Thus far in my guides, we have dealt with rotation and we have touched on how to improve your individual mechanical ability (although this topic has much more for us to explore later on). Assuming you aren’t playing 1s, you have these pesky things called teammates. Rotation helps you mesh with the various playstyles and ability sets your teammates have, however that is only the beginning. Once you solo queue enough, you tend to over time make friends and que together with them to avoid the woes of attempting to play with random teammates.

What makes playing with your teammates so much easier and enjoyable? Aside from the fact that they (hopefully) aren’t toxic in quick chat every time you miss a ball, you are able to communicate with them through a platform such as Discord while playing... as opposed to the options previously given to you in Figure 1 below. Players at the highest level rely on communication to inform each other not only of what is happening currently, but to create plays on the spot. In this article, we will explore the ins and outs of team communication in Rocket League.

Staying Vocal

The first step to team communication is the hardest; simply being vocal. It is in the inclination of most players to keep to themselves, concentrating hard on their own gameplay and staying incredibly quiet. This is especially true of players who are not used to playing with an actual team. Forcing yourself to be vocal not only helps your teammates but allows you to think about Rocket League in a way you haven’t previously. As touched on in my rotation article, thinking about your placement in relation to your teammates allows you to be cognizant of where your teammates are. Team communication, on the other hand, allows you to delve even further into what this has to offer.

Call-outs can decrease the amount of brain power needed to gather intel and can even further allow for much more complex passing plays on offense and even more solid defense on the other side of the ball. The first step is simply to break the inclination to remain quiet and to start talking.

What to Communicate

So you’ve started talking, but what exactly are you supposed to be saying? This is a broad question and one that comes down to the chemistry level of your team, ranks, and what you are trying to accomplish on any given play. With that being said, there are things that each team should be trying to communicate with each other. You should make sure that you communicate your position on the field, your boost level, your ability to hit the ball (or decision to purposefully not hit the ball), or even the enemy’s position. You want your team to know where you are in relation to them to give them comfort in a play or conversely make them play more passive.

You want to communicate your boost level so you aren’t expected to fly for a ball you truthfully can’t, which falls in the same realm as being incapable of hitting a ball. Further, it can be useful to communicate if an enemy is trying to demo your teammate, or if there is no one on the other team within the same map and it’s beyond an open net for an offensive shot. These things are just a general starting point for team communication, but overall, discuss with your team what intel you believe is most useful to your chemistry and success.

Concise Communication

Another important aspect of team communication is efficiency. By this, it is meant that you shouldn’t communicate things by writing an entire novel. You need to use as little words as possible to communicate your call-out to your teammates so as to prevent confusion but also to give your teammates ample time to process the information and act on it. This can be accomplished by sitting down with your teammates and planning out a set list of call outs with little flexibility to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Trust

The last aspect of team communication is trust. As we’ve discussed, communicating with your teammates is crucial to team chemistry and success, however it is practically impossible for them to help if you do not trust what your teammate is saying. Communicating everything is incredibly useful but can cause rifts in your teammates if you do not take to heart what each teammate is saying. It is crucial that you trust in your teammate regardless of previous mistakes and forget them as you would want them to for you. When you fail to trust your teammates, communication is not only useless, but purely detrimental to your individual and collective success.

Conclusion

To summarize, you need to find set ways to communicate, concisely and consistently, with your teammates while maintaining constant trust throughout all of your comms. In doing so, you can bring your team chemistry up and surpass the levels of teams of the same rank as you by simply building a stronger cohesion. You can only accomplish so much on your own, and while everything you do to prepare yourself is important, if things do not mesh when the time comes to count on one another, it will be all for nothing. This is the next step in improving your Rocket League competitive experience, and until next time, keep calm and boost on.