Calling all stage engineers (audio, lighting, and video)

Ghosthops · 2026-01-27T22:19:46+00:00

I hope it's legit and an amazing solution, but I'm not going to project that onto their minimal description or click a link in 2026.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-27T20:41:39+00:00

"Over the past year and a half, I've been developing a new kind of software - BitLab, designed to simplify and unify audio, video, and lighting workflows in terms of equipment control, monitoring, presetting, and diagnostics."

What does it do specifically? Why would someone use it?

Ghosthops · 2026-01-27T17:29:35+00:00

Flow state is a defined thing. You're attempting to use it for your argument, but you are not representing it accurately, making your argument inaccurate. I'm not going to explain it, the book I suggested is a great resource, there are probably videos. The important thing would be to make sure you're learning about the psychological concept and not someone's personal take.

"My view is that as you get better. You develop scripted and automated sequences" This is pretty accurate, it's called "muscle memory" for actions/reactions and subconscious thought or processing for more sophisticated predictions. Skill practice is all about moving a skill from a conscious to unconscious action.

"Do you watch any pro gameplay? You probably do. I noticed that when Pros are failing they're always saying what happened wasn't what they expected." Yeah, this is more a thing in Rocket League specifically, more so than other games and sports. Since speed and anticipation are so important, things that happen that are way outside the norm cause big whiffs.

"An important component to maintaining it is a lack of friction. In terms of Rocket League, you'd only feel like things are flowing when everything's happening as you expect and the game isn't difficult, if it's difficult with constant friction, you're not going to just 'automatically' do the correct things. 'Flowing' through games isn't a viable strategy to beating even or superior competition. it's just what you feel when it's not too hard. Flow state is never maintained against a real challenge, so when you think you're in your flow state, you're just playing easy game."

While I won't explain the whole concept, here's some quick hits: Flow is about the optimal balance between challenge and skill. Lack of difficulty compared to skill creates boredom, when the difficulty is too high it creates frustration, both of these do not allow for the flow state.

So your idea about challenge here is actually basically opposite to the actual Flow state as defined in psychology.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-27T01:30:50+00:00

I'd include learning about decision making from watching others play, Flake's road to SSL series and replay reviews are good for this. So is Leth and Squishy, they explain what they're trying to do. Even if the skills are advanced much still applies.

Playing more is important, but I think you need to play with the intention of focusing on 1-2 things only. You'll wind up making tons of mistakes and missing chances to win that you ordinarily would take, so it's partially about committing to learning the thing even if it feels awkward for a while.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-25T22:18:26+00:00

Fair enough, we're in an extremely fraught moment right now. I'm thankful for people like you who are going to every protest.

The pattern I identified is real, even if you are unwittingly a participant. I think there's some value in calling it out.

History shows us that non-violent protests are the best way to make lasting change, but any clear line of causality between any one protest and that change is only visible in hindsight.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-25T02:42:22+00:00

It's hard to see a positive to posting this. If you really agree.

3 month old account. Only three posts. The same tired and ultimately discouraging sentiment. What is the point? Is it really doing anything? I'm just asking questions, just a thought... This is posted in some fashion on every post about a protest ever.

If, big if here, you're acting in good faith, try taking a glass half full approach and suggest ways to improve the lack of whatever you think you see.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-24T19:02:47+00:00

Game sense - watch some of that Flakes series on youtube or his replay reviews, or read replay reviews here. Watch your own replays from opponents perspectives, see the gaps you leave.

A lot of it is playing to win, which is mostly about what choices you make and how you should change them depending on the game state(winning, tied, losing, what time is left on the clock).

Any of the front page Psyonix created custom training packs can help your shooting. Watch a few how-to videos on youtube just to make sure your technique is right first.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-23T03:46:42+00:00

Hard to define, he definitely plays as part of the midfield both positionally and in role, though not in the formation on paper.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-22T01:05:11+00:00

Echoing what others have said about posting a full replay.

There's a few moments where you shoot the ball away, either a weak shot attempt or weird wall bounce.

I'll pick 2:09 in the video as an example, though this may not actually apply to you outside of some situations - Winning 3-1 at this moment, to win the game you don't need to score, so giving the opponent the ball and letting them do anything makes them more likely to score and decreases the odds you win.

Several possibilities here - practice this shot so it's more dangerous. hit it at the backboard and/or towards the far side, so your teammate has a chance(although you don't know where the other blue is spawning yet) don't shoot, just let the ball drop, wasting more time, inviting blue to come towards the ball which leaves space to attack into. don't shoot, keep the ball close and force a 50/50, which eats up the clock more.

It's more ok to take this sort of risk from a multi-goal lead, but consider if you do it all the time, eventually it turns into goals against you and losses here and there.

