Matches with friends and strangers | Types of matches depending on the number of players Rocket League Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Matches with friends and matches with complete strangers are very different from each other in Rocket League and the differences can be noticed in many aspects of the game. You should always try and play with your friends if possible, even if they're not professionals when it comes to performing advanced aerial shots or other complex moves. When playing with friends you can organize your tactics even before the match has started. It's a good idea to figure out what each person is best at and then taking on that job. Communicating during a match is equally important and doing this can significantly increase the success rate of all of your actions. You should always inform your teammates about things like being close to passing a ball or the need to go back to protect the goal when the other team begins their attack.
When you're playing against strangers you lose most of the advantages mentioned above. You can't plan the match even before it's started and you can also have some serious issues trying to communicate with other players. This can lead to very dangerous situations like leaving the goal unguarded or attacking the ball by all the players at the same time. There are some ways to make these kinds of problems less noticeable and less annoying. One of the most important things to do is to try and observe your team members during various situations on the field. After you've completed a few matches as a team you'll know more about their favorites styles of play and their strongest moves on the field. A thing worth mentioning is that you don't have to rely only on voice communication, because the game also allows to send text messages to other players. If you're playing the PC version you can consider typing short comments yourself. The PS4 also offers a chance to use the keyboard, but typing is much slower for obvious reasons and it's not a good idea to use it, especially during dynamic matches. Instead of typing things you can rely on sending short messages from the in-game lists. You can display the lists by pressing directional buttons on the controller (D-pad) and each list contains four messages. Some of them are irrelevant, but some are useful. For instance, you can inform your team members that you'll be defending the goal or that you're close to passing the ball.
Important - Don't expect to encounter players in online matches for 100% of the time, because in certain situations bots can appear in their absence. You can decide whether you want bots to join the matches or not in the online settings. Aside from that the bots usually appear when one of the players has suddenly left the game and the purpose for that is to maintain similar chances for winning for both teams. Thankfully the "summoned" bots rarely stay in the game until the end of the match, because the game actively seeks new gamers and when it has found one the bot is automatically replaced by a living person. You can quickly check if you're playing with people or with bots by holding the button/key responsible for showing the current scoreboard - bots don't have avatars and they are marked with the AI sign.