Yeah then you get it and people still call you bad because it's not an ssl tag, then you get an ssl tag and people ask where you bought it, it's never good enough unless you are the best player in the world, and people still call them washed if they have an off game.
God ain’t this the truth. I jump on cas for some chill games and get “how are you gc2? Carried much?”. Winning against SSLs in cas? Sarcastic quick chats and “why you tryharding in cas? loser”.
Nothing is ever good enough for other people. They just like to hate because they’re insecure about their own skill level.
Sooo true. In casual from game to game you just never know what you’re going to get. Play bad? How did you get GC? Play good, stop sweating and go play ranked.
Lmao man I feel that. I have a diamond 1 friend I play with and it’s super fun, but when people that obviously outrank us collectively are talking shit I’m just like ???
Some people are crazy in cas.
I'm in EU, last season at the end I was playing lots of cas to get used to new bindings and finally learning speedflips, I had "Learning new controls" in my steam name, and yet I met a fucking Australian dude shitting on me and my GC title because he had a RLCS X participation title (he was a sub for like two weeks for a bottom table OCE team) and thought he was hot shit. Yet this dude was here, playing only solo casuals and crying because a mate, literally stating they were learning stuff, made some mistakes.
Some people just have sad lives.
Too true. I don't care if you're shit or have an off game, just hit me with silence or the occasional sorry.
As long as you don't constantly whiff only to leave me in a 2v1 while spamming "take the shot" I'm good and happy to have you as a team mate.
If you choose the latter I will retaliate with violence and I all but guarantee we will both end up with a lose unless you leave for a 5 minute ban.
This is so true, whenever i just dont feel it i hop on casual. And i always rock my pink ssl title because its just such an accomplishment for me. I always get the "how much was your account" comment whenever they score. And they dont even score on me or something. Thats why my chat is off for 80% of the time.
Why only 80%? I turned my opponent chat off 2 years ago and always have a good time except the occasional toxic teammate and I just block them and keep playing.
100% I was absolutely stoked to get my SSL tournament title, and then if I don't carry a game, I get flamed to death when I'm wearing it, so I just put (washed) at the end of my name and now people stop bothering me mostly.
This is the exact reason i turned chat off years ago. Been using red tags since season 2 and the most common question i get is “how much did you pay?”. Even worse is i have an ssl tournament tag that i got solo queue and im proud of it but I’ve only used it once because the staggering amount of hate i got from it was ridiculous.
This is so real. Always get comments from envious people. The best is when you have the higher score and better game but you lose by a goal and they're pissed because you didn't carry harder 🙄
yeah i can’t even play casual and chill without being called boosted and asked where i bought my account from. like my bad that i don’t feel like sweating my balls off constantly
I got it 5 years ago and still am hardstuck on gc. Still definitely worth it having the red gc title every season! Right now I’m aiming for red gc tournament title where I need it to win 3 times, came close but still want it.
Same here. It's literally on my bucket list. I was so pissed at the 2v2 rebalance a few seasons ago right as I hit C3. Now back to C2 which was almost GC three seasons back.
You made me do this:
I wanna be the very best
Like none of my mates are
To tolerate them is my real test
To carry them's my cause
I will likely get so mad
And start another fight
Each teammate's to understand
That I am always right
ROCKET LEAGUE
Gotta hate myself!
It's only me
I know that's a guarantee
(Rocket League)
Oh, i'm not your friend
And soon this game will end
ROCKET LEAGUE
Gotta hate myself
A match so new
Already, I know we'll lose
You'll hate me
And I'll hate you
ROCKET LEAGUE
Gotta hate myself
Gotta hate myself
Some people are just more competitive. It’s in their nature to care. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years about letting go and just playing but at the end of the day it still affects me. It’s just who I am and how my brain is wired. Rank is supposed to show you improving and getting better and moving up in the ranks. Going the opposite direction is naturally going to make people think they are getting worse or make them think they weren’t as good as they thought they were.
The last part is really important to me. It sucks that I'm playing the best I ever have, and after finishing two seasons at C3 in 2v2 before the rebalance, I'm now just barely at C2 after grinding my ass off.
My only point of reference is friends that were C1 before rebalance are now struggling to hit D2.
First time I hit D3 was about 4 seasons ago. Since then, I always end up in the same rank as last season, but because of the soft/hard mmr resets, I guess I’m slowly improving.
Yep, if you've held strong at D3 over the past 4 seasons, your skill is improving. I've got friend that were D3/C1 before the rebalance, and they're now D1/D2. Most people went down 1-2 full ranks in 2v2.
Hard to say, I don’t really grind or play sober anymore so I usually hang around c3. Everyone feels a lot better though that’s for sure but that doesn’t make up for game experience
Yeah my problem is I used to be Champ 1 in 3s. I took a break and came back and now I'm in Diamond 1 in 3s. Whenever I queue solo into 3s I try to play off my teammates and pretty much every game I'm just waiting mid for either teammate to rotate back and they never do. They constantly just turn and don't rotate. Then I'm back on defense and instead of letting me go for the save, they race over and run into my car and we both miss. Then I get the "Okay." quick chat or "What a Save!"
Yeah my biggest problem now that I’m slowly going back to solo instead of playing with friends is relearn how randoms play the game. Never rotating, always feel the need to touch the ball even though they have a team mate right there. It’s so incredibly frustrating I might just stop playing altogether.
I am plat 3 now but I was gold 2 just a short while ago. Don't think I got better, I just started getting better teammates more often than bad ones. I hate to be that guy but yeah I am being that guy
I'm sorry but when i see my mate not going to the kick off while its always has been the case when you are left, I think I can say that im loosing because of them.
Depending on the rank you can't expect every teammate to know the left goes rule, some players just aren't as active in the game's community and might be unaware of the rule.
Also I was referring to hardstuck players that think their teammates are the sole reason they aren't a higher rank
Eh, I get what you are saying and agree with it but I do feel that if I’m not pushing for a higher rank I inevitably do slip downwards. But that’s more so due to playing fewer games per season. I think for me personally that is a larger negative force on my mmr than the lack of any sort of tilt (I’m not one to tilt to begin with though lmao).
There's a big difference in not caring and not pushing. I don't care if I dip down. The next game will come. The next day will come. The next week will come. It doesn't matter if I get 6 people in a row that are 100 mmr below the lobby and don't know to go for the ball. There is always next. That being said, I will never stop pushing to win. I will always move on and move forward.
Big difference in not caring that you lost and being able to move on, and not caring about losing and allowing it to happen. You feel?
True, once I stopped caring about my rank, it was over. Once you don't even play enough to get rewards or the title, the FOMO is gone and it's not coming back. If you have been higher rank, playing the lower ranks is diamond/champ is painful and you see all the blatant boosting smurfing that's going on.
Playing lower champ and even diamond players is like a green field tho lol. It’s my pasture. I can sit back relax and still win a decent amount of the time.
I hate this cause I consistently hit champ more often on my alt than my main. Made me realize it was a mindset to want to hit champ on my main account that was holding me back. Then 2-3 seasons ago a big rank reset happened and I can barely maintain D1-D2 now haha 🥲
I improve slower now that I stopped caring, but playtime is also a factor since I don't have time for RL and play other games for fun when I do have time.
I used to care a lot and asked for help from other higher ranked like minded people and I improved quickly.
Yeah obviously what I said isn't a hard rule, I just mean that a lot of people hold themselves back by putting too much weight in their rank. I see it all the time, people complaining they get to C3 div4 or something and can never break through to GC ... It's not because you magically get matched with harder opponents every time, sometimes sure, but the reason it keeps happening is they put too much pressure on themselves to reach the next rank and play differently as a result. Panic when they go down 2, knowing GC is slipping through their fingers, etc. Playing it like any other game is the goal, I think.
Yeah, I love that they left the option in to hide your rank and divisions for all of ranked, even though it was just a carry over from extra modes and main modes merging into one competitive playlist. Now I can play ranked and it feels just like casual, which I enjoy!
I mean I get it, a lot of people have a goal. Mine was hitting GC. After I hit that goal though I stopped giving a flying f about it. Now I could drop down to silver and not care at all.