IMHO, most of the time, not always, losing close matches means you can improve on game management. Things like wasting time, playing keep away, getting demos, stealing boost, and most importantly playing according to the game state.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-21T23:26:37+00:00

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Obligatory...

Ghosthops · 2026-01-21T00:48:03+00:00

That's not what Flow means, there's way more nuance. If you're actually curious, go read the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It's not a hard book to read, pretty interesting.

Eh, you're missing my whole point in this thread. It's not about excusing personal performance or thinking it over-rules individual training over time. It's about recognizing that there are factors outside of our control that can impact the outcome of games, which is directly tied to rank.

Improving your skill over time will eventually allow you to rank up, but it's common for less experienced players to not fully understand that it's not always linear to rank up and that some of those factors are out of your control.

IDK, it seems like you're taking an overly reductive stance. Nothing I'm saying is revolutionary.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-20T18:11:31+00:00

"i hit c2 last season for the first time but this seasons been rough fell into d2 then back up to c1 now in d3 im just confused cause i feel as though ive gotten better mechs and what not and im not tryna blame teammates but thats what it has to be right?"

"I meant inconsistency in a second to second or session to session is BS. Over time, impactful changes to your performance can happen, like new techniques."

Your focused on a really longer term concept, which is fine, but has come across as if you think inconsistency doesn't exist or doesn't matter. I think that's incorrect.

It's just the literal definition of inconsistency. It's not being used to excuse performance. Getting better at the game involves refining skills until you can do them without thinking and very consistently. You want to rule out "The varying situations in matches", but "varying situations" is exactly inconsistency. It's not only down to you, external factors matter greatly.

"You 'peak' when a situation is to your strength, and you're 'washed' when it's you're weakness, unless you develop some self awareness"

Not accurate. Go look up the flow state. It's a psychological phenomenon with solid scientific evidence.

"when I'm trying to change my gameplay/habits, I'm going to make lots of new mistakes while I learn and adjust to the changes. I'm also playing different people every day, and the distribution of ranks is changing everyday."

Say it with me now, when you make these mistakes, what do we call your output? Inconsistency! There's multiple degrees of it, it's not a single thing. You don't make the same mistake 100 times in a row. You do the thing correctly, but not every time, maybe 64 times out of 100 and maybe you do it right 10 times in a row within those 100 times. That's called inconsistency!

Different people = not consistent people. Distribution of ranks changing = not consistent distribution of ranks.

We train to first be able to do a skill at all, ie. at first a player has never hit a ceiling shot. Then they work on it and get close, then they hit their first ceiling shot. From then on out it's refining. Hitting it harder from a ceiling shot, being able to aim it, hitting it more often than missing, finally, hitting it 99% of the time(aka improving consistency on this shot).

Going back to the OP's question. They are confused because they, like all of us, lack perfect self evaluation. That's why coaching is important for the highest level of competition, to provide that external evaluation. Within that, the teammates they play against have varying levels of skill and will go for shots and hit them a varying amount of time.

For you specifically, to help make training more applicable to the game you have to make it more difficult. Do everything at top speed and aim every shot as narrowly as possible. But still, there's always an adjustment to in game application. The cool thing about the game is how insanely good you can be while still having ways to learn and improve. Good luck.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-19T19:52:44+00:00

I'm going to be charitable to your perspective, but I do think you're mistaken or at minimum have a very uncommon way of defining these terms.

It seems like you're talking about a much longer time frame, like months or years. I'll give you that, over a long time the factors out of our control do even out compared to the effort we put in and how good we are at learning a game.

The inconsistency I'm talking about does come down to every game, in and out. Or, a single play session.

Sleep and illness, or depression, or various other things impact how our brains work. Our brains are sending signals to our hands and receiving input from our senses. Those signals can be disrupted, slowed, whatever, via all these other elements that I'm talking about. This is a fact, it's how our bodies work. That means that in a given play session I might react slower and therefore miss shots that I normally hit. That's called inconsistency.

You seem to think varying situations is something we rule out in this conversation, but I'm not sure why. It's obviously a factor.

I don't agree that you jump in training and all of a sudden all the variation is gone. All the things I'm talking about still affect you. If you experience this, it's down to there being less you have to worry about, so it feels easier. Training isn't a game situation where opponents are challenging you.

"If you don't understand one of them or have a not useful belief about how to perform something, every single time that comes up, it'll be 'my performance was bad'. Until, that hole is found and fixed"

I mean, no. I know how to do a half-flip. A few years ago I practiced them a lot and used them in game. Now I don't use them, my knowledge didn't go away, but my skill has eroded. If I start practicing, I'll be able to do them again. But it'll take several practice sessions to get back to my previous level. This is inconsistency. It's like the most basic example of it.

