This is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to Rocket League, but is geared towards a novice player who wants to be useful without having perfected their abiltity to control the vehicle. This is not a replacement for the in-game tutorial. All of the rules of thumb in this guide have exceptions, and are aimed toward novice players facing novice to intermediate players or bots.

Rocket League has a very high skill ceiling, and skill takes time to build. Vehicle handling, ball handling, and aerial maneuvers in particular will test new players. Strategic thinking can equalize this disadvantage. If you are able to think strategically, you will have more opportunities to use relatively easy shots to control the flow of the game.

New players will often focus too narrowly on their immediate surroundings. If you pay attention to the ebb and flow of the game, you will learn where you need to be to redirect the flow to your team's benefit.

You should be spending nearly all your time with ball camera on, although it will initially make your timing worse when trying to land shots. I tend to keep ball focus on unless I'm trying to line up a demolition boost, gain better situational awareness of the players around me, or very rarely while attempting to line up a difficult shot.

Simply looking at the ball is not enough. Train your brain to focus on predicting the motion of the ball. The ball tends to move in recognizeable patterns across the stadium (and particularly along the walls of the stadium). If you can anticipate where the ball is likely to be before your opponents, you can spend time lining up a shot or clearing the ball without interference.

As a new player, you will probably be a nearly useless static goal tender. However, clearing the ball is one of the most useful things you can do for your team. While the enemy is capable of scoring theoretically from anywhere on the map, most scoring shots are taken as the ball rolls gently past the goal. Preventing a slow moving ball from entering this striking zone is the key to defense.

While on defense, whack the ball hard towards the corners and walls of the stadium to keep the ball moving fast while defending, so if it does move through the striking zone it moves through it quickly. Against less skilled players or bots, simply keeping the ball moving can prevent most shots on your goal.

If the ball is zig-zagging across the field, position yourself next to the ball and use side-boosts to angle the ball towards the enemy's side of the field.

If the ball is rolling along your goal's wall, whack it hard into your corner and it will probably start rolling up the wall towards the enemy side. After the ball starts gaining momentum towards the enemy side of the field, another hard whack towards the enemy corner will likely arc the ball up along the enemies wall, hopefully causing the ball to land right in front of the enemy's goal.

While on offense, the strategy is inverted from the above section. You generally want to make sure the ball is controlled, moving slowly, and spending as much time as possible in the enemy's striking zone.

As a new player, you will do better setting up assists and using your strategic thinking to keep the ball on the enemy's side of the field than you will simply going for goals. Think about how you would clear the ball, and try to anticipate and redirect as much as possible. If the ball is moving parallel to the midfield line, whack the ball hard at shallow angles towards the enemy's side to prevent clearing and maintain threat. Use bounces off the enemies corners to hopefully arc the ball up the enemies wall so that it lands in front of their goal. Follow this arc on the outside and you may even be able to score with a side-boost as the ball lands.

If you must take a frontal shot, be careful, as missing the goal and hitting the enemies rear wall will cause the ball to rebound back to midfield, allowing the enemy to score a runaway goal uncontested. This is one of the most common strategic mishaps I see amongst new players, and one which I constantly have to remind myself not to commit.

Another common misplay amongst new players is blindly chasing the ball. This can lead to a humorous peewee soccer effect if players are too narrowly focused on staying near the ball. It can also lead to a lot of unintentional disasters as players accidentally interfere with their teammates or even score on their own goal.

Do not simply chase the ball, particularly when it is headed towards your goal. Chase it with a plan of what you're going to do with it. If you follow the ball from behind, you will not be able to stop it. The only direction you will be able to move it is forward. If another player rear ends you, you could easily end up "scoring" on your own goal.

Unless you are attempting to score a runaway goal, you should never be right behind the ball, but rather drive next to it and use side-boosts to maintain control of it's trajectory.

As a new player, you will probably have difficulty pulling off aerial maneuvers. You will probably tend to over-boost at first, which will cause you to overshoot your objective and run out of boost when you do need it the most.

Boost should be reserved, until your skills improve, for catching up to the ball when it flies in an unanticipated or dangerous direction, or just before contact with the ball to improve the hit.

Demolitions are usually only useful while defending, as the destroyed player will respawn in a good defensive position. It's not a waste either, however, so always get a demolition if you can.

Also, learn all the boost pad positions so that you can hit them while locked in ball camera.

Hitting a friendly player can cause all sorts of problems. Aside from being annoying, the collision can knock both you and the other player away from the action long enough for the enemy to take advantage. While there are rare circumstances where boosting into a friendly player is beneficial (at kickoff typically), it usually takes more coordination than you will find in your typical pick up game.

Conversely, you want to be actively interfering with your opponent's driving if possible. While clearing and controlling the ball are top priority, in larger games knocking enemy players near your goal that are slowing down to line up a shot can be useful. Just be careful to hit them well before the ball gets there.

As you play, your ability to get the ball and your vehicle to behave as you want will naturally improve. A hallmark of a skilled Rocket League player is their ability to use vertical space. By driving on the walls of the stadium, or using the booster for short controlled flight, you can learn to control the ball whilst midair. Most of the tactics listed in this guide will not be able to counter a skilled player who can control vertical space, which is why it is so important that you begin learning how to fly sooner rather than later.

Take a step back. Avoid getting caught up in what you're doing. Instead, pay attention to what is actually happening. If you do this, you will be better than many Rocket League players already.