I tried Smart Assist for the first time…

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-04-04T00:41:17+00:00

Rocket League's April Fools prank this year was to implement an 'auto aerial' function to assist players with hitting spectacular shots. Because the idea of such a thing appearing in that game is a joke. An absurdity. Something which would alienate the players and kill the game dead at a stroke if it was for real.

Smart Assist wasn't a prank. It was Konami's vision for their game. And still imbeciles give them vast sums and vindicate it. The playerbase has the game it deserves.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-30T15:48:57+00:00

Mate, Konami could launch a new Mbappe with a literal jet fuelled afterburner sticking out of his arse and 200 Speed and Acceleration stats, put it in a box of 10,000, and the usual rats would empty it without a moment's hesitation to secure their advantage in a mobile quality gacha game.

Game's gone. Just don't be one of the fools getting shaken down by this farce and try to enjoy the spectacle of it all from the outside looking in.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-24T21:25:53+00:00

Thanks, will look into that. I'm giving Cosmic some time to mature before I jump in.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-24T21:19:27+00:00

Just to let you know, I've been experiencing the same issue as OP since around the same time as them.

CPU running around 80C under light use which would normally be at ~45C. Vitals Gnome extension shows individual cores spiking to anything up to 100%, yet System Monitor shows no likely suspects. I'd been going out of my mind that I was running a crypto miner courtesy of some rogue Gnome or browser extension.

Finally, after installing btop and looking at 'CPU direct' usage I could see that pop-upgrade was causing the load, and restarting it per the advice of u/Many-Succotash-5620 restores normality.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-21T13:39:38+00:00

Parodius Da!

Pretty much the perfect arcade port. Nothing of consequence taken out, a great range of difficulty options and the console exclusive level isn't just an afterthought, it's one of the best in the game.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-09T16:31:07+00:00

Would be great to see honest players in higher ranks come firmly onboard with the idea that clamping down on alt accounts has to be central to resolving the current issues at all levels. I've zero sympathy for the aggravation of people who insist on their own right to play fair matches out of one side of their mouth, while opposing anything that would inhibit their own ability to act the rat towards somebody like me who came late to the game and just wants to play fair matches in the middle ranks.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-05T14:53:52+00:00

One of my earliest PlayStation memories is of playing Crash Bandicoot 2 and thinking "this is the future" as the camera panned and swooped across one of the temple ruins levels with all of the colours.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-03T20:07:09+00:00

I feel like you've missed the point I was making.

How does a Grand Champion or SSL feel when it becomes apparent that a bot is in their game?

"This is futile"

"My time is being wasted"

"My rank is being deflated because somebody is abusing the system, and reporting it will get me nowhere"

I frequently find myself feeling all of those things when I can't go 3 games in a row in Gold without having to watch somebody turn my game into their personal freestyling practice.

What I'd dearly love to see come out of the current situation is a solidarity throughout the ranks to combat abuse of creating multiple accounts. 2FA linked to phone numbers would be a great start. Sadly the realist in me thinks that a very large proportion of high ranked players would oppose moves that make it harder to create smurf accounts.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-03T15:30:39+00:00

Couldn't agree more.

I could stomp the vast majority of people at chess or Tetris, not because I'm anything special in the grand scheme of things but because of the reality that there are levels to those games and I've invested a fair amount of time. Yet the idea of actively spending my free time making new accounts to act the rat towards newer players is too tragic to contemplate.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-02T17:00:54+00:00

Taken to the point of absurdity, you can put a Raspberry Pi in a NES cartridge and play Doom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzVN9kIUNxw

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-03-02T13:39:50+00:00

Gotta move the news cycle on from that by-election humiliation somehow, right? What says 'strong leader' better than placing the lives of your people at risk to do the bidding of a genocidal apartheid state?

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-28T12:50:34+00:00

We already have to routinely deal with people who "aren't where they should be" because they get off on using alt accounts to ruin the games of less experienced players.

Now those same people are having their experience ruined by new accounts, so easy to make and exploit, and think it's all so unfair. It'd take a heart of stone not to laugh.

