Earlier this week, Rocket League developers Psyonix hit a number of the game’s popular freestyling content creators with 30 day bans for “Unsportsmanlike Conduct.”
Freestyling is one of Rocket League’s many creative subcultures, where massively talented players engage in friendly competition with each other to score the craziest goals imaginable. These players take the game’s mechanics to the extreme, utilizing flip resets, flicks, passes, and air dribbles to score incredibly impressive goals. Psyonix and Ford even hosted a series of freestyling competitions to award one freestyler with a brand new Mustang.
Immediately, those in the freestyle community reacted to the bans, stating they felt that they were being banned for playing creatively in-game, and that Psyonix was suddenly exiling a community they had previously embraced with official events.
However, an official representative from Psyonix quickly posted a clarification on the official Subreddit: These users were not banned for freestyling, instead they were banned for forfeiting or intentionally throwing online matches to keep their rank artificially low. According to Psyonix, the banned users were ranked in casual playlists at Silver I, while their competitive playlist skill was at Grand Champion I — essentially top 2% ranked players purposefully losing matches to play against the bottom 1%. This practice, known as smurfing, is specifically prohibited in the Rocket League code of conduct.
Many in the freestyling community preferred to keep their ranking low to allow them to collect clips of their goals against easier opponents; it’s much easier to score off-the-wall goals against opposition who have no chance at saving the shots. Similarly, many in this community feel that scoring these goals in training or in private matches is inauthentic and less impressive.
MORE FOR YOU
Some who oppose the bans argue that the artificial de-ranking was only completed in the game’s Casual playlists. These playlists match players to similarly-skilled opposition, but do not affect progress towards end-of-season rank-based awards. In response, Senior Community Manager Devin Connors states: “Casual Playlists are meant to be enjoyed by all. There are many players who play Casual matches exclusively, and not just as a way to warm up for Competitive. This is the case across all online games that offer both Casual and Competitive environments … This is not the end of freestyling. We encourage the freestyling community to show off their mechanics against similarly-skilled opponents, as well as play in private matches with their friends and fellow freestylers.” It should also be noted that Rocket League’s official freestyling events were completed in private matches against other freestylers.
The response to the bans from the greater Rocket League community was very positive. Smurfing is a problem in all online competitive games, especially free-to-play games like Rocket League, and players are excited to see steps taken to reduce it.
While freestylers may feel it’s less impressive to score without authentic opposition, players are fed up with smurfing at all levels of play. There’s no doubt that freestylers are some of the most mechanically skilled players in the game, but Psyonix has made it clear that these players should consider others’ experiences while nailing their next trick shot.
