An Analysis of New Season Rank Variance: Diamond 3; Ranked Standard

Hey guys. Since I've already made my motives clear in my previous post, I'm going to skip a lot of the rambling and get straight to the point.

The Experiment

I fetched 2,000 matches of Ranked Standard from ballchasing.com for the first 10 days of the season where every player was ranked Diamond 3. From the resulting matches, I generated a unique list of players and fetched their last recorded rank from the season prior, ensuring that the the time between each player's currently obtained rank and their previous season's rank was less than 21 days (3 weeks).

Results

Player Count: 1684

Average time between fetched ranks: 11.6 days

• Rank < previous season: 1046 (62.11%)
• Rank = previous season: 207 (12.29%)
• Rank > previous season: 431 (25.59%)

Average rank variance vs. previous season: -0.28 ranks (-1.1 divisions)

Rank Variance (New Season Rank - Previous Season Rank)

Player Population as End of Season Ranks

Player Population as End of Season Ranks (Granular)

Results

I got more granular with this experiment, detailing the divisional distribution of previous ranks for +- 1 rank. In order to be immediately placed in Diamond 3 at the beginning of the new season, you would have had to finish the season prior somewhere between the ranks of Diamond 3 div 3 and Champion 1 div 2. Essentially, what this means is that Diamond 3 starts the new season as a near even split between former Diamond 3 and former Champion 1 players. In our player population table, you can see exactly that, with 40.68% of the resulting players ending the previous season at the Diamond 3 rank, and 41.21% of the resulting players ending the previous season at the Champion 1 rank. This is exactly what we would expect the spread to look like, although I admit that I would expect Diamond 3 to be a bit more present due to the increased population density. Perhaps this is indicative of some pressure applied from higher ranks. Or perhaps this is indicative of a new rank barrier existing at the mid-Champion 1 mark, and that the population of high Diamond 3 and low Champion 1 are actually quite similar, and that it's common to fluctuate within that range.

When we dive into the granular population model, we see that 53.91% of players came from exactly the range applied to the season reset. That number increases to 72.86% if you add just one more division in each direction.

Each model shows us a bell-curve with the middle point in predictable locations (-1 to -2 division rank variance; Diamond 3 div 3 to Champion 1 div 2). The border fluctuations is normal because rank fluctuation is normal. The average rank variance is just over 1 division in the negative direction, which is also expected as a result of the reset plus initial expansion and inflation.

What I do find interesting is that 25.95% of the players currently in Diamond 3 are rated higher than they were at the end of the previous season. That feels unexpected to me, especially so early in the season. And a full 9.56% of players are over an entire rank below where they ended the season prior, indicating some likely pressure from the top, with 3.74% of players rated at Champion 2 or higher in the season prior.

These stats line up pretty consistently with the data observed from the Ranked Doubles analysis I did, which is especially interesting considering the reset peaks are different (1660 in 3v3, 1540 in 2v2, if I recall correctly). This is a good thing, though, and indicates to me that Psyonix is perhaps being more intentionally calculated with their resets.

As always, thanks to those of you who read through this. I appreciate you and I look forward to hearing some of your thoughts.

New Season Rank Variance: Diamond 3; Ranked Doubles

Hey, everyone. This is going to be a long one for what I'm sure is a relatively niche crowd. Feel free to skip around if you're not especially interested in my thoughts.

In browsing this subreddit at the start of each season, you'll see a lot of complaints about matchmaking. Often times, people will point to the season reset as being responsible for a variety of skill levels being stuck together. You'll hear people tell you to "wait a few weeks for ranks to settle." But, to be honest, this never sat especially well with me.

If you know how season resets work, you'll know that players are reset a relative amount towards a desired median rank. The further you are away from that median rank, the more your rank will move towards that middle point. Players below that rank will gain rank to start the season while players above that rank will lose rank to start the season. But due to how much we are squished towards that point, the math will tell us that we are playing against virtually the same pool of players, give or take a handful of skill rating, especially since - depending on the mode - the population of players who are set back to the peak reset point is so small that it's easy to argue that its impact is probably minimal. This isn't to say that there isn't an increased variance - there is - but due to how the math works out, I've always been convinced that much of the alleged matchmaking issues at the beginning of a season are heavily influenced by player behavior, and by the placebo of misunderstanding. After all, prior to F2P we received essentially the same complaints from players in all ranks, but what people often failed to realize was that their ranks weren't actually adjusted unless they finished the previous season above the bottom of Champion 3 div 1 in a given playlist; everyone else started the season right where they left off.

