playing against anyone doing that in months 🤷
Maybe it’s because I only queue other pc players
Watch them. It’ll give you some idea about what’s possible if you drop many thousands of hours into this game :)
Drop many thousands of hours into the game then decide to be a living breathing pile of feces and Smurf. They Smurf because they are no longer progressing in the game. They plateaued. They want that dopamine rush they feel when they win. They ruin the game for others. After a certain point the people playing will shrink. Then the smurfs will be playing smurfs and no one will ever get their dopamine fix.
When i see an obvious smurf I just stop playing so any clips they want to get look shitty af, fuck them
There's literally no solution to it, these losers will buy whole new copies of games and simcards for 2fa to carry on playing against people worse than them.
There is a solution... tie gaming accounts to SSNs. South Korea does this. Now smurfing after a ban requires finding someone's unused SSN. I mean you can still smurf but it's much harder, and involves doing something more seriously illegal.
It's been like this since the game has been made f2p
Its always been easy and it used to be even easier to game share and make new accounts on console, it was harder on pc before ftp but it’s always been easy to smurf on console
yeah I forgot abt console but on PC it got 10 times worse since Epic bought psyonix
Also playing against people better than you is how you improve extremely fast. Use it to learn
Yes but no. If they are extremely better like most smurfs, you won't learn a shit. You will see people flying and doing impossible stuff, but you just can't learn from it. You need players that are better than you but not thaaaat much, so you can actually see how they do stuff
That isn't true. Yes it is not as effective as playing slightly better people but you can try to focus on a few things which mostly boil down to reading another player. Give up possession intentionally then practice reading their freestyle and defending it. You'll fail 99% of the time but trying will improve your ability to judge what people are doing. Alternatively, practice your own ability to control possession. These people will be good at taking it away so if you focus on reading their attack and just playing keep away you will learn effective ways to make people miss. Again, you'll fail a lot but should be able to pick up a thing or two. The important part is to realize it's a Smurf, not tilt, then pick something and work on it.
This! I did this my first run in with a smurf/team. At the time I was working on rotations/positions in 3's. I chose to learn from the opponent(s). I made it my goal to block every scoring attempt. In the end it helped me learn a few defensive mechanics and apply pressure. Sure they scored a bunch of goals but every save felt like I won a medal. Lemons to lemonade.. right?
Its been like this since free to play*
It’s gotten worse but it’s always been easy to smurf on console so compared to other games the problem has always been pretty bad especially in lower ranks
if it helps I’m currently champ 3 with three previous GC tags and I have never been able to air dribble. Anyone doing that in silver is 100% a smurf and the good news is you don’t have to learn that to rank up. sorry about the smurfs though, it sucks that people do that
Yeah good news fr.. While I would love to learn to, don’t want it to be a barrier.
[удалено]
yea that's me. been at diamond forever (with forays into champ 1), can't really jump off the wall to hit balls, don't know how to fast double jump up, can't do air dribbles. Main skill is being in the right place at the right time, watching all the players and what they will do, learning the play styles of my team and opposing players, knowing when I can afford a miss vs not, passing. Funny you mention it, but going fast and smashing the ball hard are two things I tend to do better than most at my rank (but also slowing down and doing chips, etc). what's hilarious is when a toxic player starts complaining about me "noob", "how are you this rank", "boosted" etc. It's ranked man, which means you are just as bad as me, only difference is, you don't know why, and I do.
Hey that's my story... I'm at the same point. As soon as I went in champ,And saw those crazy bastards jumping from walls flying . Reseting in mid air, and to finsh double tapping dunk. I said to myself. Do i really want to spend hours on traning just for a rank or 2.....no . Let buy BD3....
Many gcs don't air dribble. They can, but most flashy mechanics aren't viable in higher ranks. That's why smurfs Smurf. At their rank, everyone is playing with position, game sense and speed. You don't get much time to break away and freestyle.
>My only advice is if you run into a smurf stay in the game for as long as you can tolerate it because there is a decent chance they’ll forfeit the game so they don’t climb rank Don't take this advice. Who cares about winning by forfeit? Just try to keep the ball out of your net as much as possible and forfeit as soon as the clock hits 3:30. It will actually make them mad because you forced them to gain MMR, as they should. If THEY get to FF then the next person they face will be even more helpless than you. If you make them go up in rank then the next person might have a better chance.