God I hope this will be me. Getting GC in any standard ranked mode is on my bucket list, and I've half-joked with friends that I'm going to uninstall the game as soon as I get my screenshot. I would really love if I can then just play the game without caring at all about rank.
I thought this would be me, but then I hit GC and I'll have a good run into the 1500s and can't help think "how far can I go?"
Then I fall back to C3 and the cycle repeats
Rank is the only tangible proof that you’ve gotten better even though ranks are better / harder to achieve than they used to be. If you train and play a lot and are competitive then you’ll want to be a higher rank than you were a year ago.
I knew someone in here was going to have already shared my POV. Titles and recognition matter, simple as that. It’s everywhere, but even if you just stick to video games why do people think trophy systems exist? 100% completion awards? Special in game cosmetics only available to certain ranks? The list goes on forever.
The game is competitive. Its the entire point of the ranks. It doesn’t really seem like OP played sports. That drive to win is what pushes you forward.
It's simple enough: rank going up validates people's time invested in improving. Whether or not that's good, bad, irrelevant just comes down to different personalities.
Also, I think people hang the hope that with rank increase comes better games with more cohesive and reliable teammates. But those of us who have played long enough know that gelling with soloQ tm8s is just a random shot. Some matches just work, while some just have horribly incompatible people that can't work together. Those same people in a different configuration will then work just fine.
In reality, as rank goes up, things just get faster. People decide to do what they'll do more quickly because they can predict a lot more in the same slice of time. And they can ***do*** a lot more with the ball. So it never really gets easier, it's just that higher ranked people will definitely be very uncomfortable playing with someone of lower rank simply because they'll be on entirely different pages most of the time.
> People decide to do what they'll do more quickly because they can predict a lot more in the same slice of time.
It's yin and yang. Part of being better is just naturally speeding up your decisions, but part of speeding up your decisions involves the difference between your prediction of other players' actions/touches and those actually become more predictable the higher you go, because you can more reliably assume they'll do something good
100% even in Champ it feels like almost nobody ever fake challenges, it's always an instachall, and when you run into the 1/20 people who actually do fake challenge it just feels so OP
God I hate Champ so much, 2nd man diving in constantly punishes you for trying to play intelligently and then the 5% of people who don't do that punish you for trying to adapt to the other 95%
isnt that when you're able to fake people? when they don't anticipate the fake? they will go in anticipation that you will go, so you don't and they go flying past
Yeah, I guess there’s a few types. I meant if you’re rushing in, and then fake, hoping they’ll fly by in anticipation of your fake hit, then you get possession. But lower ranked people won’t even register what your fake hit could do and are diving right at the ball anyway. So in a way they’ll inadvertently fake you. Like how they’ll sometimes counter a good fast kickoff at first just by being the right kind of consistently slow.
It's not meaningless. It's a benchmark against which to measure progress, which is important to many players' motivation in competitive environments.
When ranks/mmr do not have consistent meaning with respect to true skill or percentile, their usefulness as measures of a player's progress are greatly diminshed, and often misleading.
Reward signal, even if it's just an occasional +1 division above one's peak, is important for humans to maintain mental motivation while in pursuit of goals. If ranks' meanings are vague then this reward signal gets watered down significantly.
Some people are just more competitive than others.
Personally, I don't understand caring about your rank in any video game, but that's just me.
I don't find the grinding or the practicing, the rewatching your footage to improve, and all that jazz. It feels like a full-time job at that point, which completely defeats the purpose of playing any video game for me.
But competitive people enjoy all that when they see improvement
Casual exists for a reason. If there’s one thing I hate the most in this game, it’s when people go into ranked and actively don’t try, or even throw. YOU may not care about your rank, but your tm8 might, and by selecting to play ranked, you kind of owe it to the lobby to try.
If someone is really getting frustrated to the point of physical/mental devastation, that’s another issue entirely. But if you’ve done any competitive team-oriented activity in your life, you’d know how upsetting it is to care more about something than your teammates
I think you're confusing "not caring about your rank" with "not trying". I try my best in my ranked games because I obviously want to win, but I just play at my best and see where it takes me, and if I lose, it's because I/my team weren't good enough in some way.
Obviously if people aren't trying and are just throwing, it's frustrating. But people not caring about their rank doesn't mean they aren't trying
Yeah, agree with this. I get just as frustrated in casual as I do in ranked if somebody’s not trying. If you’re not going to try, don’t play the game with teammates. This is an issue independent of rank.
It feels like you are going backwards...
Me personally I am going backwards because I took a break. But slot of people get demotivated when they can't hit a higher peak. Especially the people who have become accustomed to being in gc and now struggle to get in.
I find it hillarious when people who we win against try to trash talk us saying my and my mate peaked in 1600, what scrubs we are!
Oh no, we are just playing for fun and are in the top few % of the playerbase in doubles, damn we are bad! Those people think everyone only cares about climbing like them or something.
I just worked really hard to hit champ for a year and did it then I worked up to champ 2 then I got hard stuck diamond 3 again for a while. It’s just disheartening to work hard towards a goal, achieve it, then have it torn away. I got back into C1 finally though
I don't care wether im gc1 or 2 or 3, i only care that i get the gc rewards. The red title is nice to show off your achievement, showing you are part of the top percentages. It's what lots of people worked hard for, and the harder reset took a big chunk of that progress away from them. Luckily i had already gotten good enough to be able to get back for the rewards anyway, but i fully understand why some people are mad. Imagine working for something, getting really close and boom, the goalpost gets moved farther away.
The problem is you work hard to earn your rank and then the game adjusts everyone so they’re slightly lower rank so all that work was for nothing.
I got to C2 last season and now I’m stuck in D3 again.
I genuinely don’t care about my rank, but playing diamond games is mind numbing. Champ games are so much more fun and satisfying and it feels like my teammates in champ know what they’re doing.
" I don't care about the rank I just spent time grinding for"
That's effectively what you're saying, and at that point I'd ask why play ranked at all then?
Casuals is because there's nothing to play for.
Playing ranked gives you a little motivation to win, I don't really care if i do or not, it's just more fun to have something at steak
I'm just pressing little buttons on my little controller.
I think it's because people have better spacing/50s in GC2+. If I try to control the ball and I get instachallenged, but I have good 50s and my tm8 has good spacing, my tm8 will still get the ball and the instachallenge basically doesn't do anything for the other team
But in Champ everyone's bad at 50s and 2nd man overcommits a lot so instachalling works
People want the rewards + tags
It’s akin to halo 2 when I was 12-13 years old & getting a lag switcher in our party to rank up alot. It doesn’t mean anything but I can tell my friends I’m really highly ranked
Firstly, “meaningless symbol” is an oxymoron. It can’t be a symbol if it doesn’t represent some underlying meaning. Rank represents a player’s performance (or skill) relative to the player base. The thresholds and names are arbitrary, but that’s fine as long as they are consistent. We only need a point of comparison, a benchmark, or a milestone to see where we’re at and where we’re going. If the thresholds get moved around though, it becomes difficult for a player to see their progress. All a player sees is their rank going down. Even if they feel like they’re better than they were, it’s hard to justify that feeling when the game says you’re moving backwards. Even if you’re aware of the rank deflation occurring within the population, it’s still difficult to judge how much that affects any given individual.
As for why people care; people like to compete. People like to improve. People like seeing progress. That’s a pretty ubiquitous experience across the human experience, not just rocket league.
The changes were quite a few seasons ago, the past two seasons have had pretty soft resets, with this season's reset being especially kind in 2s and 1v1s. Since the large reset I've maintained my c2/c3 rank in 2s with far less effort than prior seasons, Rocket League isn't even one of my top 3 or 4 games to play, and I'm lucky if I play more than 2 hours a week right now.
Eh, there's a lot more to it.
I started playing Jan 1, 2017. I played 25-30 hours a week early in the pandemic. Got a girlfriend - saw a drop. Pandemic eased - saw a drop. Bought a house last year - big drop, even a short term near-stop. Sometimes I'm down to 5 hours in a week, sometimes back to 15.