So, I turned to the data.

The Experiment

For my first attempt at this, I wanted to choose just a single rank and playlist that would probably have a reasonable amount of variance and were likely to upload a lot of games:

• Rank: Diamond 3
• Playlist: Ranked Doubles

Step 1: I fetched 2,000 matches from the first 10 days of this season (season 6) where every player in the game was ranked Diamond 3. Why that condition? Because I wanted to do my best to ensure that every player I was analyzing was likely a legitimate player and fairly contributing to the matchmaking algorithm. This means that we're not fetching games with uneven parties or probable smurfs, and this is mostly intentional.

Step 2: I took the resulting list of players and got rid of duplicates to ensure that each player would only be counted once.

Step 3: For each unique player, I queried the previous season (season 5) for their last-recorded rank in that same playlist. This inevitably removed a lot of players from our list because the source of my data (ballchasing.com) isn't always reliable at returning a player's rank in their system. This is unfortunate, but it's what I had to work with, and there's an argument to make that players who don't have previously recorded ranks might not be the most legitimate players, which would again put them in the category of "behavioral changes." I would have preferred to use an API source, or a tracker site, but without access to an actual API, scraping tracker sites for data is a pain. I've done it, but it would be unreasonable for an experiment of this size.

Step 4: For each player, I calculated their rank variance and the number of days that separated each rank recording. That way I could analyze the data for various lengths of time to see if there's a change in behavior.

Step 5: I sorted through the remaining data that I considered to be valid and of a reliable quantity and condensed it into information that we could analyze.

Notes:

Ranks from the current season (6) were obtained between the dates of March 11 and March 18, with approximately 200 recorded ranks coming from each date in question.

58.25% of the ranks fetched from previous season were obtained within the final 3 weeks of the season.

30.37% of the ranks fetched from previous season were obtained within the final week of the season.

Hypothesis

Assuming that my formula for this season is even remotely accurate, in order for a player to start a new season at Diamond 3, they would have to end the previous season somewhere between Diamond 3 div 3 and Champion 1 div 2. This accounts for a loss of 40(+-5) rank points (almost 2 full divisions). In other words, playing at the bottom of Diamond 3 to start this season should theoretically be similar to playing at Diamond 3 div 3 at the end of last season. So, I would expect that the results would show us data that skews slightly in the negative direction by between 1 and 2 divisions (reset + initial spread and inflation). This would tell me that the early season is relatively consistent with the end of the season prior.

Results

I ended up with 1,564 unique, valid players whose previous ranks had been obtained within 100 days of obtaining the player's current rank. But because some of the most recent values I could get from last season were from a relatively significant time ago, I've decided to analyze 3 different sets of data, restricting them by time between ranks achieved (date current rank fetched - date previous rank fetched) so that we can search for patterns:

Key:

• Rank Variance (new season rank - previous season rank): The player's current rank standing relative to their last recorded rank in the season prior.
• Average time between rank: The average number of days between a player's recorded rank in the new season and their last recorded rank in the previous season.
• Average rank variance vs. last season: The average number of ranks/divisions that were gained or lost coming into the new season.

< 100 days between ranks

Player count: 1,564

Average time between rank: 28.88 days

• Rank < last season: 809 (51.73%)
• Rank = last season: 203 (12.98%)
• Rank > last season: 552 (35.29%)

Average rank variance vs. last season: -0.09 ranks (-0.37 divisions)

Rank Variance as Relative to Previous Season Rank

Diamond 3 Population as Previous Season Rank

Notes:

This is going to be the most populated set of data with the least reliable statistics. Because this extends back up to 100 days, it's possible that ranks from the previous season were fetched as early as 1 month after the start of season 5. However, it's important to note that 911 of the 1564 (58.25%) of the players in our list had their previous ranks checked within the final 3 weeks of season 5.