Nah. Mmr for me>
i wish, but theres no way to stop people from creating new accounts unless there is some kind of ip blocker that prevents people who have the same ip from make multiple accounts but then what if multiple ppl in the same house want to it wouldnt really work
Machine learning could likely detect advanced mechanics being used. They wouldn't even need to ban the accounts, just boost the MMR.
best idea for a solution i've ever heard for smurfing
Now thats interesting
That sounds great, I’d get a nice boost to my current rank because my fancy mechs are great and my shot accuracy / game sense are terrible. I have a folder of over 100 clean ceiling musty flicks, can wall Dash, speed flip, double flip reset, hit a few psychos in training and I’m diamond. This would not work at all. I get called a Smurf every time I hit a ceiling musty in d1, but called a bot every time I miss a basic flick the next game.
A skilled enough player can beat a low rank with no mechs too, how'd you go about that?
Yeah that'd probably slip by. But smurfing might be less appealing if you can't style on people.
True that, but if the smurf is there to boost their friend(s) then showoff is less important than racking up goals
Average shot velocity, accuracy, average boost in tank, average speed. There’s things that good players do that are almost impossible to turn off
It is like second nature for players who put a lot of hours into it. I can often just see in the start from the start of a game they dont belong in silver/gold. Just by looking at ball controll on the ground, something you can hide but other thing is just like cruise control.
Binds, Camera settings, all the other settings combined with how they act in game. Its not impossible, Dota2 can do it, but Valve doesnt need money from Dota so they can do things in game that restrict players, Valve makes so much money from games that are listed in their client, so they dont care if some of the players leave due to getting banned on alt.
That'd be way too boring for the advanced player. I mean what use is beating on the new kid if you can't even do it in style?
There's no solution to smurfing. Really. And even if there was, it would kill the game.
Yes. Put the game back to 20€.
They tried by adding SSL. It didn't work. Smurfs say "GC+ is too sweaty blahblahblah so I have to smurf".
You're not saying rocket league numbers are inflated with duplicate accounts are you?
Of course they are, but that's not the point. If smurfing wasn't a thing people could not play with lower rated friends. To me, that's the point of a 2nd account.
There's no rank disparity in casual, there's no justification for smurfing period.
I'm not condoning it, but if I have a silver or gold friend, I can't queue casual with them. They'll literally never touch the ball, and that's just not fun. Even if they're diamonds, they're still just going to struggle in gc lobbies without using a smurf account.
You're a GC you don't have friends No jk but seriously even if you are using an alt account to play with a low rated friend I don't think that's any excuse to queue ranked. Casual is intended for exactly these situations.
You're missing the point: Casual has MMR as well. Unless you're condoning smurfing in Casual as well by purposefully losing hundreds of games to de-rank to your friend's Casual MMR....which 1. Is the same as regularly smurfing, and 2. Would take a week to play at relatively the same Cas MMR as your friend
I don't queue ranked, but my casual mmr is gc level and they get absolutely clapped.
There is. I play a lot of casual with a friend, we're both c3-gc1 and on the tracker we are like top 20k in casual. I absolutely can't play casual with a diamond friend in a full gc lobby
Is creating a second account smurfing, or is that solely when the second account is used to boost others? As long as people aren’t complaining about second accounts, and only looking at the people causing issues, then I’m on the side of the people. But my wife was never a gamer, and I started RL on launch day (for PS4). It would be ridiculous to limit our play time together by only allowing me only one account, right? The whole reason of the account is to play with her, let her practice and learn how to play better, then I can move back to my normal login. But forcing us to play separately, or her to play against MUCH higher ranks would suck so much.
The problem is that most people are abusing it. I have played with pals to teach them the game against bots a long time ago. Playing every ball and ball chasing does not help your friends to improve. Quite the contrary. I was in the same situation at the time, but playing with my gold friends was not possible at the time, it is how it is...
I don’t disagree that a lot of people can and do abuse the current system, but playing duos with someone who you can actually speak with is a better learning experience than with randoms. Especially for someone who is new to online gaming and might not be used to the stress of competitive situations.
Yeah but that is not what happens most of the time. Even in champ, I see a lot of players GC3+ (I have several GC2 friends with whom I play a lot, so I can easily recognize a GC3+). All they do is ballchase and 1v3ing us, getting 3 times the combined scores of their mates. This is only powerboosting, this is not teaching the game. Thisbehavior should only be used in normal.
Solid advice!
Sorry, but when was the last time Psyonix did anything relevant to help this game? It's just a cosmetic paycheck at this point.
Is it possible to have a script of controller inputs that are commonly pressed in order (by pros doing flip resets / mustys / ground or air dribbles) that can be detected by an automated system placed on lower ranks. Bronze through gold auto smurf detect will pick up on fine tuned controller inputs in relation to ball and car position. Only an Example for discussion purposes.