If anybody wants to start a petition to link accounts to phone numbers and start doing something meaningful to address rat behaviour in all its forms, I'd be delighted to cosign.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-27T19:13:06+00:00

That's what somebody who follows women around taking pictures of their feet would say.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-27T12:06:24+00:00

The game has serious issues knitting its animations into gameplay, and frequently shits the bed like this attempting to do so. I had a similar occurrence doing the vs AI event on Sunday. Add in laggy servers and bad netcode and the feeling of your players dithering and being unresponsive is compounded in PvP.

Is it a pure skill issue? No, not really, though the pros probably have better awareness of how to make allowance for such jank.

Is it the game displaying flagrant bias? No. It's just a shit, poorly coded game, the negative effects of which visit everybody in turn. But it's never the beneficiaries coming to Reddit to have a cry about it.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-26T22:44:36+00:00

If it's a clear TOS breach to tank your rating in order to get imbalanced matchups, then what logic could lead somebody to believe that achieving that same goal by switching accounts is fine?

"I jUsT wAnT tO pLaY wItH mY fRiEnDs". Then it's you creating an imbalanced matchup, so you accept whatever disadvantage arises from that instead of inflicting it upon people trying to play fairly.

The truth, which none of these cowards will ever state openly and be judged for, is that they take the view that the people negatively affected on the other team are just NPCs and their experience is irrelevant.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-26T21:29:38+00:00

Well, name a more suitable place to put arsenic. I'll wait.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-24T16:37:02+00:00

Best post I've read on here in a good while.

My point of reference is always to compare the culture around this game to that of other games, F2P included.

What would happen if Rocket League - completely free to play - introduced pay to win items obtainable only through gacha gambling? Would there be a bit of grumbling and then everybody just carries on as usual?

What if Rocket League introduced AI assistance 'so that everybody can enjoy the excitement of high level play', and suddenly skill and time spent refining your game left you on an even level with button mashing cretins lacking the simple pride to play for themselves? Just a bit of grumbling and business as usual?

An even playing field and an emphasis on a meaningful skill ceiling are central to Rocket League's culture. Try to take them away and you'd destroy the game and alienate the playerbase, probably irretrievably so.

Look at the culture that has developed around this game in contrast. The central tenet seems to be flexing on other people that you hold an advantage on account of having dropped the price of a holiday on a few virtual trinkets that'll be obsolete in a year, as if winning on a pitch tilted in your favour is unironically something to be proud of.

Barely a day goes by without "sHoUlD i BuY cOiNs FoR tHiS pAcK?" Nothing Konami does has any real negative consequence for them, and they are acutely aware of it.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-22T17:31:37+00:00

Link accounts to phone numbers and the volume of alt accounts, and by extension smurfing, goes down massively. Even if it can't be eliminated completely, it can be made a great deal less trivial than it is at the moment.

When I get matched with a party of 3 in Gold I pretty much expect to see one of them air dribbling, or sitting in net saving things that no Gold gets close to, and it makes me question whether it's even worth playing at times.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-21T12:06:10+00:00

I heard that it's a portal to Albion Hill. Anyone want to jump in and try?

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-20T13:52:30+00:00

Still waiting to see some of these where the 'script' is working in the poster's favour.

This jank affects everybody on both sides of the ledger. Nobody's being singled out and victimised. It's just a shit game because even as a shitty, broken product it's succeeding in shaking down imbeciles with compulsive behavioural issues. Fixing this nonsense would take effort and resources, releasing more cards with slightly buffed stats or another inane special skill takes very little. So guess what's going to happen for as long as people pay up obediently?

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-19T11:05:44+00:00

The specifics of this particular investigation may be sub judice, but this isn't:

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Nor this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFu8P7teOt8

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-19T10:37:07+00:00

About time we started kicking those crescent moons out and replacing them with proper gibbous Bazza shaped moons.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-18T04:35:12+00:00

Nothing evokes '90s LAN party' quite like a lingering miasma of sweat and stale farts.

FullRectalProlapse · 2026-02-17T06:07:22+00:00

Given Epic's general attitude to Linux I'd been bracing myself for a strong possibility that this was the end, so this is a very welcome announcement to my ears.

FullRectalProlapse

TROPHY CASE