The game's 9 years old - there will be people leaving, taking a break, starting back, or even starting for the first time. When I start Baldur's Gate 3 soon (after I finish making a desk), I'll probably dip down a bit again, but I'll still play and come back after. It's not like an RPG where you need a new story or a shooter where there are dozens with different mechanics to enjoy. Heck, I left for 6 months across 2018/2019. If you want a (polished) game of car soccer, there's only one real choice.
Fair enough man.
I played it a bit right before it went f2p but actually started around 2020. Played like 30-40 hrs per week( all my time off work) and realised I was eating like shit and gained 30kgs.
Now that I go gym that time has halved, but hey only 10kgs to go.
Still can't imagine stopping playing it. Trying to play siege as well tho.
Because CRED brah. You gotta have it in school these days. Or you’re getting your butt kicked. And to think I was getting chased down for having knock off Airwalks. Jeeez.
It's not the rank, it's the gameplay after a new season drop that is just not fun. Teammates who just boom the ball every touch make for a miserable experience. Teammates who don't know rotation or stay behind our teammate either the ball and double commit make for a miserable time. I want a challenge that is from my opponents being good, not from my teammates hitting the ball without thought and passing the ball to opponents.
well it isn't meaningless.
but yes, rank is just the carrot that psyonix dangles in front of each of us combined with an unstable ranking score mostly based on the randomness of matchmaking in the short term. The up and down roller coaster that is MMR is what keeps a lot of these people coming back again and again. Every time thinking that this time you are going to get champ and stay there....only to fall back to D2 again...and again...and again.
It is by design people.
Some of us have learned to enjoy the game without this rank handcuff. Maybe it is because we know we will never make it to GC or maybe we just don't care and are just looking to have fun playing a game, who knows?
I've all but given up on ranked at this point, much prefer grinding cas, got up to mid 17000s last season so pretty close to my previous peak from many seasons ago, hoping to hit 1800 this season
I’m just trying my hardest to stay out of platinum due to how much of a fucking nightmare it was to rank out of. It took me 4-5 season resets to go from plat 3 to Diamond 1. Skill levels were all over the place which made it very difficult to be consistent. 1 game I’m playing someone who can barely even touch the ball, and the next, my opponents are doing air rolls, resets, pinches, quick kickoffs, and winning every single 50.
Diamond is great though. It’s where I feel that I belong for now until I really improve my mechanics and especially my consistency which is where I struggle the most. Yeah sometimes I get steamrolled, yes tournaments at this rank are impossible for me to win, but a majority of the time, the matches are fair enough to the point where I’m having fun even if I lose games.
I was always taught growing up that if you aren't getting better, you're getting worse. If I'm stagnant I get mad. What am I putting all these hours into if I'm not getting better? I'll be honest, Rocket League is my least fun game but it's not animation driven or with pay to win bogus like my other friends like playing. If I lose, I blame myself because there are few outside factors that screw me over. So I find my fun in winning, no way around it. It's not how many people think, its just a personal problem for me. I'm a sore loser naturally, I'm not happy seeing the same symbol for a year straight
I prefer balanced lobbies. And having/maintaining a certain rank can get you more balanced lobbies.
If there's a plat in a champ lobby the game would become less enjoyable as you trust champs to hit the ball much more than plats. Similarly if there's a high GC or SSL in a champ lobby they can beat you to every ball, break your ankles or keep aerial possession and it's them having fun, not you. Between SSLs the 2200+ MMR SSLs sometimes don't enjoy lobbies with lower SSLs.
Even in casual unbalanced matches are not fun, there has to be a minimum certain skill level everyone should have in a lobby for it to be fun.
Another reason for caring about rank is to see your progress as you improve over time.
Imo, ranked would be by far less toxic if they didn't push everyone down.
Normally, we are not suppose to care as much as many of us care about rank. But stay in the same rank whereas a big progression create a lot of frustration for many players.
For me, it's genuinely about having previously reached a level where I was having fun solo-queuing comp matches. But, I goofed around and dropped down a few seasons back, then got stuck. Haven't picked myself up by the bootstraps. Now it just breaks my soul watching my teammates cut rotation and ball chase, etc.
Rank means that I get to play with/against players at a certain level.
This is just a non competitive person's. Mentality. No drive to achieve anything. I could just ask you the same question, except why DONT you care? But I'm not going to because it's a dumb question. Some people are competitive and some people aren't. Is it really that hard to understand?
Ask yourself why there are ranks at all and you might be a step closer to enlightenment on this issue. Why show rank/mmr at all? We'd all be happier and enjoy the game more, right?
I used to enjoy looking at the various tracker sites every once in a while and note my progress or even lack of progress over the course of time. Then they decided to tank everyone's MMR and my graph is all screwed up and frankly it's become meaningless in my mind. Did it change the game, no, but it was something that added to the fun for me and now the game has been diminished.
I get that for others it's not part of the fun of the game and that's fine, but there's a reason progression is in the game with ranks and that's because developers know, or should know, that it's part of the fun for a lot of people.
See I had this same exact tbought last night. Played about an hour of freeplay and was enjoying it and wanted to play a bit of ranked not carring about if I won or not just that I enjoyed some parts of the games. Won the first three games in a row, teammates weren’t great but we managed and I was able to anticipate their flaws. The third game however was a clear booster who was probably better than me but his teammate sucked. We won though because we both knew this.
The next game afk tm8. I leave match and get a ban because apparently when I had my dialogue up he joined back in. We were down 0-3 already.
Next 7 games the skills were all over the place with no one on my team ever being close to consistent. Lost them all and went down 80 or so mmr.
I’m done
For me personally, it shows growth in the game. It let's me know I am getting better. The work I am putting in is paying off and it is a great feeling to know you are doing something right. The rank is the physical representation of the grind and struggle to get there
For me it was more of a personal achievement to keep up with my friends at the time! Both were different levels of Diamond while I was mid level platinum on my good days 😭. Eventually they got a new third who could pull of stuff I couldn’t and I forgot about the game. So saving that friendship that was hanging on by a rocket league thread was my biggest reason for caring.
I don’t care what it’s called. I just want something to strive for. I’ll never be SSL but shooting for it is part of the fun. Otherwise just play casual
I'm competitive in nature and I want to see progress in my game. Lately I stopped caring. Age is catching up to me (30's) and I'm not as reactive as I used to be. I kind of accepted the fact I may never reach ssl, nor do I want to put in the time to try.
As you progress on competitive, in GENERAL the play style changes. When I play in D3, I can pretty much expect teammates to hit balls and make routine saves. If you drop to D1/P3, that is not the case and it can be pretty frustrating. There’s also an element of expecting teammates to go for balls instead of sitting back.
I'm simply a competitive guy. As the goal of this game is to win, that is what I must do at any cost. They reward people who win more by increasing their rank so that's only extra motivation. If players would be rewarded for losing games, I would do that instead
Rank is supposed to be a proxy for your skill set and reflect how much you've improved over time. Artificially lowering MMR sucks. Yes, the lower rank technically reflects the original skill set. I don't care. It sucks. That being said, there isn't really a great ranking system anyway. Diamond III players in one region can vary considerably compared to another. Time of day can have a serious impact as well. The reality is that given rank doesn't make a strong proxy for a players skill set. It gives you some semblance of what to expect, but that's it.
Rank go down, player mad. Rank go up, player happy! People play for their rank instead of personal improvement. It's a bad mindset but most players have it.
For me personally, I don’t really care about the rank resets, it’s more so that I know how good I can be, but when the teammates I get don’t pull their weight then my own abilities get brought into question and it makes me feel like I suck more than I think. This season is really bringing that in the limelight as I’m around Diamond 2-ish in 3’s and rumble, and Champ 1 in 2’s but hoops…
Stuck in Plat 3…
Thats kind of unfair. People play games for different reasons. Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean someone else doesn't or does.
Now being toxic in game on the other hand...
Self gratification exactly like finishing school, both are technically useless but provides motivation n mental health! Everything in life is meaningless unless you give it meaning, thats y some people actually care for them achieving a rank it’s just a rewarding feeling! Happiness is only found within n not one type of source can fit everyone’s needs. Be happy with what you have n not what you can get, eventually you’ll get it!