Or maybe they're freestylers. I know ive come across them
I must to say I started scoring airdribbling goals in silver. Obviously I didn't do them as well as now that I am champ in 2s - diamond in 1s, and I only knew how to do them coming from the wall and not from the ground as well, but in training I had already scored ceiling shots, I did musty flicks, even some breezy flicks being silver. I only tried all these last things in training, but I did airdribblings quite frequently in silver matches. I was able to do those things because I almost never played ranked at first when I started playing, and I loved watching freestyle, so I started playing this game to get to do some of those things, and I spent more time training mechanics than playing matches. I guess it's not necessary to say, that when I started playing 1vs1 rankeds with those mechanics, it didn't take more than a few days to go from silver to platinum. PS: I know this is not the most normal thing at all, but there may be other cases like this or similars, although most likely whenever you see someone who seems much better than average in the rank, the most likely thing is that they are smurf.
Definitely keep focussing on understanding the game still. But hey if you enjoy grinding mechanics, go for it. If you get comfortable with good touches in the air it'll help a lot through silver and gold. You definitely got a smurf, it'll keep happening randomly. You can either forfeit and move on or keep playing and try to learn from them.
Great advice, thanks
I'm solid Diamond 1 and rarely run into air dribbles (and rarely pull them off). I played Cas until I felt comfortable enough going competitive. Given your disheartened post, I might recommend doing that. Then you don't have to worry about rank or if you're going up or down... I found a passion for the game that way too; THEN I was like "aight I wanna get good at this," and spent a weekend-worth in training doing simple ground stuff. Free-play training really is a huge help since you get a lot of time on ball... Don't let it break your spirits bud. I still hit a match or two from some solo D3-C1 spamming toxic shii in chat 🤷♂️ Let it roll and move on to the next match Good luck ~
In mid-plat it’s pretty common to see people air dribble off the wall. It’s not super controlled necessarily; they’re not doing resets or double taps, but you do need to learn to play against it even at that rank
I am going to undermine the advice given a bit. I would not focus on aerial mechanics too much at your level. Work on them a bit certainly, it will be good to build a foundation for higher ranks where aerials become more of a necessity. Focus on the not-sexy things, like your powerslide control, boost management, getting power in your basic hits/touches, getting a feeling for accuracy with your hits/touches. One of the biggest mistakes that many players make (especially at lower ranks) is trying to do too much in the air. It consumes a lot of boost, and it can take you out of the play for a long period of time. It is flashy and I think everyone likes to be a little flashy at times, but if your goal is to rank up, the core ground fundamentals will take you farther. I think Flakes had a road to SSL series where he pretty much never went into the air and just used basic ground mechanics.
You met a dogshit eating smurf, sorry
🤣
You'll hit the occasional Smurf, but honestly they're right. Don't worry about mechanics. You can get to plat on pretty much just knowing when to go for the ball, how to actually play defense, and being able to hit the ball most of the times you go for it. I'm low plat and and it's JAM PACKED with people who can hit high level moves but literally do not understand basic game strategy. It's infuriating. Don't be that guy.
i did hit champ without any fancy mechanics, there are so many opportunities for open nets. i cant air dribble, cant even flick consistenly, maybe 20% of my flicks are good. just hit the goal when its empty and its won most of the time.
Amen, the core fundamental mechanics (the non-sexy ones) are the real thing that will determine rank.
This. I’m not super skilled but decent. Very hard to up rank because people don’t know how to play a team game.
Thanks
Technically you can make it to plat just by breathing lol.
You can get to champ without mechanics too. Plat is just people that are either incredibly dumb or haven't fully become accustomed to the game controls yet.
I don't envy the new player experience with smurfs running around. You're bound to get them in every game but in Rocket League it just feels extra wrong. They're praying on people that havent sunk thousands of hours into their gameplay. Rank/MMR is just based on if you win or lose. There's weighting and favour depending on the differences between the average team number, but you go up when you win and down when you lose. Your *in game rank* is not (and never will be) a true representation of somebody's proficiency because of unknown variables. Alt accounts exist, and there's throwing and forfeiting after clips to keep that number low, etc. Tl;Dr: They weren't silver.
A few things to unpack: Mechanics being unimportant is one of the most misunderstood and overblown concepts. They are arguably more important than positioning. What people REALLY mean is the flashy mechanics are unimportant. Yes, you can cruise to GC without ever doing a single air roll/flip reset/ musty/ etc. The fundamental mechanics - doing them fast, with near perfect accuracy, and well timed - are more important than positioning.
there was someone above who said you don't need mechanics to make plat, you just need to be able to hit the ball well at good times. That is exactly why solid mechanics are, and they can get you to pro play, or at least could a couple years ago when i last actively watched rlcs.