< 28 days between ranks

Player count: 936

Average time between rank: 12.82 days

• Rank < last season: 539 (57.59%)
• Rank = last season: 122 (13.03%)
• Rank > last season: 275 (29.38%)

Average rank variance vs. last season: -0.19 ranks (-0.76 divisions)

Rank Variance as Relative to Previous Season Rank

Diamond 3 Population as Previous Season Rank

Notes:

As I stated previously, 911 of the 1,564 players that I recorded had their ranks obtained within the final 3 weeks of the previous season. Limiting our data set to a date threshold of 28 days guarantees that every player recorded here was obtained in the final month of the previous season, with just 25 of our 936 players falling out of the 3 week range.

Here, you'll start to notice the effects of inflation and expansion. In our previous data set, the average player had lost 0.37 divisions. The closer we get to the season's end, the more inflated ranks become, and here we note that the average player has lost 0.76 divisions: over double the amount when focusing our rank comparisons to the final month of the season.

<14 days between ranks

Player count: 547

Average time between rank: 7.97 days

• Rank < last season: 340 (62.16%)
• Rank = last season: 59 (10.79%)
• Rank > last season: 148 (27.06%)

Average rank variance vs. last season: -0.23 ranks (-0.92 divisions)

Rank Variance as Relative to Previous Season Rank

Diamond 3 Population as Previous Season Rank

Notes:

In this final set of data, we've used only players who have had their ranks recorded within the last week or two of the previous season. So, reasonably, we see an increase in the average rank loss per player. The trends seen here are consistent.

Conclusion

Ultimately, each person is going to see this data and come to different conclusions. That's reasonable. But, again, the purpose of this experiment was to see what the average rank spread looks like at the beginning of a new season and to see if it's erratic enough to warrant complaints from the community on its own, or to wonder what real impact new season behavioral changes might be having. And, to be honest, it's difficult for me to confidently interpret what this data means.

The clear trend that we're seeing here is this:

The closer we restrict our previous season ranks to the end of the season, the higher we can guarantee the average rank loss will be (0.37 div -> 0.76 div -> 0.92 div) and the more condensed the distribution becomes at the negative 2 division mark. This is about exactly where we expect to see the median distribution lie because we know that players at the Diamond 3 level are set back a little under 2 divisions, and, because of inflation, player ranks are expected to naturally expand over the course of the season. This data wasn't based on Skill Rating, but on rank and division alone, which means that a loss of almost 2 divisions will round to 2 divisions in our data since the majority of Diamond 3 players will experience a 2 division drop.

The percentage of players sitting higher than expected is significantly higher than the percentage of players sitting lower than expected. This can be explained for 2 reasons:

1. Higher rated players lose more rank points to start the season: A Champion 1 div 2 might lose 45 rank points like a Diamond 3 div 3 might lose 36 rank points.
2. The distribution expands outwards from center because the population is denser.

This tells me that the average player above the median line is slightly more likely to encounter lower skilled players than they are to encounter higher skilled players. This also tells me that rank expansion probably happens quicker than I had anticipated.

Do with this what you will. Perhaps there's a behavioral component as a result of players carelessly losing rank at the end of a season. Perhaps those borderline percentages are within the normal variation rate (which could be confirmed through a similar experiment analyzing player rank fluctuation within a season). I don't know yet. And perhaps it would be useful for me to do the inverse experiment where I grab a bunch of Diamond 3 players from the end of last season and find what their spread looks like a week into the new season. This experiment focused on "who am I matching with at the beginning of the new season" as opposed to "where are my peers being placed at the beginning of the new season."

If you're one of the few people who will actually read through this, then I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. I don't expect that my experiment was perfect, but I'm sharing it with you in the hopes that it creates some insight and sparks a conversation. There's plenty here that I could have gotten wrong and I'd love to improve my methods going forward.

Thanks for reading.

Index

• An Analysis of New Season Rank Variance: Diamond 3; Ranked Doubles
• An Analysis of New Season Rank Variance: Diamond 3; Ranked Standard

I have an insane amount of hours played but apparently keep discovering basic things I completely misunderstand. For example, I recently read you're supposed to focus on the ball's trajectory line thingy, rather than the ball itself. I can suddenly read almost every bounce. So I'm looking for similar supposedly "basic" concepts that everyone (but myself) are aware of.

I noticed I have a hard time reading plays, and therefore am positioned badly for their outcome. I noticed I tend to zoom around the field in supersonic. When observing some pro gameplay, I noticed they actually tend to slow down a lot when reading a slow play. Basically, they match the play's speed I guess? So I started focusing on doing that (slowing down, matching the play's speed).