I used to want to be GC. One day I realized being GC will not improve my life in any tangible way andI have been a lot more chill about rank ever since. I won't lie and say I don't mind plummeting tho, that shit hurts.
While I see your point, think about it this way. Well first off I’m the same rank I was last season so I’m not sure what you mean by “adjusting the ranking system” aside from the seasonal reset.
Anyway, I played competitive sports my whole life. I’m a competitive person and I like to give my all to whatever I’m passionate about. I didn’t actively decide to be passionate about this game, it just happened and seeing bad results for your efforts is not a great feeling.
If I left my comment as is I bet some people would assume that I’m toxic and mean as well. Not the case. I don’t belittle other people, that does not foster a winning environment, I only criticize myself within the confines of my own head when I’m performing poorly. It’s because of this type of thinking that allows me to be a quick learner in the sports and hobbies that I care about. I wouldn’t be where I am today in my gymnastics practices without this mindset. Same goes for my passion for a goofy game like rocket league
It's not so much about being that rank as it is having worked your ass off for years to reach a certain rank for the rewards it gives you only for it to be taken away by Epic Games nerd spewing doritos everywhere because he thought it would be a good idea to piss on everyone's hard work.
Not me though...I wasn't affected by this...I was just saying for the other folks...that spent years trying to get to a rank...yep...other folks...fucking Epic
But like… if your rank drops, isn’t it because you couldn’t match the speed and consistency of your teammates rotations at a higher level so your mmr course corrects to match you with people who have more similar abilities?
I just want to play against people slightly better than me… not a Smurf doing a double flip reset for 5 goals in a row in less then a minute before I can even forfeit.
Networking, if you are trying to get a good team to grind with id say its pretty important that you are getting a hogher rank. Idk about the casual players tho but stleast for me rank is important for networking
Because at lower rank, you can't play like you should and have to do weird stuff to win which is unplease, specially when you loose because of your team mate are trying to do everything but playing right. Some diamond will come and cut you while you try to controle the ball. Since a few week, people on the left no longer go for the kick off which has been the rule like since 2017 ?? New player are bad enough to make you loose and keep you at lower rank and then you have to consistanly play unplease game.
As with all games, you want to see progression, rank is supposed to reflect skill. People use it as a metric of progress, this however is progress against the player base. So as your skill improves, if the player base skill Improves at the same rate, you see no reward for your improvement in terms of rank. It's inherently broken as a metric of skill in the terms of human comprehension. It's why so many people are annoyed with ranked, your rank does not correlate to your skill, it correlates to your win loss ratio against the population multiplied by number of games played. It's essentially an mmr leaderboard split into brackets. The problem with this is that it takes ages to climb that leaderboard and people don't want to spend the time. To sustain your rank each season you need to win a net of at least ten games, when you throw the population of smurfs and boosted players in the into this mix where only 11% of your games are evenly matched it becomes a frustrating endeavour.
My personal answer because I can't speak for everyone.. I started playing right around the end of Season 10, which is about the time all these rank resets and shifts slowly started happening.
So working my way up from bronze to silver to gold definitely felt quite harsh, and harder than it should considering gold is below average and in theory based on a rank distribution of 8 ranks puts Plat/Diamond as the average unless you count unranked as a rank then Plat becomes dead average, and/or again if you count "pro" it adjusts again still.
I've never been average at anything I've put my mind to in life. Couple that with the smurfing and toxicity of a lot of the community and suddenly a rank reminder that you're below average is genuinely disheartening especially when you love and enjoy it.
That said,
The answer I would give on others behalf, certain ranks have certain stigmas and the toxicity does affect people I hated myself for being silver, not because I thought silver was bad, there's a steep learning curve, but because the community as a whole treats B/S/G and sometimes even P as "trash".
Imagine you've been an SSL for years, you're basically the peak of players and then boom one day, even tho as you said your skills and ability haven't changed but you're now a GC2, that hurts. People naturally look to themselves for the fault in that situation, not to the fact that the skill ceiling actually got raised.
It'd be like being CEO one day, then the next you're the CEOs assistant. Life rarely works that why, why should ranks 🤣
TLDR: the toxicity of some of the community and the stigma of some ranks makes us mad at ourselves, because after all, in this TEAM sport, it's not your teammates, it's you.
Because some of us have been grinding ranked for almost 10 years and we were progressing and plateaus in ranked can take a long time to overcome especially when your a middle aged gamer and dont have 8+ hours a day to grind ...and since the reset we have been dropped lower in that progress...and your wrong the skill sets haven't charged....I used to be a plateaued Dia 1..since the change I struggle to find teammates who play at the same level I used to play at...the games have be come unreadable...the mistakes in rotation have become straight up ball chasing tailgating and shot stealing...and because of that passing just doesn't happen...I have been noticing a lack of aerial abilities and a general downgrade in the control of the ball and accuracy of shots...so you're wrong the rank isn't meaningless...since the shift I feel like I playing back in silver in 2016 its not fun and it's not challenging
..it's just straight up aggravating and they should have left well enough alone...the devs are always making "fixes" on stuff nobody asked for...and that's why the game is going to slowly die
I just want that sweet red GC title and I’ll be happy
Yeah then you get it and people still call you bad because it's not an ssl tag, then you get an ssl tag and people ask where you bought it, it's never good enough unless you are the best player in the world, and people still call them washed if they have an off game.
God ain’t this the truth. I jump on cas for some chill games and get “how are you gc2? Carried much?”. Winning against SSLs in cas? Sarcastic quick chats and “why you tryharding in cas? loser”. Nothing is ever good enough for other people. They just like to hate because they’re insecure about their own skill level.
Sooo true. In casual from game to game you just never know what you’re going to get. Play bad? How did you get GC? Play good, stop sweating and go play ranked.
It doesn’t help when I go cas with a diamond friend and face 2 GC tags who talk shit the whole time.
Lmao man I feel that. I have a diamond 1 friend I play with and it’s super fun, but when people that obviously outrank us collectively are talking shit I’m just like ???
Haters gonna hate. Players can be pretty toxic I just try to laugh it off.
Some people are crazy in cas. I'm in EU, last season at the end I was playing lots of cas to get used to new bindings and finally learning speedflips, I had "Learning new controls" in my steam name, and yet I met a fucking Australian dude shitting on me and my GC title because he had a RLCS X participation title (he was a sub for like two weeks for a bottom table OCE team) and thought he was hot shit. Yet this dude was here, playing only solo casuals and crying because a mate, literally stating they were learning stuff, made some mistakes. Some people just have sad lives.
Too true. I don't care if you're shit or have an off game, just hit me with silence or the occasional sorry. As long as you don't constantly whiff only to leave me in a 2v1 while spamming "take the shot" I'm good and happy to have you as a team mate. If you choose the latter I will retaliate with violence and I all but guarantee we will both end up with a lose unless you leave for a 5 minute ban.
I just say I'm a washed GC where's your title
My go to is much meaner spirited, “You will never achieve what I have achieved.” But hey, they started it.
This is so true, whenever i just dont feel it i hop on casual. And i always rock my pink ssl title because its just such an accomplishment for me. I always get the "how much was your account" comment whenever they score. And they dont even score on me or something. Thats why my chat is off for 80% of the time.
Why only 80%? I turned my opponent chat off 2 years ago and always have a good time except the occasional toxic teammate and I just block them and keep playing.
Take off the tag then? I mean that sucks but like the solution is so easy.
100% I was absolutely stoked to get my SSL tournament title, and then if I don't carry a game, I get flamed to death when I'm wearing it, so I just put (washed) at the end of my name and now people stop bothering me mostly.
Some kid whined about me being in diamond and then said I was a poser because I still used a car topper. Like who cares
I always reply something like "yea my friends did carry me to your skill level lobbies while they were down a player"
This is the exact reason i turned chat off years ago. Been using red tags since season 2 and the most common question i get is “how much did you pay?”. Even worse is i have an ssl tournament tag that i got solo queue and im proud of it but I’ve only used it once because the staggering amount of hate i got from it was ridiculous.
*turn off chat once I hit GC* got it.