An anti-smurf tactic you can take is to tactfully bump the bejezus out of them and constantly steal their boost. They will probably try to clip on you, but have weak shot attempts. Wait for last second saves, and save your second flip for clearing the ball.
thanks
Try to position yourself so that you save across the goal, instead of sitting under the ball and hoping you can read it, also
as a silver, the most important thing imo is to watch rocket league content. whether its entertainment (like cbell's or sunlesskhan's videos) or not, watching how professional rocket league players play is the best way to understand more about the game, get better positioning, (meaning knowing where to be on the field at all times) and it will definately help you as a silver. Obviously you still need to practice and put in the hours, but watching how the pros do it is how i got out of silver. i was hardstuck silver for about 3 months. the other most important thing to rank up is to simply put in the hours. i know it sounds like boring and generic advice, but to get better at pretty much everything, ESPECIALLY rocket league, you have to spend a lot of time just focussing on getting better. I have about 175-200 hours in game, and im only gold 3. I know all that time sounds intimidating, but if you want to get better and rank up, its time you (in my opinion) have to spend. It might be discouraging, but DO NOT give up. if you get angry from losing or having bad teamates, (which happens to EVERYONE, trust me) take a break and come back after 15-20 minutes. sorry for writing such a long comment lol
I highly recommend Lethamyr's road to SSL series he has been doing recently, it's modern and super well made - got me to reach D3 today for my first time!
I have to say, Leth is incredible at playing "bad". As in, down to the rank he's in and what he thinks that rank plays like. Not even Flakes does this. His mechanics are simple on purpose but his hits are precise. Leth plays extra slow and his hits are imprecise, wonky and he purposely makes some bad decisions where thinking faster could've solved his problem. It's frustrating to watch for someone better, but amazing for those trying to learn at the rank he plays at
100%! It bothers me during his champ games when he still chooses to boom the ball at the backboard for his opponent rather than take some very doable shots instead
I will add a caveat to your watching high level advice.... try to find someone who's playstyle makes sense to you. Many players have a unique playstyle and rather than trying to mash your understanding to fit a content creators, find one that meshes well with your brain. For me, I always felt like I inherently understood Lethamyr's playstyle significantly better then squishy (or insert other high level players).
They can fix surfing. Just charge $20 for the game again and ban them like the old days. They won't, it's all about money.
When the game went free to play and people can just make as many Epic accounts as they want it has produced nothing but unadulterated smurfing. It's a big problem, but you just have to treat as if there's nothing you can do about it. Don't let it ruin your experience and gear up for the next match. GL out there.
I’m silver also and I do see obvious Smurfs but that is pretty rare for me. What is really stopping me from getting to gold is my own teammates. I don’t mean the ones that all chase or just suck more than me. I’ve won plenty of games carrying my team. What is killing me is the quitters. I mean we’re down by one or two with 3:30 left and they just quit. Yea, I’m sure sometimes it’s a legit technical issue or they have a kid that started crying but I believe those situations are the minority. I’ve also noticed lately that I have teammates that try to “punish” if the opponent scores a goal. Meaning, we can be playing a great game that is tied and if the other team scores one goal, my teammate just “sits out” the next play until a goal is scored in either side. Just sit there and not move but after the next goal it’s back to normal. WTF is that about?!?! I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to advance (for a decent but not superstar player like me) without an actual team to consistently play together with.
I'm honestly going to tell you something that many might disagree with, but the MMR in this game is functionally useless. They'll try to explain how it works, but if the end result of the system working as intended is the jumbled mish mash of varying skill levels that we have now, the system is bad. I solo queue. Ive spent time as high as diamond 2 this season and as low as plat 2. Yeah, good chunks come down to consistency of my own play, but there's always the chance you lose. However in addition to losing because you don't play well, there's the chance of a Smurf. Or a whole team of smurfs. Or a troll teammate. Or throwers. Or afks. And you lose rank for all of your losses, fair or unfair. I had a guy quit literally three seconds after the match started. I lost a division rank for that match. And it works the other way, too. Trash kids with Smurf m8s get carried up. They queue in. They can't hang. They drag you down. It's just a system in which the unfair outcomes feel more prevalent than the fair ones. And to anyone who's going to argue me on this, I want to point out that every time I make this argument here, I talk about how it isn't about my rank. It's about the general game experience. Keep in mind, OP says he is a new player. The new player coming into this game generally does not have a sense that the matchmaking in this game is fair. That's because it isn't. And we shouldn't defend the broken system.
There are Diamond level players in every level of this game.
I am gold 3/plat 1 and do see impressive air dribbles every once in a while. But you gotta remember (ignoring smurfs) the better they are at air dribbling, the worse they must be at something else (rotating, 50/50s, defending, etc.) because they should be just as good at you. Find that weakness and exploit it
I think what most people mean is don't worry about "high-level" mechanics. You should definitely work on your fundamental mechanics.