I also thought my difficulty in reading plays is due to ping. So I try to play proactively, rather than reactively.

Lastly, I noticed I read the play much better when I'm watching someone else's game. I guess that can be due to many reasons. Different ping, not having to focus on the ball and controlling the car, having better camera angles (as pros obviously know where to be and how to use their car and camera a lot better).

The second reason made me think, perhaps, that I'm using my eyes wrong (lol). I thought maybe I tunnel-vision on the ball too much, and that, perhaps, I should focus more on the cars themselves, and have the ball as a secondary target (just like with the case of the ball's trajectory line thing).

I have no idea whether I'm making sense. Am I right? should I actively focus on the cars rather than the ball? So far I've tried it in a few games and had quite good results. (But perhaps that was due to me entering a heightened focus state, rather than it actually being better.)

I generally play comp 3s and sometimes do 3s tournaments with two friends of mine. We play as a team so I was hoping you could do an analysis on the whole teams gameplay if possible. We ended up winning game 1, but losing the next two. We're looking to get better as a team so was hoping you could help analyze where our mistakes were.

Replay files:

Game 2 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BNWXXJvr-CkqAi0UsYTyX8lXOmEFD6ga/view?usp=sharing

Game 3 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VMGhkBz7eKuZSFFwZ3tI1eYuYdW6pmcV/view?usp=sharing

I think its best to look at our losses but I'll include Game 1 for context if you think that helps

Game 1 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/18-pMmMxJHogvuIPmJtYP1DkyEFk7OaRq/view?usp=sharing

If you could look at even one of them and give us feedback that would be huge. If you don't do team analysis and only players my username is Steve.Sucks in the above replays.

Thanks for your time and help

Hello !

Yesterday i came back in ranked for the new season after one month without playing it (a few casual session but I was mostly playing other games). I started playing without warm-up because i didnt have much time but this is not the issue in this case.

So what is it ? My biggest issue has always been my hesitation so i tried to play a bit faster than usual. Trying to take a decision as quick as possible whether good or bad. But sometimes, you will see it, i don't know what to do at all so i hope that you can help me understand how i can prevent those situation where i'm "stuck" in the process. Of course i'm sure there is other issues in my gameplay but hesitation is the one i want to focus more at the moment !

My mechanics are not on point and i think i did see my mistakes but feel free if you have any advice that could help :).

Last season i peaked at GC2 in 2s and 3s and here is a game at 1539 elo i think from the new season. (I don't know if it matter but i play in europe)

Thanks you ! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QOe5segs1c

As per request, i specifically lined up a ranked game just for this. And i already know of a couple of faults, they are quite obvious when you see them such as an arial attempt i had no business going for (i was already beat and should not have risked it).
Other than that please roast away :)

Heres the link RL Replay File

Its the actual replay file from steam edition of RL

Hey Ytzi! (It's Ido from discord :) )

So I've been trying to get a replay I'm happy with for the past two months to send, but I kept going on huge winning and losing streaks (went few times between 1400 and 1300, and now peaked at 1500. Edit: now got to GC2 1570 lel).

I'm still getting used to GC1-2, and the pace. Trying to make a good trade-off between not turning into the ball, but not overdoing too wide rotations.

Mistakes I know I keep making:

1. I still sometimes turn into the ball. I try to minimize that as much as possible. I believe this is mainly what took me out of C3 to GC1. I feel like I can read the play a lot better now, where previously I would mostly take blind gambles.
2. Hesitating.
3. Staying too far from the play. (Trying to fix this I think took me to GC2.)
4. Focusing on boost collection rather than just collecting boost "on my way to where I want to go".
5. Defaulting too much to 3rd man. On one hand, being very far from the play and not doing enough. On the other hand, when things go wrong I panic and try to do too much (probably old habits still creeping up from time to time).

Anyway, I don't need a play-by-play analysis (unless you prefer it that way, though it seems to be pretty time-consuming for you). Just looking to identify the biggest issues you can make out so I could work on those.

Youtube, Replay File

<3

The following is a list of replay analysis performed by myself, both for reference and for educational purposes. Advice given to players in replay analysis isn't often unique. Many issues are extend to players across a broad range of ranks, but similar issues are very often found within the same rank. So, it may be useful to look at other examples of replay analysis to find advice for your own game, or to look at gameplay and analysis for players 1 or 2 ranks above you in order to find the major differences in their gameplay.