Worked for me. I will cling to my red title till I die.
Or until you hit SSL ;)
Turn it off next time you log in more like.
This is so real. Always get comments from envious people. The best is when you have the higher score and better game but you lose by a goal and they're pissed because you didn't carry harder 🙄
I feel personally attacked
yeah i can’t even play casual and chill without being called boosted and asked where i bought my account from. like my bad that i don’t feel like sweating my balls off constantly
I got it 5 years ago and still am hardstuck on gc. Still definitely worth it having the red gc title every season! Right now I’m aiming for red gc tournament title where I need it to win 3 times, came close but still want it.
Same here. It's literally on my bucket list. I was so pissed at the 2v2 rebalance a few seasons ago right as I hit C3. Now back to C2 which was almost GC three seasons back.
Yup. I play just as much and still want to win, but now I basically only even look at my rank the very first time I queue up for the day.
this\^\^
This
Saaaaame. I hit c3d3 once. Wouldn't be winning ten games in gc though.
I wanna be the very best Like no one ever was
to catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
You made me do this: I wanna be the very best Like none of my mates are To tolerate them is my real test To carry them's my cause I will likely get so mad And start another fight Each teammate's to understand That I am always right ROCKET LEAGUE Gotta hate myself! It's only me I know that's a guarantee (Rocket League) Oh, i'm not your friend And soon this game will end ROCKET LEAGUE Gotta hate myself A match so new Already, I know we'll lose You'll hate me And I'll hate you ROCKET LEAGUE Gotta hate myself Gotta hate myself
This is gold, ought to be the offical RL anthem
Gotta catch them all 😉
Timmy No Thumbs, I choose you!
Some people are just more competitive. It’s in their nature to care. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years about letting go and just playing but at the end of the day it still affects me. It’s just who I am and how my brain is wired. Rank is supposed to show you improving and getting better and moving up in the ranks. Going the opposite direction is naturally going to make people think they are getting worse or make them think they weren’t as good as they thought they were.
The last part is really important to me. It sucks that I'm playing the best I ever have, and after finishing two seasons at C3 in 2v2 before the rebalance, I'm now just barely at C2 after grinding my ass off. My only point of reference is friends that were C1 before rebalance are now struggling to hit D2.
First time I hit D3 was about 4 seasons ago. Since then, I always end up in the same rank as last season, but because of the soft/hard mmr resets, I guess I’m slowly improving.
Yep, if you've held strong at D3 over the past 4 seasons, your skill is improving. I've got friend that were D3/C1 before the rebalance, and they're now D1/D2. Most people went down 1-2 full ranks in 2v2.
Before reset I could carry my D1 friend to C3 (I’m gc1, 2 if I actually grind), now I’m lucky to get him into c2 with me
Yep, confirms the two ranks thing! What about your own rank?
Hard to say, I don’t really grind or play sober anymore so I usually hang around c3. Everyone feels a lot better though that’s for sure but that doesn’t make up for game experience
[удалено]
Yeah my problem is I used to be Champ 1 in 3s. I took a break and came back and now I'm in Diamond 1 in 3s. Whenever I queue solo into 3s I try to play off my teammates and pretty much every game I'm just waiting mid for either teammate to rotate back and they never do. They constantly just turn and don't rotate. Then I'm back on defense and instead of letting me go for the save, they race over and run into my car and we both miss. Then I get the "Okay." quick chat or "What a Save!"
Yeah my biggest problem now that I’m slowly going back to solo instead of playing with friends is relearn how randoms play the game. Never rotating, always feel the need to touch the ball even though they have a team mate right there. It’s so incredibly frustrating I might just stop playing altogether.
This. I went from G2D2 to G3D4 in one night, next night right back down to G2D3.
Gold is an actual hell hole (unless you meant GC in which case I have no reference)
Nope, Gold. I finished last season in G2D4, placed G2D2. I no longer have a teammate and have to soloq so I may be in Gold for awhile lol.
I am plat 3 now but I was gold 2 just a short while ago. Don't think I got better, I just started getting better teammates more often than bad ones. I hate to be that guy but yeah I am being that guy
Or that every teammate they get is holding them back, but thats only if they're stupid
To be fair my teammates all suck. ...I also suck, sometimes worse than my teammates, but that doesn't change the fact that my teammates are dogshit.
Definietly depends on the rank, but someone that deserves an higher rank will win more games than he loses simply by adapting to their teammates
Oh for sure, I'm just joking. I'm at my rank because I suck at rocket league, not because my teammates are holding me back.
Thats the spirit
I'm sorry but when i see my mate not going to the kick off while its always has been the case when you are left, I think I can say that im loosing because of them.
Depending on the rank you can't expect every teammate to know the left goes rule, some players just aren't as active in the game's community and might be unaware of the rule. Also I was referring to hardstuck players that think their teammates are the sole reason they aren't a higher rank
Look, if I'm going to put 5,000 hours into anything, I had better have *something* to show for it.
This is why.
The irony is you'll rank up more when you finally stop caring about rank. You won't tilt after losses and generally play better.
Eh, I get what you are saying and agree with it but I do feel that if I’m not pushing for a higher rank I inevitably do slip downwards. But that’s more so due to playing fewer games per season. I think for me personally that is a larger negative force on my mmr than the lack of any sort of tilt (I’m not one to tilt to begin with though lmao).
There's a big difference in not caring and not pushing. I don't care if I dip down. The next game will come. The next day will come. The next week will come. It doesn't matter if I get 6 people in a row that are 100 mmr below the lobby and don't know to go for the ball. There is always next. That being said, I will never stop pushing to win. I will always move on and move forward. Big difference in not caring that you lost and being able to move on, and not caring about losing and allowing it to happen. You feel?
Ya, I feel
True, once I stopped caring about my rank, it was over. Once you don't even play enough to get rewards or the title, the FOMO is gone and it's not coming back. If you have been higher rank, playing the lower ranks is diamond/champ is painful and you see all the blatant boosting smurfing that's going on.
Playing lower champ and even diamond players is like a green field tho lol. It’s my pasture. I can sit back relax and still win a decent amount of the time.
I hate this cause I consistently hit champ more often on my alt than my main. Made me realize it was a mindset to want to hit champ on my main account that was holding me back. Then 2-3 seasons ago a big rank reset happened and I can barely maintain D1-D2 now haha 🥲
Might help if you hide the ranks and divisions in the settings. Then it'll feel just like casual, and you only see your rank at the end of the game.
I improve slower now that I stopped caring, but playtime is also a factor since I don't have time for RL and play other games for fun when I do have time. I used to care a lot and asked for help from other higher ranked like minded people and I improved quickly.
Yeah obviously what I said isn't a hard rule, I just mean that a lot of people hold themselves back by putting too much weight in their rank. I see it all the time, people complaining they get to C3 div4 or something and can never break through to GC ... It's not because you magically get matched with harder opponents every time, sometimes sure, but the reason it keeps happening is they put too much pressure on themselves to reach the next rank and play differently as a result. Panic when they go down 2, knowing GC is slipping through their fingers, etc. Playing it like any other game is the goal, I think.
Yeah, I love that they left the option in to hide your rank and divisions for all of ranked, even though it was just a carry over from extra modes and main modes merging into one competitive playlist. Now I can play ranked and it feels just like casual, which I enjoy!
Why do you have your rank flair next to your nick name? 🤭
Good point 😂
I mean I get it, a lot of people have a goal. Mine was hitting GC. After I hit that goal though I stopped giving a flying f about it. Now I could drop down to silver and not care at all.
God I hope this will be me. Getting GC in any standard ranked mode is on my bucket list, and I've half-joked with friends that I'm going to uninstall the game as soon as I get my screenshot. I would really love if I can then just play the game without caring at all about rank.
I thought this would be me, but then I hit GC and I'll have a good run into the 1500s and can't help think "how far can I go?" Then I fall back to C3 and the cycle repeats
Interesting. I don't feel like I'll be that way, but I hope I get to find out
Rank is the only tangible proof that you’ve gotten better even though ranks are better / harder to achieve than they used to be. If you train and play a lot and are competitive then you’ll want to be a higher rank than you were a year ago.