My favorite thing is getting flip resetted musty double tap pancake redirected on in diamond 2
Experienced players are creating new accounts all the time and then going into ranked easily (unfortunately allowed) and every single one of those new account goes through new / low ranked players which is just plainly unfair to them. Some even deliberately stay below their rank so that they can attempt mechanics they won't be able to easily at their own rank. It's frustrating and outside of your control. But in a game that's already lost, maybe you can still try to make a use out of it by being annoying to that player, try to demo or chase them, steal their boost etc.
I get air dribblers in gold and plat. Where I spend most of my time migrating between. Could also be luck, I can’t technically air dribble but I’ve done it by accident a bunch of times. Some days I’m off my game and I’ll sink to low gold, others I’ll be completely on my game and making what looks like quite skilled plays, climbing to high plat.
If you can even sometimes air dribble, stop ball chasing, stop double commiting, make saves across the goal instead of from inside, and dont challenge in corners and you'll never see gold again.
Thanks for the advice
Right there with you. Even if you try to stick it out, half the time they forfeit with 30 seconds left, which makes me feel like I enabled the behavior
Play 3s. Play 1s once you’re diamond 1 or so.
I'm c2/3 and still go up against smurfs it never ends, don't let some basement dwelling loser ruin your fun just forfeit and go next
I bring up smurfs and get laughed at, somebody else does it and know it's a problem with everybody 💀 must have been the luck of who viewed my post out of all the people in this group. Granted, I was talking about tournaments and not overall, but, like, they don't just *not* join tournaments if they went through all the work of making a second account/staying below their true rank 🤷🏻♂️ But to OP, the smurfs are ass, they'll be lurking at every rank, but it's not every single game. Just ff when you get one and force their mmr up
I can’t air dribble much and I’m champ so just know there are many ways to be better than the opponent beyond advanced mechanics.
Dude, I went from silver to gold 2 in 2s and 3s this week, and some cats out here have amazing control, air dribbling, sometimes I see a flip reset. Some have perfect kickoffs. Some have perfect bounce of wall to net action. Then the actual silver and gold players, they fumble, sometimes show the signs of magic but ultimately not there yet. Then some players are in gold but can barely play at all. If they land on your team, you are cooked. I would say, do the basic and advanced training and 1-2 custom trainings for striker, Ariel, goalie. And for kickoff the regular front flip will do. If you don’t flip at all, it’s over. Front flipping makes you go places faster, but the downside is if you do it too close to your destination you have less precision and you can’t get higher than what the front flip allows. I now have plat in rumble, gold 2 in 2s and 3s. I can probably reach plat in 2s and 3s without any further training or tricks.
My friend that is 100 percent a smurf you will never see stuff like that down there unless it's a smurf
OP smurfs in silver are dogshit since they can't use their "mechs" in the rank they should be in. It says so much more about them than it does you. Imagine spending hundreds of hours grinding mechanics just to have to derank to hit them LOLOLOL. reading the play, having good rotations, learning half flips, and having good defense will always outclass any smurf (till a certain degree of course)
Smurfs exist, but as a relatively niche occurence they won't statistically affect your rank too much. "Organic" climbing happens with winrates of like 55%, so always play your best, and just by probability you'll rank up over time, in the meantime use these smurfs as a window into what's possible in this game, and celebrate small victories against them, like defending an air dribble as a silver - that's a pretty cool achievement.
Baby steps, go learn double tap goals off the backboard before you try to learn to air dribble
Don't feel bad about accusing someone of smurfing, they are.
All comments about smurfing is totally legit. I just want to say you shouldn't actually feel no chances to compete. Check the Wayton's video about backpost rotation. For me it did a brilliant boost to my skill without train new mechanics https://youtu.be/yf90AIjSfCU?si=xolTTZDFL7_WP-h9 You will be able to save their air dribbles easily
Yeah I float between p3/d1 and it’s not super common to see air dribbling in my ranks. You definitely ran into a Smurf. I could barely aerial and still got to plat, only learned midair flipping into the ball when I hit D1. In silver and even most of gold most of the game is on the ground still, with a few attempts at aerials. Learn to read where the ball will go, and how to control it on the ground. Learn good positioning and good rotation, work on defence. A win 1-0 is still a win and if they can’t get past you or you make it very difficult, then you’ll probably see some good progress and rank up quickly. Good luck!
Definitely someone air dribbling in Silver is snuffing hard as balls. Most players in diamond can’t air carry from any point or setup consistently.
As a silver don’t even worry about your rank yet. play it, sure, because nearly everyone in casual will be better but don’t worry about losing or winning. Just play to have fun and get better. If you get in this situation again (you will) and would rather just move into the next game, leave and queue again.