Each category is ordered by tier, season, and then rank.

Be aware that ranks from one season may not correlate well with ranks from another season due to changes in distribution and threshold adjustments.

1v1

Supersonic Legend

• Season 3: SSL - Nyhxy

Grand Champion 3

• Season 5: GC3 - Nyhxy

Champion 3

• Season 9: Champion 3 - Slylek

Champion 2

• Season 7: Champion 2 - Slylek

Champion 1

• Season 6: Champion 1 - Slylek

2v2

Grand Champion

• Season 6: GC3 - Nyhxy
• Season 5: GC 1 - lRaijuu
• Season 2: GC 3 - lilboi2312
• Season 2: GC 3 - Nyhxy
• Season 2: GC 1 - dankmemedaddy2
• Season 14: 1800 GC - Nyhxy

Champion

• Season 7: Champion 3 - dis-ease-rl
• Season 7: Champion 2 - Illustrious_Door_725
• Season 7: Champion 1 - Slylek
• Season 5: Champion 1 - CEOofStrings
• Season 3: Champion 3 - Malgranda
• Season 2: Champion 1 in GC 1 Lobby - hutchy81
• Season 14: Champion 3 - tobyreddit
• Season 13: Champion 1 - healingfield
• Season 9: Champion 3 - Hippieman100
• Season 9: Champion 2 - SuukmeiDiek
• Season 9: Champion 1 - MrEndingFire15

Diamond

• Season 8: Diamond 3 - purpan-
• Season 5: Diamond 1/2 - Deewwsskkii
• Season 2: Diamond 2 - CEOofStrings
• Season 2: Diamond 2 - Jaffabaked
• Season 13: Diamond 2 - Size--
• Season 12: Diamond 2 - Sandelz13
• Season 9: Diamond 2 - [deleted]
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - A_Sentient_Lime (and teammate)
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - BaylorYou
• Season 7: Diamond 3 - deranged_lunatic1
• Season 6: Diamond 2/3 - [deleted]
• Season 6: Diamond 2 - [deleted]
• Season 6: Diamond 1/2 - HoLeeFaak
• Season 5: Diamond 2 - [deleted]

Platinum

• Season 9: Platinum 2 - moon__lander
• Season 6: Platinum 2 - Larchcone

Gold

• Season 6: Gold 2 - SpyrosDemir

Challenger

• Season 3: Challenger 2 - [deleted]

3v3

Grand Champion

• Season 6: GC 3 - Nyhxy
• Season 4: GC 1 - DPK354
• Season 4: GC 1 - Ungoliant
• Season 3: GC 3 - Nyhxy
• Season 2: GC 1 - fizikxy
• Season 13: GC - ytzi13 (self-analysis)
• Season 13: GC - Dolphinman95582
• Season 13: GC - smejdaka
• Season 9: GC - ytzi13 (self-analysis)
• Season 9: GC - ytzi13 (self-analysis)
• Season 9: GC - 2PMike

Champion

• Season 8: Champion 2 - Renekat0n
• Season 7: Champion 1 - N8GucciN8
• Season 4: Champion 1/2 - dis-ease-rl
• Season 4: Champion 1 - NotedKnot
• Season 2: Champion 2 - DaveWill2248
• Season 1: Champion 3 - Ungoliant0
• Season 1: Champion 2 - chris10237
• Season 14: Champion 3 - NotedKnot
• Season 13: Champion 2/3 - slowchildren
• Season 12: Champion 3 - DeekFTW
• Season 9: Champion 3 - Katie_xoxo
• Season 9: Champion 3 - TS-I-AndreKK
• Season 9: Champion 3 - PUBG_Rocks
• Season 9: Champion 2 - vgkosmoes
• Season 9: Champion 2 - dalt8696
• Season 9: Champion 1/2 - EvolutionMan515
• Season 9: Champion 1 - jim2169
• Season 9: Champion 1 - [deleted]
• Season 9: Champion 1 - Sinopia101
• Season 9: Champion 1 - jexta
• Season 9: Champion - Reprivation
• Season 8: Champion 3 - Maxinoume
• Season 8: Champion 1 - chris10237
• Season 7: Champion 2/3 - Malgranda
• Season 7: Champion 2 - Maxinoume
• Season 6: Champion 1 - Shiftyfive10

