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Published by Richard on January 15th, 2017

Published by Richard on January 15th, 2017

One thing that works for remembering things, at least when I know I need to call upon them in the near future, is index cards. Since starting learning a new language (Icelandic), and, separately, realizing over the holidays that I had lost sight of some important goals, with the added complexities of aging and a more complex life with a new job in a new city, index cards re-entered my life as a necessary tool.

Guides for using them suggest you make your own, and in the two cases where I needed them (for studying Mandarin Chinese and studying for a streetcar driving test), that worked. I hadn’t considered actually constructing my, though until I came across a guide from chinesehacks.com on how to make my own index cards on a keyring. I found all the items for cheap at Daiso’s Vancouver location over the holidays.

There’s no obstacles to stopping me from making them now. I’m going to start small (another thing that works in learning something new) and make one that lists the tasks during my Sunday routine (something else that works in offloading the work my brain needs to do). I can’t wait to see how this goes!

I still play Rocket League. Despite being an Expert, I still make the same mistakes, unable to time a shot when my teammate centers the ball and unwilling to be as aggressive as everybody else. I have had to hide my level because it incurred criticism (“You’re an Expert and you’re this bad?”) from people who were supposedly trying to help me win games. At least the reporting mechanism seems to have resulted in fewer comments that were truly abusive. I can take the criticism to heart, just not the insults.

I continue to be awed by the amount of software built (like Rocket League Stats, where you can see my ranking) and the community discussions and the training guides people create. I continue to be awed by the updates Pysonix makes to the game, continuously adding improvements while sticking to their original vision of no buying your way to powering up. The mode with randomly-assigned powerups during the course of the game could not have been more ingenious. I even stumbled on a group of guys who wanted me to join their party and play with the microphone on, so they got to hear the sounds I made but also heard how players communicate using more than just the pre-fab in-game texting feature.

The only thing I would change about the game as it stands now is the starting points, which have predictable strategies associated with them. If starting points were themselves randomized and not matched up on the other end (as an option, say, in the non-competitive leagues), it would add another layer of difficulty while staying true to the game.

I continue with my attitude of praising the other team for great shots, reporting abusive players (or muting them if they are being sarcastic towards me), and hope to continue a new approach of being more aggressive when fighting for a ball and communicating more internally with a teammate. During any games where I blow out my opponents, I will still take my pedal off the gas and try to get the other team (or single player on the other side) the chance to improve on their play. I also want to get genuinely good at the game, assuming I can squeeze time out from my other pursuits. Rocket League continues to be fun, and continues to lead the way in making the game incrementally better.

Rocket League Season 3 was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Published by Richard on September 17th, 2016

Published by Richard on September 17th, 2016

Published by Richard on September 4th, 2016

Published by Richard on September 4th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 10th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 10th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 7th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 7th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 4th, 2016

Published by Richard on May 4th, 2016

Published by Richard on April 24th, 2016

Published by Richard on April 24th, 2016

Since we last spoke, I went on a trip to Europe, started a new job, and moved across Canada. In the 4 or 5 months since my rant about Rocket League’s ranked play changes, Season 2 went live with some great improvements. Rocket League publisher Psyonix released a significant update that included muting reporting users, a restructured competition level system, and some experimental stadiums. Also, I’ve been blown out a mere 3 or 4 times, a huge improvement over the frustration I felt with online play before. All have renewed my interested in car soccer.

Muting and Reporting Users

One frustration with the game is players giving up on the actual game (say, I’m getting crushed) and targetting me for blowing me up. Or just straight knocking me around for no strategic reason. Now I can report them for unsportsmanlike behaviour and let Psyonix take a look. Do I know what the repercussions are for being a jerk in the game? Not really. It still feels good to make it someone’s job to review the game to see what I mean by it.

I tend to mute players who overuse the in-game communication, especially if it’s sarcastic. (I can tell.) The problem goes away when I mute them, only really doable after someone scores a goal, since I have the length of the replay to do it.

One drawback is you cannot report a user after they’ve left the game. There’s nothing to prevent someone from cheating (however that’s defined) or being unsportsmanlike (my most-reported category) if they leave just after the match is over.

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 — @sillygwailo

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 — @sillygwailo

function notifyResize(height) {height = height ? height : document.documentElement.offsetHeight; var resized = false; if (window.donkey && donkey.resize) {donkey.resize(height);resized = true;}if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var obj = {iframe: window.frameElement, height: height}; parent._resizeIframe(obj); resized = true;}if (window.location && window.location.hash === "#amp=1" && window.parent && window.parent.postMessage) {window.parent.postMessage({sentinel: "amp", type: "embed-size", height: height}, "*");}if (window.webkit && window.webkit.messageHandlers && window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize) {window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize.postMessage(height); resized = true;}return resized;}twttr.events.bind('rendered', function (event) {notifyResize();}); twttr.events.bind('resize', function (event) {notifyResize();});if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var maxWidth = parseInt(window.frameElement.getAttribute("width")); if ( 500 < maxWidth) {window.frameElement.setAttribute("width", "500");}}Blowouts

There are a few games where I’m down 5–0 with half the game left. The last time that happened, I decided to switch to playing the entire game backwards. My opponent caught on pretty quickly, turning a disappointing experience in to a fun occassion. During that particular game, I regret going forward a couple of times, but at least I was treating as “backwards” for the purpose of the rest of the game. My playbook for blowouts consisted of wishing my opponent “gg” and then re-doubling my efforts (if I’m on the losing end) and staying in goal the rest of the game (if I’m on the winning end). I like playing backwards as another option. Most times, though, the other player hasn’t caught on to what I’m doing.