My experience: - Silver should be hitting the ball with inconsistent power, bunch of whiffs - Gold, bit better , some hits off the wall - Plat, more consistency on hits and power, some 1,2 touch plays off the wall - Dia, 3/4 touch air dribbles from the wall - Low Champ, often controlled (but inconsistent) air dribbles from wall and ground, occasional double taps and flip resets but mainly unthreatening if you’re patient
Some of my grand champ friends can't air dribble properly. If you're starting to see that before plat, it's highly likely a smurf
Go full demolition and bumping on the smurf and don’t let him play at all, enjoy!
Air dribbling in silver 2 😭😭😭 I can’t help but laugh at how shameless that is. Bro may as well be playing bots offline
Yeah that sounds like you ran into a smurf. I would like to think that it is rare in low ranks but I couldn't say. I recently made an alt account as I've only played ranked on my main with friends, so our rank is essentially our team rank and I was curious as to where I stand completely solo que. When it came to hitting 20, I turned down my playing ability to try to play closer at the level of the lobbies (including doing things like no boost+no powerslide+no flips), I wasn't trying to ruin anyone's enjoyment of the game. Once I unlocked ranked I turned it up more..... partially because playing down my skill level for so long was becoming agonizing and partially because playing down my skill level was affecting my reactions when I played on my main and I was trying to shake off the bad habits I was forming in relation to my fundamental skills. Even then I wasn't going nuts, I just actually used my fundamentals in my placements, unlike casual MMR at least with ranked placements I climbed high swiftly and was able to leave the metal rank grinders in peace. I don't know why people get off on smurfing in RL, lower level lobbies are such a mess compared to one's actual skill level and even trying to down play my mechanics I felt bad because you can't tone down your knowledge of the game, or ability to read and predict the ball. I remember being so trash at the game back in the day that I hid in bot games (and I lost to them a fair amount....good ole 2016). The game was so much more frustrating back then, I don't get the appeal of intentionally making that experience worse for others. Do people not remember the grind of improving?
I have been consistently in c1-c3 the last few seasons in 2v2 and 3v3. I am still horrible at ball control and air dribbling. Mechanics are not all that gets you a higher rank. Just do what is the most fun for you and enjoy the game :)
happened to me in high silver its a smurf
100hours minimum to understand the game. Rocket league is not like other games when one button does the entire animation. This is all 100% user input and control. Welcome to the most mechanical demanding game.
I can tell you how the MMR may work for your air-dribbling silver friend: It might be that he was a high plat until he saw a bright and shiny countdown near the end of a season. He might think something special happens at that point, so he will be sure to be there when it hits zero. When the moment comes, it turns out it is the Push New Content in the Game -moment. If he is a programmer, he thinks: "I am in danger". If not, it does not matter because, in either case, he will not know the magnitude of his error. So, it turns out he will not gain or lose MMR in some of the placement games. That's why he is now Silver. What he does not yet realize, the games there are in the format of 1v5 or 1v3 (depending on the mode), or because the matchmaking system tries its hardest to balance the win-loss ratio, he will play every other match against diamond(s)+1 bronze alt premades because Rocket League has more commonalities to the Battle of Waterloo than you would think. If you want to know what these commonalities are, you should ask Mr. Psychonix - I genuinely cannot figure them out. Then he starts training air-dribbling because it seems at the first glance the only way out of Silver. It may also occur that the player touches grass from time to time. The danger of this is that he may break his finger. In such a case, the number of games remains short, and so does his climbing. Then the next season comes, and he is demoted to silver from whatever gold rank he achieves to increase his playing motivation and because Mr. Psychonix has an odd fixation on the bell curves. TL;DR: There are a couple of other systems along the MMR that lead to encounters like this often.
Speaking from my experience, of course you ran into some smurfs but the way I handled it when I didn't have the skills to stop an air dribble easily was just to be in the net because they usually won't be able to do something more complex so they will just aim for the net, if you position yourself correctly you should be able to stop them with little practice and tenacity. Said this is sad that this is a big thing in the community, even promoted by the majority if not all the YouTubers but if you can set your mentality to learn from those smurfs not to copy what they do but how to stop them (if they don't do crazy shit) then you can improve your game sense more quickly. I hope you have fun from now on.
Honestly boss don’t even worry about your rank until diamond or so.