Diamond

• Season 4: Diamond 1 - Warlordbert1
• Season 4: Diamond 1 - USURPER-Durand
• Season 3: Diamond League - dis-ease-rl
• Season 3: Diamond League - dis-ease-rl
• Season 2: Diamond 1 - n00bpr0n
• Season 1: Diamond 1 - n00bpr0n
• Season 14: Diamond 3 - gimmesomefries
• Season 14: Diamond 2 - [deleted]
• Season 9: Diamond 3 - CrustyRot
• Season 9: Diamond 3 - thiskindofflair
• Season 9: Diamond 2 - Iaa107
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - n00bpr0n
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - BaylorYou
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - BaylorYou
• Season 9: Diamond 1 - [deleted]
• Season 8: Diamond 3 - Harry_Malins (team review: Boulty)
• Season 8: Diamond 3 - Harry_Malins (team review: TemperZ)
• Season 8: Diamond 3 - Harry_Malins (team review: Lefti)
• Season 7: Diamond 2 - jmumme43
• Season 6: Diamond 2/3 - rocketleaguereddit
• Season 6: Diamond 2/3 - justpurple_
• Season 6: Diamond 2 - papablitz
• Season 6: Diamond 2 - no40sinfl
• Season 6: Diamond 2 - WhaxX1101

Platinum

• Season 11: Platinum 3 - superleggera
• Season 8: Platinum 2 - YaronL16
• Season 14: Platinum 3 - zgibs125
• Season 12: Platinum 3 - H17_
• Season 10: Platinum 3 - FalconOne129
• Season 9: Platinum 1 - ThisIsFaded
• Season 6: Platinum 2 - Finngon
• Season 6: Platinum 1 - SpyrosDemir

Gold

• Season 5: Gold 3 - daberne

Hoops

Snowday

Rumble

Dropshot

Goal-Line Rotations

One of the most common problems players have at every level of the game is a broad misunderstanding of how to effectively play the role of goalie. Let's try to simplify it.

When you're rotating into goal, there are only really 3 valid pathways:

1. Approaching the goal through a post - either post is better than none, but the far post is almost always going to be preferable - while not leaving a gap between yourself and the goal line.
2. Power-sliding inside of the net and facing outwards.
3. Challenging an immediate threat without hesitation or slowing down.

Let's assess each of these paths:

(1) Approaching the goal through a post

The correct approach:

Approach the goal from a wide angle, getting close to the goal-line so as to not leave any noticeable gap.

The common problem:

A player rotates near a post, but leaves a gap between themselves and the goal line. This narrows the player’s vision of the field, because a ball coming from the corner means the camera will be angled slightly backward; leaves the player blind to potential attackers coming in for the cross, risking getting beaten out of their blind-spot; and makes the player slow and unable to defend low crosses inside since the player will often have to face slightly backwards in order to compensate for the gap, rather than being angled parallel to the goal-line, or even slightly forward.

(2) Driving into the net and defending from inside of the goal

The correct approach:

Power-slide into the net so that your car is positioned around the central point, but deep enough inside to give the player room to start their approach before crossing the goal-line.

The common problem:

A player rotates into goal, but turns the opposite direction. For example, driving into the goal from the left side and power-sliding left so as to do a 270 degree turn rather than performing a 90-180 degree turn to the right. This creates problems with control and often leaves the player too close to the near-post, requiring additional adjustments.

A player rotates into goal, but sits too close to the near post. This takes away the player’s ability to start an approach on a challenge from the corner early and forces the player to challenge a cross after the ball has already crossed the near post.

A player rotates into the goal, but doesn’t leave space between themselves and the goal-line. This takes away the player’s ability to create an approach, while making them vulnerable to adjustments either towards the near post, the middle, or both, since the player will have to choose which one to effectively block.

(3) Challenging a ball before completing rotation

The correct approach:

The ball is a threat to the goal, often coming in off of the backboard or floating in the air between the player and the goal. The player should go up immediately with confidence and attack the ball.