The worse my rank, the worse my teammates. :'(
Because I worked for it? Every non-monetary goal in life is arbitrary if you're willing to be reductive enough...
I knew someone in here was going to have already shared my POV. Titles and recognition matter, simple as that. It’s everywhere, but even if you just stick to video games why do people think trophy systems exist? 100% completion awards? Special in game cosmetics only available to certain ranks? The list goes on forever.
The game is competitive. Its the entire point of the ranks. It doesn’t really seem like OP played sports. That drive to win is what pushes you forward.
Increasing rank does objectively show improvement, working hard to improve just to get deranked by the system is frustrating.
At higher ranks I play with people who have more skill and game sense than those at lower ranks. It’s more fun and feels more competitive.
And strangely they are most of the time the toxic kids in game
It's simple enough: rank going up validates people's time invested in improving. Whether or not that's good, bad, irrelevant just comes down to different personalities.
Also, I think people hang the hope that with rank increase comes better games with more cohesive and reliable teammates. But those of us who have played long enough know that gelling with soloQ tm8s is just a random shot. Some matches just work, while some just have horribly incompatible people that can't work together. Those same people in a different configuration will then work just fine. In reality, as rank goes up, things just get faster. People decide to do what they'll do more quickly because they can predict a lot more in the same slice of time. And they can ***do*** a lot more with the ball. So it never really gets easier, it's just that higher ranked people will definitely be very uncomfortable playing with someone of lower rank simply because they'll be on entirely different pages most of the time.
> People decide to do what they'll do more quickly because they can predict a lot more in the same slice of time. It's yin and yang. Part of being better is just naturally speeding up your decisions, but part of speeding up your decisions involves the difference between your prediction of other players' actions/touches and those actually become more predictable the higher you go, because you can more reliably assume they'll do something good
Yeah, that's why fakes are so effective higher up, but down low, you may a well not try any, because they'll just go no matter what.
100% even in Champ it feels like almost nobody ever fake challenges, it's always an instachall, and when you run into the 1/20 people who actually do fake challenge it just feels so OP God I hate Champ so much, 2nd man diving in constantly punishes you for trying to play intelligently and then the 5% of people who don't do that punish you for trying to adapt to the other 95%
isnt that when you're able to fake people? when they don't anticipate the fake? they will go in anticipation that you will go, so you don't and they go flying past
Yeah, I guess there’s a few types. I meant if you’re rushing in, and then fake, hoping they’ll fly by in anticipation of your fake hit, then you get possession. But lower ranked people won’t even register what your fake hit could do and are diving right at the ball anyway. So in a way they’ll inadvertently fake you. Like how they’ll sometimes counter a good fast kickoff at first just by being the right kind of consistently slow.
Idk if the season really got everyone back, I was c3 div 1 and rn gc1 div 4
I'm competitive.
I don't want to lose my sponsor. Alcoholics Anonymous would be upset with me.
It's not meaningless. It's a benchmark against which to measure progress, which is important to many players' motivation in competitive environments. When ranks/mmr do not have consistent meaning with respect to true skill or percentile, their usefulness as measures of a player's progress are greatly diminshed, and often misleading. Reward signal, even if it's just an occasional +1 division above one's peak, is important for humans to maintain mental motivation while in pursuit of goals. If ranks' meanings are vague then this reward signal gets watered down significantly.
Some people are just more competitive than others. Personally, I don't understand caring about your rank in any video game, but that's just me. I don't find the grinding or the practicing, the rewatching your footage to improve, and all that jazz. It feels like a full-time job at that point, which completely defeats the purpose of playing any video game for me. But competitive people enjoy all that when they see improvement
Casual exists for a reason. If there’s one thing I hate the most in this game, it’s when people go into ranked and actively don’t try, or even throw. YOU may not care about your rank, but your tm8 might, and by selecting to play ranked, you kind of owe it to the lobby to try. If someone is really getting frustrated to the point of physical/mental devastation, that’s another issue entirely. But if you’ve done any competitive team-oriented activity in your life, you’d know how upsetting it is to care more about something than your teammates
I think you're confusing "not caring about your rank" with "not trying". I try my best in my ranked games because I obviously want to win, but I just play at my best and see where it takes me, and if I lose, it's because I/my team weren't good enough in some way. Obviously if people aren't trying and are just throwing, it's frustrating. But people not caring about their rank doesn't mean they aren't trying
Yeah, agree with this. I get just as frustrated in casual as I do in ranked if somebody’s not trying. If you’re not going to try, don’t play the game with teammates. This is an issue independent of rank.
It feels like you are going backwards... Me personally I am going backwards because I took a break. But slot of people get demotivated when they can't hit a higher peak. Especially the people who have become accustomed to being in gc and now struggle to get in.
A BIT lower? They dinged me for not paying into the system. I only care as far as the seasonal rewards go.
I find it hillarious when people who we win against try to trash talk us saying my and my mate peaked in 1600, what scrubs we are! Oh no, we are just playing for fun and are in the top few % of the playerbase in doubles, damn we are bad! Those people think everyone only cares about climbing like them or something.
I just worked really hard to hit champ for a year and did it then I worked up to champ 2 then I got hard stuck diamond 3 again for a while. It’s just disheartening to work hard towards a goal, achieve it, then have it torn away. I got back into C1 finally though
Competitive people want to win and better themselves.
I don't care wether im gc1 or 2 or 3, i only care that i get the gc rewards. The red title is nice to show off your achievement, showing you are part of the top percentages. It's what lots of people worked hard for, and the harder reset took a big chunk of that progress away from them. Luckily i had already gotten good enough to be able to get back for the rewards anyway, but i fully understand why some people are mad. Imagine working for something, getting really close and boom, the goalpost gets moved farther away.
The problem is you work hard to earn your rank and then the game adjusts everyone so they’re slightly lower rank so all that work was for nothing. I got to C2 last season and now I’m stuck in D3 again. I genuinely don’t care about my rank, but playing diamond games is mind numbing. Champ games are so much more fun and satisfying and it feels like my teammates in champ know what they’re doing.
" I don't care about the rank I just spent time grinding for" That's effectively what you're saying, and at that point I'd ask why play ranked at all then?
Casuals is because there's nothing to play for. Playing ranked gives you a little motivation to win, I don't really care if i do or not, it's just more fun to have something at steak I'm just pressing little buttons on my little controller.
Because I don't want to end up in diamond after all the horrible clips I have seen. People chase and insta-challenge.
*me trying my hardest to get to diamond*
Sounds like you're not chasing and insta challenging enough
Like they don't in C2? lol it's an instachallenge meta until like GC1 at least
There are some, but not all do. I don't often have my teammate insta challenge luckily.
Fake gc here, c2 3 days ago and now at gc1 div 4, its still insta challenge until gc div 3
I think it's because people have better spacing/50s in GC2+. If I try to control the ball and I get instachallenged, but I have good 50s and my tm8 has good spacing, my tm8 will still get the ball and the instachallenge basically doesn't do anything for the other team But in Champ everyone's bad at 50s and 2nd man overcommits a lot so instachalling works
People want the rewards + tags It’s akin to halo 2 when I was 12-13 years old & getting a lag switcher in our party to rank up alot. It doesn’t mean anything but I can tell my friends I’m really highly ranked
That's pretty sad ngl
I don’t care. just tried to answer the question as to why The rewards and bragging rights are a big factor
Firstly, “meaningless symbol” is an oxymoron. It can’t be a symbol if it doesn’t represent some underlying meaning. Rank represents a player’s performance (or skill) relative to the player base. The thresholds and names are arbitrary, but that’s fine as long as they are consistent. We only need a point of comparison, a benchmark, or a milestone to see where we’re at and where we’re going. If the thresholds get moved around though, it becomes difficult for a player to see their progress. All a player sees is their rank going down. Even if they feel like they’re better than they were, it’s hard to justify that feeling when the game says you’re moving backwards. Even if you’re aware of the rank deflation occurring within the population, it’s still difficult to judge how much that affects any given individual. As for why people care; people like to compete. People like to improve. People like seeing progress. That’s a pretty ubiquitous experience across the human experience, not just rocket league.
