Of course, individual skill is a huge part of Rocket League. From the start, we focus primarily on improving our own gameplay and mechanical ability, but as the ranks increase, the importance of team synergy and working collaboratively with your other two teammates becomes ever-growing. How you fit in with your team's method of play is crucial to work out, and there are so many more aspects to teamwork than you might first think.

To uncover some of these, I talked to Pierre "Turbopolsa" Silfver for his advice for efficient team play.

Communication



In the higher ranks, you will most likely find that communicating with your teammates is extremely important. This does not necessarily mean using voice chat, as there is a handy quick chat option available to you, which can be easily used to throw out quick commands to your teammates or to inform them on what you are about to do.

However, using voice chat is much more effective, as you are not limited from the in-game quick chat. Although there is no real limit to voice chat in terms of the range of communication you can have, it is important to know how much communication to use in a match, and therefore when it is too much.

When asked how frequently a player should use communication in voice chat, Turbopolsa said, "It's important to not callout unnecessary stuff to avoid distracting your teammates under high pressure. Of course, sometimes you forget that there's other people in the comms when frustrating moments come, but you just gotta find a way to balance that out."

We can take from this that using your voice to communicate to your teammates should be kept to a level where it is only necessary. Calling things out that are not at all essential to your team's success is certainly unnecessary and should be cut out to avoid putting your teammates off. Similarly to what was said by Turbopolsa, becoming frustrated may mean that you forget you are in a chat with other people, but this all comes down to your mentality as a player and proves why it is so important to keep it calm while in your matches.

For a further insight into professional communication, we asked Turbopolsa what kind of callouts he typically makes, to which he responded, "I only call simple stuff like 'he's up' or 'I'm mid' etc. I think it's important to be quick with your comms so the shorter the word, the better it is when it's a close and fast game."

Examples of good callouts, then, might include:

"I'm up"

"I'm mid"

"Center"

"Right/Left"

"To you"

However, examples of inefficient callouts might include:

"I'm going for boost"

"I'm coming back"

"Hit that over to me"

In a nutshell, then, the more concise your callouts are, the more efficient they are. A lot of the time, in fact, reducing your callouts to singular words such as a couple of the examples shown above can work perfectly well as a substitute for a full sentence, despite it being so short.

Team Positioning

When on the field, you and your teammates should be positioned in a manner that is defensive but also up on offense. This commonly comes through rotations but knowing precisely where your teammates are on the field can be tough.

When asked if he looks around for teammates a lot or just expects them to know where to be, Turbopolsa stated, "You can't rely on your teammates communicating where they are 100% of the game. Personally, I'm using the camera to see where my teammates and opponents are more than relying on my teammates."

Generally, then, it is better to take matters in your own hands in knowing where your teammates will be on the field. You should be using your camera to check around you if looking for a teammate to pass to or to simply assess the situation. Many players forget to look around them, especially in the lower ranks, but as you climb the ladders, you should ask questions such as:

Where is a teammate nearby that I can pass to?

Is it safe to pass to a teammate or are there opponents that can block me off?

Are there any opponents nearby? Can I just go for the shot if not?

Although this seems a lot to be thinking about in one match, the process of asking yourself these questions will become natural with a lot of time. Eventually, you will find yourself looking for opponents and teammates all around you, and this will certainly guide you the right direction in becoming a smarter player.

However, it is just as important, if not more important, to know how to position yourself. When asked, Turbopolsa addressed this point by saying, "Knowing where to be requires game knowledge and brain. Knowing how to rotate is a big part in positioning and it comes with time, and definitely don't expect it to be perfect because no one rotates or positions themselves perfectly, even pros."

Rotational ability is important in keeping a constant flow with your teammates and often comes hand-in-hand with knowing where each player is. Turbopolsa makes a good point here, though, as there is no such thing as constant perfect positioning. Everyone messes up at times and this cannot be helped, so try your best not to become too frustrated at teammates for positioning themselves poorly at one particular time. However, positioning yourself poorly very frequently can cause issues for your team in general.

Elaborating on the importance of positioning, Turbopolsa claimed, "If you are out of position you can easily lose the game by just not getting boost and losing the momentum. If you have to turn around and make very haste movements, then you lose time and boost because you didn't position yourself correctly from the start."

Basically, being out of position can be the losing factor of a match, as it has a knock-on effect on not only you, but your team as a whole. You may find yourself scrambling to get back into position or make "haste movements", as said by Turbopolsa. Wasting time, especially in these higher ranks and at the highest level of play, can be a huge problem, as the speed of gameplay at these levels is very, very fast.

Effective Rotations

As mentioned previously, rotational ability is key in team play. To get an idea of the importance of rotations, we asked Turbopolsa, to which he said, "Every team has their own playstyle. I can't really tell if it's important or not since it really depends on the playstyle you have. Why TSM is so good right now is because they are fast and rotate very well, which means that as soon as someone went for the ball, another guy appears from nowhere and you really don't have time to act when playing versus them."

Each player plays with their own style and no one player is identical to another. This brings up why it is so important to understand your teammates and how vital it is to be able to fit in with your team. Rotations, generally, are quite important, although some teams may find success in different forms of positioning. Classic rotations are reliable, however, and can be practiced in every match you have with your team.

Individuality vs. Team Play

Sometimes a decision should be made in a match that regards how you are going to score the next goal. If you have possession over the ball, for example, you have a choice of passing to a nearby teammate (assuming they have positioned themselves for a pass) or to simply go for the shot yourself.

When asked how he knows when to pass to a teammate instead of just shooting, Turbopolsa said, "Depends on how the person in goal is positioned. Usually an infield pass is way harder to defend, so I opt to go for the pass, even though sometimes in a fast play it's hard to make a decision that everyone agrees is the right one. For example, if I come from the side and I see the goal and the defender and the guy in the middle waiting for a pass only sees the ball and not the defender, and he has no idea what I see, sometimes disagreement can come from that example."

This all stems from what you can see in a play versus what your teammate might see in a play. This links back to all the points mentioned above, in fact, as communication, solid positioning and effective rotations can all help in working effectively and not getting frustrated with one another.

Overall, team play is extremely important, especially as you climb the rankings. At the level Turbopolsa is at, team play comes naturally but also requires a vast amount of time, dedication, and commitment in order to come to terms with how your teammates play and adapting your playstyle at the same time in order to fit in with this style.