Experimental Mapshttps://medium.com/media/81c44298c801335c373cb64a8eae3388/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/bc6a7a349b963206424cfab330328ae0/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/857bf0aed94ec21f8201baf5a28197ca/href

I agree in general with the sentiments in the videos above. The experimental maps are a breath of fresh air, as if the existing maps were stale.

Postscript

In the two weeks since writing the above, my mom visited me for the weekend, I got a bacterial infection, and took up cooking to pass the time, replacing some of the time spent playing video games. I also blazed through Occupied, the Norwegian action-political drama about a near-future takeover of the Nordic country by Russia. The new job and new city keep my away from my PS4, but I rediscovered the list of games I tracked, gardened it, and am working on a way to play video games while sitting on my Adirondack chair on my apartment patio. Yes, I bought Firewatch, and pre-ordered No Man’s Sky, and can’t wait to give David O’Reilly whatever he’s charging for Everything. And I plan on changing the title of this publication on Medium from “My Year of Gaming” to something more reflective of the fact that it’s been more than a year since I started playing video games again.

Rocket League Season 2 was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Published by Richard on February 1st, 2016

Published by Richard on February 1st, 2016

Rocket League is good. It’s first-ballot Video Game Hall of Fame good. Online play, especially in party mode, is crazy fun.

The premise: you drive a car of your own design in an arena-football-size stadium and strike a ball, itself about the size of your car, and try to score in the opponent’s net. The cars have rockets, and the rockets run out of fuel, which you can replenish by driving around to hotspots. Your car cannot receive damage during play, though an opponent can destroy you, if only for a few seconds. You can modify the car to your heart’s delight, though none of the modifications make you stronger. They just make you feel cooler. Only by practicing the moves possible in the game do you get better.

It’s soccer but with rocket cars.

https://medium.com/media/f1d0f28c59c95f79464a12dfbed31090/href

I first learned of Rocket League from a video that a friend posted online. “Yeah right,” I initially thought, “that doesn’t even make any sense.” Then friend after friend mentioned it, and PS Plus released it as their free game for August on the PS4. I surrender! After a couple of weeks of play, and a controller we bought for the express purpose of playing with Karen as a teammate, count me now as a big fan.

Except maybe less so after last week’s changes. Since then, ranked online play for middle-of-the-road-players (that would be me) is all but impossible, as veteran players have yet to rank up and out of the bronze level. Every game ends in a blowout, with me losing 10–2. One player even stopped playing just to ram into me. Why? Just because? Who loves being pushed around when you’re already guaranteed to lost the game? Why bother if it’s not fun?

It sounds like, based on the official explanation on Reddit of the changes, that ranking calculation has now taken priority over matchmaking due to a reset in how the game calculates uncertainty. The sanctioned space on Reddit for ranting about the game has my particular beef covered. So I don’t feel alone.

I thought if I stayed off of ranked Solo Duel for a while, I could wait out the veterans ranking up and out of my division. But then what? Does Rocket League then not get to learn from my blowout losses that I shouldn’t be playing against that level of player? The best idea I heard was to forfeit games that I am losing by a wide margin, so that neither I nor my opponent waste each other’s time.

I came up with a different approach to resist these changes. If I’m down by more than 5 goals about halfway through a match, I wish the other player “gg” (short for good game). The in-game keyboard defaulting to ‘g’ helps with that. It’s an honest appreciation for the player’s skill, as I stay fight the rest of the game. Maybe I learn a couple of things by watching a superior player, try out and maybe even accomplish a move I couldn’t dobefore, etc. It might feel like, for the opponent, a waste of time, but it isn’t a waste of time for me.

If a player acts aggressively during a blowout, which has happened, fuck that. The opponent is wasting both of our time. I’ll leave the game, or just sit there and type out something to ask them what they think they’re getting out of it. I assume Rocket League keeps stats of people leaving games during blowouts, and my forfeit will add to the data. I’m getting better, but still losing, and I’m almost at zero ranked points. My profile on Rocket League Stats says I have 3 ranked points which is, uh, very low.

I’ll be away from my beloved PS4 for about a month starting tomorrow, so I worry that it might seem that I’ve ragequit. While gathering my thoughts on the matter, matches seem to have gotten tighter, more enjoyable, especially now that I can see patterns from veteran players. One player just stayed in goal the whole game, made for a surprisingly tense, enjoyable 4–2 loss for me. Count me as still a fan.

Resisting Rocket League’s Ranked Play Changes was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.