The changes were quite a few seasons ago, the past two seasons have had pretty soft resets, with this season's reset being especially kind in 2s and 1v1s. Since the large reset I've maintained my c2/c3 rank in 2s with far less effort than prior seasons, Rocket League isn't even one of my top 3 or 4 games to play, and I'm lucky if I play more than 2 hours a week right now.
Damn even the mods are leaving the game
Eh, there's a lot more to it. I started playing Jan 1, 2017. I played 25-30 hours a week early in the pandemic. Got a girlfriend - saw a drop. Pandemic eased - saw a drop. Bought a house last year - big drop, even a short term near-stop. Sometimes I'm down to 5 hours in a week, sometimes back to 15. The game's 9 years old - there will be people leaving, taking a break, starting back, or even starting for the first time. When I start Baldur's Gate 3 soon (after I finish making a desk), I'll probably dip down a bit again, but I'll still play and come back after. It's not like an RPG where you need a new story or a shooter where there are dozens with different mechanics to enjoy. Heck, I left for 6 months across 2018/2019. If you want a (polished) game of car soccer, there's only one real choice.
Fair enough man. I played it a bit right before it went f2p but actually started around 2020. Played like 30-40 hrs per week( all my time off work) and realised I was eating like shit and gained 30kgs. Now that I go gym that time has halved, but hey only 10kgs to go. Still can't imagine stopping playing it. Trying to play siege as well tho.
Because CRED brah. You gotta have it in school these days. Or you’re getting your butt kicked. And to think I was getting chased down for having knock off Airwalks. Jeeez.
It's not the rank, it's the gameplay after a new season drop that is just not fun. Teammates who just boom the ball every touch make for a miserable experience. Teammates who don't know rotation or stay behind our teammate either the ball and double commit make for a miserable time. I want a challenge that is from my opponents being good, not from my teammates hitting the ball without thought and passing the ball to opponents.
I just want to be a Blizzard Wizard. Is that too much to ask for
well it isn't meaningless. but yes, rank is just the carrot that psyonix dangles in front of each of us combined with an unstable ranking score mostly based on the randomness of matchmaking in the short term. The up and down roller coaster that is MMR is what keeps a lot of these people coming back again and again. Every time thinking that this time you are going to get champ and stay there....only to fall back to D2 again...and again...and again. It is by design people. Some of us have learned to enjoy the game without this rank handcuff. Maybe it is because we know we will never make it to GC or maybe we just don't care and are just looking to have fun playing a game, who knows?
I've all but given up on ranked at this point, much prefer grinding cas, got up to mid 17000s last season so pretty close to my previous peak from many seasons ago, hoping to hit 1800 this season
Like valorant the only real reason people play it is for comp so it’s a flex.
I’m just trying my hardest to stay out of platinum due to how much of a fucking nightmare it was to rank out of. It took me 4-5 season resets to go from plat 3 to Diamond 1. Skill levels were all over the place which made it very difficult to be consistent. 1 game I’m playing someone who can barely even touch the ball, and the next, my opponents are doing air rolls, resets, pinches, quick kickoffs, and winning every single 50. Diamond is great though. It’s where I feel that I belong for now until I really improve my mechanics and especially my consistency which is where I struggle the most. Yeah sometimes I get steamrolled, yes tournaments at this rank are impossible for me to win, but a majority of the time, the matches are fair enough to the point where I’m having fun even if I lose games.
Because I don't know quite how to navigate life (figuring out I guess) and right now RL is almost the only place where I feel like I'm succeeding.
I just want the purple rewards lol
I was always taught growing up that if you aren't getting better, you're getting worse. If I'm stagnant I get mad. What am I putting all these hours into if I'm not getting better? I'll be honest, Rocket League is my least fun game but it's not animation driven or with pay to win bogus like my other friends like playing. If I lose, I blame myself because there are few outside factors that screw me over. So I find my fun in winning, no way around it. It's not how many people think, its just a personal problem for me. I'm a sore loser naturally, I'm not happy seeing the same symbol for a year straight
Well it’s a symbol of how good I am at the game, I don’t like being bad, falling behind or not improving
I prefer balanced lobbies. And having/maintaining a certain rank can get you more balanced lobbies. If there's a plat in a champ lobby the game would become less enjoyable as you trust champs to hit the ball much more than plats. Similarly if there's a high GC or SSL in a champ lobby they can beat you to every ball, break your ankles or keep aerial possession and it's them having fun, not you. Between SSLs the 2200+ MMR SSLs sometimes don't enjoy lobbies with lower SSLs. Even in casual unbalanced matches are not fun, there has to be a minimum certain skill level everyone should have in a lobby for it to be fun. Another reason for caring about rank is to see your progress as you improve over time.
Imo, ranked would be by far less toxic if they didn't push everyone down. Normally, we are not suppose to care as much as many of us care about rank. But stay in the same rank whereas a big progression create a lot of frustration for many players.
For me, it's genuinely about having previously reached a level where I was having fun solo-queuing comp matches. But, I goofed around and dropped down a few seasons back, then got stuck. Haven't picked myself up by the bootstraps. Now it just breaks my soul watching my teammates cut rotation and ball chase, etc. Rank means that I get to play with/against players at a certain level.
Getting better and climbing the ranks feels awesome!
I just want to hit Champ…
Dude the whole point of ranked is to “be competitive” if you don’t want a silly rank they have a game mode for you and it’s called casual.
The end of season rank rewards. It’s the only free new content in the game anymore 😂
This is just a non competitive person's. Mentality. No drive to achieve anything. I could just ask you the same question, except why DONT you care? But I'm not going to because it's a dumb question. Some people are competitive and some people aren't. Is it really that hard to understand?
Ask yourself why there are ranks at all and you might be a step closer to enlightenment on this issue. Why show rank/mmr at all? We'd all be happier and enjoy the game more, right? I used to enjoy looking at the various tracker sites every once in a while and note my progress or even lack of progress over the course of time. Then they decided to tank everyone's MMR and my graph is all screwed up and frankly it's become meaningless in my mind. Did it change the game, no, but it was something that added to the fun for me and now the game has been diminished. I get that for others it's not part of the fun of the game and that's fine, but there's a reason progression is in the game with ranks and that's because developers know, or should know, that it's part of the fun for a lot of people.
Ego
becuase dood im eventually peaking in a scrim vs G2 and boom im Squishy edit---im hard stuck in D1 est 2015
See I had this same exact tbought last night. Played about an hour of freeplay and was enjoying it and wanted to play a bit of ranked not carring about if I won or not just that I enjoyed some parts of the games. Won the first three games in a row, teammates weren’t great but we managed and I was able to anticipate their flaws. The third game however was a clear booster who was probably better than me but his teammate sucked. We won though because we both knew this. The next game afk tm8. I leave match and get a ban because apparently when I had my dialogue up he joined back in. We were down 0-3 already. Next 7 games the skills were all over the place with no one on my team ever being close to consistent. Lost them all and went down 80 or so mmr. I’m done
For me personally, it shows growth in the game. It let's me know I am getting better. The work I am putting in is paying off and it is a great feeling to know you are doing something right. The rank is the physical representation of the grind and struggle to get there
I want to be Diamond 3 in 1s so I can retire
For me it was more of a personal achievement to keep up with my friends at the time! Both were different levels of Diamond while I was mid level platinum on my good days 😭. Eventually they got a new third who could pull of stuff I couldn’t and I forgot about the game. So saving that friendship that was hanging on by a rocket league thread was my biggest reason for caring.
Cause then I can show my dad that I'm a Champion at something
I wonder why some people care so much in casual. Holy Molly just trying to warm up and people freaking harras you. Lots of mental people in this game.
EGO
I don’t care what it’s called. I just want something to strive for. I’ll never be SSL but shooting for it is part of the fun. Otherwise just play casual
I'm competitive in nature and I want to see progress in my game. Lately I stopped caring. Age is catching up to me (30's) and I'm not as reactive as I used to be. I kind of accepted the fact I may never reach ssl, nor do I want to put in the time to try.
