Psyonix reverses Rocket League update to demolitions

Rocket League had an update that, supposedly, would making demolitions better and more consistent. However, it ended up doing the opposite. Soon after the update went live, many reported situations where the Rocket-Powered cars survived a hit at full speed. Some even made the aggressor explode, rather than the receiving car. As a result, Psyonix has now opted to roll back demolitions to how they worked before the patch. The team is currently working on a solution.

Rocket League demolitions: a long-standing issue

Demolitions in Rocket League have been the subject of a long-standing debate. While mostly consistent, there was always some odd occurrence where someone would survive when they should have gone up in flames.

Psyonix aimed to make these demos and bumps more reliable by working with professional Rocket League players. These include Envy’s Pierre “Turbopolsa” Silfver and G2 Esports’ Dillon “Rizzo” Rizzo. Unfortunately, it was not enough of a sample size for thorough testing. With the millions of bumps and demos coming in on live servers, it seems the update did more bad than good.

“The vast majority of replays we’ve reviewed have been working as intended,” Psyonix’s Corey Davis said. “Most disputed cases were due to latency or the same subtle issues commonly raised before V1.78, like losing Supersonic speed the instant before impact. However, a select few of these replays have helped us identify a new set of inconsistencies regarding the “Impact Location” we’re using to determine if a Demo should occur or not. We are discussing and investigating solutions.”

Psyonix has had a bit of a bumpy week so far. The latest Rocket League update also introduced a new goal explosion which, instead of sending players flying from the explosion, makes them get sucked towards a black hole. It’s cool new feature, but this implosion has done more than just award goals. It has also made certain consoles, like the Xbox One, crash immediately. Davis mentions in the same thread that fixing that problem is their top priority at the moment.