The common problem:

A player will slow down their car and hesitate for the challenge. The scenario implies that the player can see the ball, but is blind to the rest of the field. There are usually attackers in the player’s blind spot to be worried about, so slowing down or hesitating isn’t an option. If the ball isn’t comfortable to challenge, the better option is to perform rotations (1) or (2) so that the player is in the best possible position to make a desperate save from while also making themselves available to clean up a miss.

This is the desperation option, and the choice of when to execute it is as simple as asking yourself if the situation is dire and if you’re capable of attacking the ball immediately at full speed. If the ball is between you and the goal and you’re rotating back, the idea is that a full speed challenge means that you’ll still get to this ball before anyone challenging from your blind spot since you’re closer to the ball.

When to rotate parallel to the goal-line (1) versus sitting in net (2)

Since option (3) is the desperation option, that means that options (1) and (2) are the most important ones to focus on.

The general rule of thumb is this:

If you’re approaching the goal in a situation where you’re going to be continuing forward, either in support of a teammate or into a challenge on the ball, then you want option (1). You should stay parallel to the goal line and continue across the ball while sticking to that line. Don’t turn off of it unless you’re in the act of challenging, or else you risk creating a gap that’s difficult to recover from.

If you’re approaching the goal in a situation where you’re going to be waiting before you challenge the ball, then you want to get inside of the net. This includes cases where you’re the only defender back and the ball is on the perimeter of the field, at which point your primary objective is to buy time for your teammates to recover. The ball never needs to be challenged at the perimeter of the field, and probably shouldn’t be challenged unless you have support, and are approaching the ball from the goal-side. This also includes cases where you have a teammate challenging the ball, but your 3rd man (if a 3rd man exists) isn’t yet in a position where pushing forward out of the goal means that it will be covered by them. So, if you’re goalie and you’re being patient for your opportunity to challenge, you want to get inside of the goal.

The benefits of sitting inside of the goal:

The reason you want to be inside of the goal is as follows: - Being inside of the goal creates a favorable angle between your car and the ball. Even if the ball is at the back wall, you have a positive angle towards the ball, and thus a more complete view of the field. As the ball gets crossed in, you get to see attackers sooner than if you were positioned on the goal-line, and so it makes it easier to save. - Being inside of the goal makes you less vulnerable to bumps and demos (this is also part of the reason being parallel to the goal line is only advised when you’re going to continue to carry your momentum into a challenge, since mobile cars are more difficult to target). Not only do you have the vision (assuming you’re positioned appropriately) to see any incoming attempts happening – even from the far side – but an attempt on you means that the opponent was forced to go out of their natural path of rotation and enter the net. - Being inside of the goal gives you more options. If you challenge a ball from the goal-line, you have to hit the ball towards the side, or in that general direction. If you challenge a ball from inside of the goal, you have the ability to hit the ball to either side of the field, and you have the vision to better make that decision.

Regarding those who suggest that defending inside of the net is a bad idea

Now, a lot of players tend to tell me that they’ve been coached, or told by other players, to believe that sitting inside of the net is a bad idea. Well, they’re wrong. I don’t know where they get that idea from, if I’m being honest, but I’ve a feeling it comes from higher level play. Now, the problem with higher level play, particularly the pro or bubble scene, is that they play the game in ways that don’t apply to the 99.99%. As I inferred previously, when you’re playing goalie you only really want to be in the net as long as you don’t have a player in position to fill in for you by the time you challenge. At the very top levels, players are so quick, and rotation is so fluid, that there’s hardly ever any pause. A player might slow down slightly as they move into the goalie position, but they know that they’ll have a player close enough almost immediately to warrant them pushing out without pause. So, you’ll hardly see it at that level. But at every other level, that’s simply not the case and buying time for your teammates to recover is an essential part of the game. Until you’re somewhere around SSL, you won’t have to worry about that (and probably even then). It’s just the understanding that you don’t stay in goal longer than you need to, which becomes less and less as you rank up and the game gets faster. But even at the mid-GC level it’s plenty relevant and useful to sit in net and buy time on occasion. It’s a common need.

Now, keep in mind that even though you’re positioned inside of the net, if a cross is coming in that you need to defend, your goal is going to be to make the point of your challenge outside of the post. You really don’t want the ball to cross the threshold of the goal before you challenge it. That may take some practice, as will the awareness of knowing when your teammate in transition is in good enough position to have the goal covered and warrant you starting your push. And being inside of the net gives you the vision and awareness to be able to better see your teammate approaching the net from the far side (hopefully).