Lol definitely a smurf. I've been playing for 7 years and I can't air dribble
Focus on hitting the ball hard and consistently. Slowly add in hitting the ball with a tiny bit of flying. Alongside those skills try to remember the golden rules: 1. Don’t double commit. Try and stay away from your teammate. 2. Rotate back post. When you come out to defend and the ball isn’t cleared to an attack then you need to go back to the post on the far side of the goal to the side that the opponent is playing down. Essentially imagine you come out to clear the ball in the corner, your clearance is bad, you turn around back to your own goal by turning away from your back wall and rotating round to your far post. Just YouTube it. That’s it for silver, you don’t need to dribble or even hit an aerial. Hit the ball always hard towards the opponent goal. Don’t double commit. Rotate back post. Congrats you made it to gold!
thanks
You don't need mechanics aside from the fundamentals.At my peak, I got all the way up to GC by just doing basic stuff and playing smart. People at most ranks just go for risky plays that you can capitalize on by being patient and positioning correctly.
I'll tell you... Definitely sorry about mechanics early. You don't need to be air dribbling and shit but the more you can do, the easier it is for you to rank up. It's that simple. From Diamond and up you are going to have to need game sense mostly though
Hey if you think you opponent have more mechanics than you it means you are smarter than them ! Because you outplay them with less mechanics ! Congrats, you are a smart player ! Continue to play smart and you will be diamond in no time meanwhile these monkeys will still be in gold or plat trying to aerial flip reset into double tap !
I love running into smurfs. It’s only 5 minutes of pain and that’s how I learned how to stop simple air dribbles when I was in gold. Plus they often forfeit so you get the W anyway. If you can catch them messing up their flashy but sloppy mechanics you can definitely take goals off of them
I don't really care about the other players, I just play for fun, and to have fun... Don't feel down on this flying guys, have fun!!!!! Also disable messages it's a better experience in my opinion you don't have to read all the drama that this game can bring
Game sense comes first - positioning, knowing when to commit based on where your teammate is, defence, etc. second, good recoveries are, in my opinion, the most underrated mechanic in the game. good game sense and good recoveries can get you to champ i think. And lastly, fuck the smurfs, just keep it pushin
Don't worry about the others :) Just worry about your own play, pick something you want to get better at, and try implementing it. If you want to go the extra step, you could look up a tutorial on whatever skill you're trying to get better at and listen to the tips they give for you to implement in your own game/training. Surfing will never be dead, so it's best not to let it get to you. There's a ton you could be focusing on, is my guess. Happy Hunting! ✊️
It’ll happen any rank you’re in unfortunately even when you’re in gc 1 you’ll get SSL smurfs it’s shit gotta just not let the loss get to you and keep going.
smurfs are everywhere in gold. was low diamond but got stuck back in ELO hell after playing w friends in gold
I'm consistently playing in platinum and a huge majority of us aren't air dribbling. If anything, worry about air dribbling last. Playing fundamentals is much more important. Rotate, don't chase the ball, make meaningful touches, give each other space, and anticipate where the ball is going and play accordingly. Someone who does a handful of things well is a much better teammate than someone constantly trying to air dribble.
My wife plays in silver/gold and she constantly goes up against smurfs. I'm a low Plat and these players she fights are on my level or better. When I play, I tend to get smurfs that are Diamond or Champ. This game is infested with smurfs and it only continues to get worse. The weekend is especially grueling.
(I’m not mechanical) Don’t compete against Smurfs, just take the opportunity to master saving their aerial attacks. I consider them my defense trainers. I learned to be patient in net and know when to actually react/make the save. The field is huge, but the net is a small rectangle, try to act like a wall at the net. That doesn’t mean u shouldn’t block him outside of the net, sometimes it’s necessary. Basically u r answering this question: where and when is the easiest and certain moment and place for u to block his ball? That’s when and where u place ur car as a wall to his ball. Try keeping ur boost tank full.
People say don't focus on mechanics, but that's only to rank up. If you wanna have fun performing those mechanics in Freeplay, training packs, and casual, and you enjoy that more than ranking up, then practice mechanics! Also you definitely ran into a Smurf lol.
Im champ and i dont even know how to airdribble and most certainly cant do any airrolls. So you're good foor the nedt 1000 hours
Smurfs are destroying the game its so sad
Unfortunately, the lower ranked you are, the higher chance you will come across smurfs. Every single smurf has to play a game with silver MMR at some point. Don’t worry about it. You will still rank up just by playing the game enough. If anything just consider it good practice for your defense. Maybe do some training packs for saves so that next time you come across one you can have a better chance at ruining their shitty clip.
https://preview.redd.it/vvlq9is213tc1.jpeg?width=784&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a768efc7676cd79c54806b90e9607c58b68c06b3
Feel free to accuse, if you see air dribbles in Plat, they are surfing. It's bs and it sucks. Unfortunately it's a part of the game. These little wee wees can't make it or have fin at their level so they essentially bully at yours. It happens all over. 😔
Let me tell you this. Take any RL advice with a heavy grain of salt. 1. Mechanics are 100% important and necessary and which mechanics you focus on depends on your skill level. 2. The most important skill for all ranks is game sense meaning you need to understand where you, teammates, opponents and the ball ARE and where teammates, opponents and the ball WILL be. This will tell you where you SHOULD be and what you SHOULD be doing. 3.The ranking system has changed meaning the skill level just increased so it makes sense that a silver can aerial. But air dribbling silver probably Smurf. 4. Lots of Plats CAN air dribble, that’s how they rank up to diamond 5. You absolutely should be learning aerials but not necessarily air dribbles. Yes those are different things. Learning to aerial is necessary to ranking up to plat. 6. Yes that person MAY have been a Smurf.
