The following is a guest post from Legitimentary. To see more of his work, check out his website at rocketleaguetips.net.
Hey guys, it’s Legitimentary from rocketleaguetips.net here to talk about why Rocket League isn’t for everyone. I personally really like Rocket League, it is my favorite game to play right now, but I can see why some people don’t like it. A few of those reasons are quite obvious: there is a toxic culture, the whole game is built around fake sports, you still encounter server side issues, and there is no marketplace to trade your duplicate items.
Toxic Culture
Whenever I am playing Rocket League, if I mess up a play I’m sure to get a “Nice Shot!”, “No Problem!”, or “What a Save!” immediately after. The craziest part about Rocket League is that most players just use their quick chat options, and don’t use a mic. This leads to a lot of reading between the lines when you are only getting pre-set messages. I tend to read most comments as something sarcastic or rude, and I am sure that is how they were meant to come across. Luckily, sometime in June, Psyonix is planning an update to increase the amount of available quick chat options. I hope this will cure some of the toxic culture, and never let it reach the level of CoD proportions where I am worried for my Mom’s safety after playing against a group of 10 year olds.
Fake Sports
Rocket League is entirely based on playing sports with your rocket powered car. That can be pretty lame for a lot of people. I personally don’t like to play Madden, NBA 2K16, etc. I can imagine for many, that disdain also spreads to Rocket League. You can play soccer with a car pushing the ball, hockey with a car pushing the puck, or even basketball with a car pushing the basketball around. What are they going to add next, tetherball? It is rather ridiculous the work Pysonix has put into playing sports with a rocket car. Why can’t they implement a racing mode, where you can use all the boosts and aerials to get ahead of your opponents in an actual race? That could draw in some new potential players and also reduce the toxicity of those noobs spamming “What a Save”!
Server Issues
Rocket League still has server issues. The game was released almost a year ago, and still I can be playing on my sweet steam machine and encounter issues with rubber-banding. I’ll be racing along to score a sweet aerial goal, and the ball will have moved sideways due to some server issue. That is beyond annoying, and should have been fixed by now. I understand more and more people are playing Rocket League, but Psyonix should still get their act together and fix this simple issue. Whether it be to spend more money on servers, or re-write the game’s code in order to be faster. Just do it already!
Marketplace
Last, but not least Rocket League still doesn’t have a marketplace to sell items. CS:GO has a marketplace, and because of that they have a huge subculture of trading and betting skins. Rocket League needs something like that. Team Fortress 2 has a marketplace as well, but do you see Psyonix creating a marketplace where I can trade my stupid toppers that I now have five of? No. There is such a great opportunity to include and welcome more players, and some money into the system. Psyonix seems to be ignoring it, and shunning the players that are more into economic systems and making money. I personally wish they had a marketplace so then I could trade for items that are only available during certain periods of the year – i.e. Halloween or Christmas. I haven’t been playing that long, but I want those sweet jingle bells rocket trail!
To conclude, Rocket League is a fun game. However, for it to appeal to everyone, the game has a lot of fixes to make. The community needs to tone it down, servers need to be optimized, more gameplay modes need to be added, and a marketplace should be included. That is a short list, and I am sure there are many more that should be taken care of before it becomes a game worthy of the “master race”.