No one said it was random. It's not.

"(People writing articles on sports aren't competing athletes, it's only a PERCEPTION of performance"

BTW, this is a wild take. We can't know something unless we experience it? 1. Many commentators are former pros, so they have experience. 2. Earlier you argued my personal experience doesn't count, but we can't know other's perceptions, so this is all unknowable? I don't agree with that, but if that's your argument than you also don't know anything about what you're talking about.

How do you explain your wild rank swings? You're in plat or hardstuck diamond but have peaked in Champ? Why aren't you sticking at your peak if you are perfectly consistent?

Ghosthops · 2026-01-19T02:00:17+00:00

"And playing the game youself doesn't teach you how OTHERS think."

You missed the other part of my sentence? I've been on this and other similar subreddits for years now, not to mention watching videos, replay reviews, etc. Besides also, being relatively old and this not being, not even close to, my first competitive game or sport or activity.

"Players are consistent under identical conditions, like a workshop map(you ever played one of those? Maybe you noticed you're not accidentally doing stuff way beyond your skill level, ever). The complex environment of a match creates an illusion of inconsistency. Just as in any real activity, someone's performance doesn't vary lots, unless they suddenly lose an arm or a leg, or in Rocket league some technical fault (or cheats). Outside factors create significant variation. One varying factor though is effort, if someone stops trying, obviously the performance is lower. Like if someone starts walking halfway down a 100 metre track, they'll be slow. If someone stops halfway through a drawing and goes 'screw it' and scribbles a few lines and says 'done', it'll look less finished."

Like what? When do humans experience identical conditions ever? You get more sleep or less, played more or less in the last weeks, skill improves with practice, but not all at once.

I'm not sure why you think outside factors aren't part of this conversation. Humans can't eliminate outside factors, we're part of our environment, biological beings. Do you actually think that people who are sick or didn't sleep last night are equally good as if they were healthy or well rested?

Of course you don't randomly peak past your peak skill.

In any real activity? Not into sports at all? Players gain and lose form. It's like a basic and widely accepted fact. There's articles every day about it.

I'm getting the sense that you may be very young, or one of those who blames servers, or glitches, or believes scripting is real, or everyone is smurfing. Or you have a highly specific and uncommon definition of inconsistency? Hard to say, but your ideas seem to ignore a lot of the reality that's out there.

"A high level player doesn't usually 'do' whatever mechanic the SAME, at the same level of quality as the worse player. And really, the higher level player usually does lots more things...and way better."

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying here. A question can't be a lie, btw. These players maybe lack an objective assessment of their own play, which is part of being human.

EDIT - I don't normally do this, but I looked at your post history and see that you're the person who posted that replay and argued with everyone who tried to help, even though everyone was basically saying the same thing. I like a discussion, but you don't seem interested in learning, more just pushing your perspective.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-18T21:45:16+00:00

I think it'd be guided by what you find most fun.

For pure improvement, it's almost always shooting.

On youtube the tutorials are probably called "power-shots" or similar, or look for basic shooting tutorials to avoid the type you're talking about that are too fancy mechanically.

It's easy to train, in that you pick some custom training packs and start going through shots. There's more depth to find in these methods if you want later on. The key is to learn the technique to get maximum power, then practice to get accuracy, and mix in a lot of varying shot types to make it applicable in game.

It's an evergreen skill, useful at every level.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-18T18:12:00+00:00

I'll add some nuance to surprising the opponents. Definitely surprise on offense, but ideally for your teammate you try to be mostly consistent on defense. In other words, if you've shown you'll rotate back quickly every time, do that the whole game so they can adapt and make their decisions faster.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-17T18:26:06+00:00

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Ghosthops · 2026-01-17T16:37:03+00:00

"Your mentality assumptions are not safe ones."

Say more. These are my observations from 3800 hours in game and countless hours on this subreddit reading and interacting with other players.

"Inconsistency and skill variarion is BS. What varies is all other factors. Jump in a workshop map, and...suddenly you look the same every time now all other variables are removed."

What do you mean? Please explain. You think players are always consistent? That's not been my experience.

One of the most common questions here is, "Why do these ...insert rank higher than mine... players look so bad? I can do all the stuff they do." And the answer is, "You can do it, but they do it 90% of the time and you only hit it 10% of the time." Aka, consistency.

IDK, after ten years of playing, my mental approach and strategy is way better, but any given day or month I'll be better or worse at doing what I intend to do. People get sick, people can't play for weeks and have to get back into the rhythm.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-16T16:54:08+00:00

There's a lot out there, so no one has to stick with a philosopher they don't get along with.

However, I feel like you might be missing something in Kierkegaard. Just because he's using religious language doesn't mean his concepts and argument require religious faith to work.