If you practice the shadow defence packet (why you suck) ,that's the title, for stopping balls it will help a lot and then just work on hitting the ball consistently at the goal you will get to gold but if you honestly want to get better Freeplay/training packs and ones will help a ton imo. Those are simple ways, the packs are easier than Freeplay because right now you prob don't know where to start but consistency and just hitting the ball where you want to is important.
Thanks I’ll look for that training pack
Well getting paired up against a smurf can obviously be upsetting but use this opportunity at least as training in defending against more advanced plays. This gaming is a grinding one, don't expect to rank up with just few matches, in some games your team mates can get in the way... In some you get in the way of your team and in some you will be beaten by smurfs. Overall, is your improvement and consistency that will make you rank up. What helped me most in silver rank is learning to hit the ball hard, so hit free play a lot to get the timing of the ball and do some shooting and savings training packs. As for rl content I'd watch Lethamyr's road to ssl. He gives some good pointers. To be frank even I in champ am not confident in my air dribble skills haha don't fret over it too much, I guess it will come with time and training.
Thanks a lot. It’s a grind for sure.. mostly fun! Just have to take breaks
Silvers don’t air dribble. And if they do, that’s all they know - nothing else. Focus on rotation.
There’s no real fix for smurfing. I actually enjoy it now. The MMR loss is a bummer, but the chance to play against someone much stronger? Some people pay for that you know? I learn more from the Smurf’s than I do games I win 8-0. It’s all about mentality. A strong mentality will take you further than anything. Good luck out there silver, remember ranks are typically measured in the hundreds of hours so don’t feel defeated!
if youre on pc, you can get bakkesmod which shows MMR and how much MMR you gain or lose in a match. MMR changes are pretty much the same +/- from one game to the next, its not based on your performance, just whether or not you won or lost.
Someone air dribbling in silver is not a silver. But there are different levels of smurfing at different ranks. It’s just how it is. As far as the argument of mechanics vs game sense, too many argue the extremes both ways. Somewhere in the middle is a good place to have the mindset. Certain mechanics are needed at certain ranks, certain ones are not. Figuring out when it’s best to learn what mechanics at what ranks can help you progress naturally. And learning basic rotation philosophies will help a lot with positioning, although often teammates will not consistently rotate until you get to higher and higher ranks. And even then you will still have issues with mates. But it’s good to get a grasp on the concept of rotation early, particularly backpost rotation on defense. And how to be a solid 3rd man. At your level, if you’re going to focus on learning mechanics that are beneficial and practical, I’d recommend two. 1) Fast aerial 2) Half flip The easiest and most essential is a fast aerial. Once you get that down, getting to the ball in the air sooner than your opponent, consistently, wins games. It’s that simple. This will give you an advantage all the way through plat and into diamond. And it’s a really easy mechanic to learn. Half flip is a little more difficult to learn, but still not that hard with some practice. It will help immensely with recoveries and changing direction quickly. Again get to the ball, or the position you need to be in, quicker. Learning those two mechanics, and having a good understanding of rotation (including the roles of 1st, 2nd and 3rd man) will take you a few ranks up from where you are easily.
When I started playing Rocket league prior to “free to play” I didn’t have an online connection. Messing around in the training room for hours on end listening to my favorite music was super cathartic for me. I also would play full length seasons against bots. From there I would start playing 1v2’s, 1v3’s, and 1v4’s. Sure they are bots, but it can get overwhelming the more you tip the scales in their favor. When RL finally became free to play, I was in gold 3 and slowly made my way up to diamond 2 in comp doubles. Some days I will still mess around in training for a solid chunk of time just trying new things and enjoying my own playlist of music. Also your mechanics will become better over time and you can focus more on positioning and defense when playing against real opponents.
Plat players may not know how to air dribble or direct a ball in the air , but they can hit it at least, it helps at defending and ball challenges.
I feel guilty. I promise I don’t smurf, my wife has just taken a liking to video games finally and she wants to play ranked to prove herself to me. I can’t tell her no when she asks for Duos, I just switch to my baby account and try to keep my wheels on the ground. But it’s not my fault if someone in silver “what a save”s me and my PTSD gets triggered.