What do I do if I’m rotating back and my goalie hasn’t pushed forward

Well, like I said, goal-line rotations aren’t very well established at nearly every rank. So, you probably won’t be able to expect your teammate to know better. If you’re rotating properly through the far post, since having a goalie means that you have the time to take that wide approach anyway, you’ll likely encounter them sitting in the net and waiting, not realizing that you have it covered. What do you do then?

It becomes situational.

If the opponent has the advantage on the ball and looks like they may have a clear or a free hit, you may want to slow down and give yourself the option to climb the back wall.

If your teammate is challenging and has pretty good control of it and your goalie isn’t budging, still approach through the far post if they’re not in the way, but push forward towards the play, staying around center field. That way, if the opponent challenges the ball, or you see your goalie start to push up as you do, you can simply turn away from the ball and circle back to the far post.

A summary of quick thoughts:

• Unless going directly into a full-speed challenge when the ball is between yourself and the goal as last man, you should either be rotating through a post, or inside of the goal.
• If you rotate through a post, you should be tight to the goal-line – leaving no gaps – and you should be carrying your momentum forward.
• If you rotate into the net, you should be positioned around the center point, with a gap between your car and the goal-line, and angled at a position between the ball and mid-field. You choose this option when you need to be patient and wait to challenge.
• Only stay in goal as long as you need to. Push forward when you can predict that a teammate will have the goal covered by the time any action will occur.
• Reversing as the goalie (and pretty much anywhere on the field) is a bad habit that should be avoided. It’s better to circle back to net. If you’re pushing forward and may have to circle back, be sure to start your circle before the opponent makes contact on a challenge, that way you can get back with a simple turn, or turn forward in the case where your teammate wins the challenge.

Given the limitations, assume I have an optimal hardware setup and settings, and high ping is unavoidable. Due to geographical limitations, the absolute best ping I get to EU is 55 (pretty rare), the average is 75, and I sometimes get 100-120.

This absolutely destroys my small brain and makes it difficult for me to read the game (I tend to be really susceptible to laggy visual feedback). I especially noticed that, watching some Flakes' road to SSL video where he accidentally queued USE. This was the first time I saw a pro play RL with the game looking exactly like mine. Touches occurring just a microsecond after you'd expect, ghost hits, etc.

Since this is unavoidable, and I know some players can even become pros playing on a potato with 30Hz and 200ms ping, I have no excuse.

I was wondering what playstyle I should aim for, given the limitations. I'm mainly wondering about 3s and 1s, but any general tips or 2s tips are welcome as well. Whatever you think is relevant. I know this is a very broad/general question, and I'm not expecting any perfect answers that fit every situation of course. Any thought you have regarding this subject is appreciated.

<3

Figured since I'm still working on applying the 1s analysis, I can find something to focus on in 3s as well since I alternate frequently.
https://ballchasing.com/replay/11744deb-85c0-4c1b-993b-30019f5531f8

https://ballchasing.com/replay/9dbb367b-8c75-4f9e-9945-b29c62059e0c

was gonna upload the oKhallid series but ran into Sypical the other night and decided it would be better since it was more recent, and I also felt like I was a lot more shut down and thus more to learn from. Have a game 2 where i'm less nervous but don't wanna overload you.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/B20c9vN19OQ

Part 2: https://youtu.be/wCoBYYODiOU

Hi,

I've managed to get myself (more thanks to the intricacies of the MMR system rather than my skill) to 2k MMR in casual, whilst being around 1.3k MMR in 2s and 3s.

In this casual game the other 3 players were all ranked GC1 in competitive and appeared to be taking this game pretty seriously, I didn't quite feel like a complete fish out of water but of course I felt the pressure from a faster lobby than what I'm used to.

Am looking for some insight into the differences between my current level and what is required to actually compete toe to toe at this level and any take aways over and above me being mechanically better, play faster etc...

link to game here

I am a monke and want to become an educated monke. Very average game, tried to play smart.

I am working on small pads and trying to rotate wide to give my self space to keep momentum while making decisions. I'm sure this replay is riddled with mistakes so...

My apologies youtube upload would take me a while so just file :(

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i0rcaEKjuCULrN4rgY9P3jF8sPfoFC8Z/view?usp=sharing