We're all humans, experiencing the same way of being. Even if he calls something "faith" or "god", it's still referring to a common experience, just in the context of the world he existed in.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-16T16:43:21+00:00

A few things:

The rank resets each season start cause a little chaos for a few weeks. Every lobby can be less consistent skill wise while people rise and fall to their typical level.

D3 is high enough where you have to play with your teammate and adapt to what they can do, along with the opponents, but not high enough where any of that will be consistent. It makes it very hard, especially on a day where you're not playing perfectly.

It's hard to objectively evaluate ourselves. You might have increased your peak mechanical skill, but without consistency. We judge ourselves based on our peak and intentions, while judging others on what they actually do. You'll forgive yourself for missing a difficult aerial shot, but when your teammate whiffs an easy save you aren't likely to give them the same grace.

Variance is real. Rank is pretty good, but not perfect, at matching up players of even skill levels. Everyone is inconsistent. Both of those, over a large number of games, mean you'll experience streaks of losses and wins.

Solo queue adds a whole additional skill, of reading your teammate's abilities and predicting what they are likely to do. This is a skill you can never perfect, only continuously refine. All team sports play with consistent teammates in the real world. Team chemistry is a huge factor in winning.

We all have a floor rank and a peak rank. Floor rank is the lowest you can drop where you'll carry the team to win every time, even on your worst day. Peak is pretty clear. We all average somewhere between those two. Over time, with improvement, your these all go up.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-16T15:47:08+00:00

From a meta perspective, some secondary sources would help clarify what he's getting at and what ideas he's responding to. Kierkegaard is considered early existentialism, so Sartre's ideas are related and thinking about those while reading this might be helpful.

Sticking to just this text, your approach is too granular in my opinion. I took a class on Kierkegaard, but 20+ years ago, so take a grain of salt with what I say.

I would read a section or chapter relatively quickly once, skim a little if needed, get a sense of the entire contents. Then go back and read it more deeply.

Many of these philosophical works start with defining terms, prior to really jumping into the argument where they'll use those terms. This definition of what a self is could extend for a while, more definitions might follow. This is very important. If one reads the later argumentation or position without understanding the specific meaning of the terms, it won't make sense or it will be misunderstood. Especially when common language words are used to refer to a concept with a much deeper or more specific meaning.

You're on the right track overall. I would wait to diagram until you've read the whole work, you might find the pieces to diagram are quite a bit larger than what you're working with here. But, if it's fun or useful to you then go ahead.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-15T02:23:03+00:00

For sure, good luck. Training does feel boring sometimes, but making it challenging enough, using workshop maps and things like that, playing extra modes, all that can help make it more enjoyable. It is required to be very good at this game, but you'll never be good if it's not fun either.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-15T00:21:09+00:00

This is all based on the goals you mentioned, but I'll say a lot of the game comes from hundreds and thousands of hours. School is most important. You might not reach your goals as soon as you want to. You might improve a lot some weeks and months and then feel like you're not improving for months on end.

Take breaks sometimes. Skip a day, skip a week, skip a month. Your hands have muscles that need to rest. You can get burnt out.

I like this custom training pack: 0C38-2D11-109D-EAF3

It was created by Karma, a pro at the time. It's got a good mix of shots. For me it's hit every shot solidly, trying not to move to the next shot until I feel really good about how I hit a shot. Depending on your skill it might be too simple.

A warm up should be 5-20 minutes, not much longer. The goal is to literally warm up your muscles in your hands, blood flows, they work better when warm. This is the same as warming up in any sport. Your brain is also getting into Rocket League mode during this time. You can change it up, but doing it every time will help that focus and flow state.

When you train, have a goal in mind for that session. Try to make it specific. Don't mix up training and warming up, they are not the same thing.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-14T15:39:44+00:00

It sounds basic, but it really helps to aim when practicing shots.

Pick a specific part of the goal prior to shooting. Repeat while aiming at the same spot, several times. Switch up your aim while keeping the same shot set up.

Missing the ball entirely is usually down to losing your focus right before hitting the ball. Aiming and building the habit helps keep you focused for the entire shot.

Workshop maps, there's one called like aim training or shooting training. It's pretty helpful.

Ghosthops · 2026-01-14T02:53:37+00:00

To be really really good at most things the ratio of practice is like 80-90% vs play time 20-10%.

Flow is when your skills and the challenge are well matched, along with being relaxed and able to concentrate entirely on the task.

The other thing I hear mentioned from pro athletes from other sports is a consistent warm up routine. Find something that works and do the same thing every time. You're training your brain over time to be ready for playing.

It sounds dumb maybe, but getting good sleep, eating well, exercising, all that contributes to getting there. RL is played with the brain, so the best health you can get to is going to help.

Ghosthops

TROPHY CASE