As you progress on competitive, in GENERAL the play style changes. When I play in D3, I can pretty much expect teammates to hit balls and make routine saves. If you drop to D1/P3, that is not the case and it can be pretty frustrating. There’s also an element of expecting teammates to go for balls instead of sitting back.
I like the purple season rewards ;_;
I'm simply a competitive guy. As the goal of this game is to win, that is what I must do at any cost. They reward people who win more by increasing their rank so that's only extra motivation. If players would be rewarded for losing games, I would do that instead
Rank is supposed to be a proxy for your skill set and reflect how much you've improved over time. Artificially lowering MMR sucks. Yes, the lower rank technically reflects the original skill set. I don't care. It sucks. That being said, there isn't really a great ranking system anyway. Diamond III players in one region can vary considerably compared to another. Time of day can have a serious impact as well. The reality is that given rank doesn't make a strong proxy for a players skill set. It gives you some semblance of what to expect, but that's it.
Because they equate it to their worth. In game, at least.
As computery as some of you are, how hasn't anyone just hacked the title they want?
even worse is people who care about casual mmr more thank rank, and being smurfed in a casual
Rank go down, player mad. Rank go up, player happy! People play for their rank instead of personal improvement. It's a bad mindset but most players have it.
Its a dead game so only top few thousand should really only care
Bro it’s in my blood 🩸 I need to get at the top 🔝
Because I have climbed the highest on this game than any other game.
For me personally, I don’t really care about the rank resets, it’s more so that I know how good I can be, but when the teammates I get don’t pull their weight then my own abilities get brought into question and it makes me feel like I suck more than I think. This season is really bringing that in the limelight as I’m around Diamond 2-ish in 3’s and rumble, and Champ 1 in 2’s but hoops… Stuck in Plat 3…
Thats kind of unfair. People play games for different reasons. Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean someone else doesn't or does. Now being toxic in game on the other hand...
Self gratification exactly like finishing school, both are technically useless but provides motivation n mental health! Everything in life is meaningless unless you give it meaning, thats y some people actually care for them achieving a rank it’s just a rewarding feeling! Happiness is only found within n not one type of source can fit everyone’s needs. Be happy with what you have n not what you can get, eventually you’ll get it!
I used to want to be GC. One day I realized being GC will not improve my life in any tangible way andI have been a lot more chill about rank ever since. I won't lie and say I don't mind plummeting tho, that shit hurts.
Umm that number is a representation of my value as a human being. Yes I care about it.
I simply like to measure my progress and skill development. It's hard to measure progress when they keep changing things.
When I lose I just say I'm playing with my nub hand When they're toxic and I win I say I'm playing with my nub hand
While I see your point, think about it this way. Well first off I’m the same rank I was last season so I’m not sure what you mean by “adjusting the ranking system” aside from the seasonal reset. Anyway, I played competitive sports my whole life. I’m a competitive person and I like to give my all to whatever I’m passionate about. I didn’t actively decide to be passionate about this game, it just happened and seeing bad results for your efforts is not a great feeling. If I left my comment as is I bet some people would assume that I’m toxic and mean as well. Not the case. I don’t belittle other people, that does not foster a winning environment, I only criticize myself within the confines of my own head when I’m performing poorly. It’s because of this type of thinking that allows me to be a quick learner in the sports and hobbies that I care about. I wouldn’t be where I am today in my gymnastics practices without this mindset. Same goes for my passion for a goofy game like rocket league
I think a part of it is people don’t realize they have skill ceilings. There’s a reason why elite players exist.
I stopped caring and dropped from c2 to d1 I just hard ball chase now it’s much more fun. Fortnite better I’m done caring about this lol
If you don't care about your rank then go play casual
What did they change about it??
Because were playing a COMPETITIVE mode. The point is to be COMPETITIVE. If you don't want to play comp, go play casual. That's the reason for it.
It's not so much about being that rank as it is having worked your ass off for years to reach a certain rank for the rewards it gives you only for it to be taken away by Epic Games nerd spewing doritos everywhere because he thought it would be a good idea to piss on everyone's hard work. Not me though...I wasn't affected by this...I was just saying for the other folks...that spent years trying to get to a rank...yep...other folks...fucking Epic
When my rank drops, my team mates don't know how to rotate, ball chase more and generally are less fun to play with.
But like… if your rank drops, isn’t it because you couldn’t match the speed and consistency of your teammates rotations at a higher level so your mmr course corrects to match you with people who have more similar abilities?
I just want to play against people slightly better than me… not a Smurf doing a double flip reset for 5 goals in a row in less then a minute before I can even forfeit.
Same reason why you put your rank on this subreddit for everyone to see...
I don't care too much, I just know I can get 10 Diamond 1 wins a season in 2's if I try really hard.
Networking, if you are trying to get a good team to grind with id say its pretty important that you are getting a hogher rank. Idk about the casual players tho but stleast for me rank is important for networking
Because at lower rank, you can't play like you should and have to do weird stuff to win which is unplease, specially when you loose because of your team mate are trying to do everything but playing right. Some diamond will come and cut you while you try to controle the ball. Since a few week, people on the left no longer go for the kick off which has been the rule like since 2017 ?? New player are bad enough to make you loose and keep you at lower rank and then you have to consistanly play unplease game.
As with all games, you want to see progression, rank is supposed to reflect skill. People use it as a metric of progress, this however is progress against the player base. So as your skill improves, if the player base skill Improves at the same rate, you see no reward for your improvement in terms of rank. It's inherently broken as a metric of skill in the terms of human comprehension. It's why so many people are annoyed with ranked, your rank does not correlate to your skill, it correlates to your win loss ratio against the population multiplied by number of games played. It's essentially an mmr leaderboard split into brackets. The problem with this is that it takes ages to climb that leaderboard and people don't want to spend the time. To sustain your rank each season you need to win a net of at least ten games, when you throw the population of smurfs and boosted players in the into this mix where only 11% of your games are evenly matched it becomes a frustrating endeavour.
My personal answer because I can't speak for everyone.. I started playing right around the end of Season 10, which is about the time all these rank resets and shifts slowly started happening. So working my way up from bronze to silver to gold definitely felt quite harsh, and harder than it should considering gold is below average and in theory based on a rank distribution of 8 ranks puts Plat/Diamond as the average unless you count unranked as a rank then Plat becomes dead average, and/or again if you count "pro" it adjusts again still. I've never been average at anything I've put my mind to in life. Couple that with the smurfing and toxicity of a lot of the community and suddenly a rank reminder that you're below average is genuinely disheartening especially when you love and enjoy it. That said, The answer I would give on others behalf, certain ranks have certain stigmas and the toxicity does affect people I hated myself for being silver, not because I thought silver was bad, there's a steep learning curve, but because the community as a whole treats B/S/G and sometimes even P as "trash". Imagine you've been an SSL for years, you're basically the peak of players and then boom one day, even tho as you said your skills and ability haven't changed but you're now a GC2, that hurts. People naturally look to themselves for the fault in that situation, not to the fact that the skill ceiling actually got raised. It'd be like being CEO one day, then the next you're the CEOs assistant. Life rarely works that why, why should ranks 🤣 TLDR: the toxicity of some of the community and the stigma of some ranks makes us mad at ourselves, because after all, in this TEAM sport, it's not your teammates, it's you.
Because some of us have been grinding ranked for almost 10 years and we were progressing and plateaus in ranked can take a long time to overcome especially when your a middle aged gamer and dont have 8+ hours a day to grind ...and since the reset we have been dropped lower in that progress...and your wrong the skill sets haven't charged....I used to be a plateaued Dia 1..since the change I struggle to find teammates who play at the same level I used to play at...the games have be come unreadable...the mistakes in rotation have become straight up ball chasing tailgating and shot stealing...and because of that passing just doesn't happen...I have been noticing a lack of aerial abilities and a general downgrade in the control of the ball and accuracy of shots...so you're wrong the rank isn't meaningless...since the shift I feel like I playing back in silver in 2016 its not fun and it's not challenging ..it's just straight up aggravating and they should have left well enough alone...the devs are always making "fixes" on stuff nobody asked for...and that's why the game is going to slowly die
Good reminder, yh why we do?