Rocket League update adds teammate boost indicators

The April 16th Rocket League update gives players the ability to see their teammates' boost levels and changes the names of item rarities. Both changes have been shared via an official blog post a day in advance of the update taking effect.

Item rarity names only affect cosmetics and adjusting to them should only take a small amount of time. However, additional information given to players in-game can potentially change how the game is played.

The headline change in this Rocket League update is the incorporation of boost indicators into teammate nameplates. This will allow players to gauge their teammates' boost levels at a glance during a game.

This may not have a huge impact at the highest level of competition, where players are often in communications and have an incredible innate sense of everyone's boost levels. However, for the average player trying their best to rotate around their random teammates online, this could be a game changer.

It'll be easier than ever to know when to leave the back boost for your struggling teammate. Additionally, this update helps clear up confusing situations in front of the net that often result in double commits.

Players that spam "Need boost!" after whiffing aerials will need to find a new excuse, though.

For these very reasons, community members have been requesting such a feature for many years. Some even drafted up their own designs, but Psyonix has come up with an original minimalist solution for this update. As they state in their blog post, "It's a careful balance between providing useful information to players without adding too much visual noise."

It's yet to be seen how effective Pysonix's implementation of this feature is. At best, players will find this Rocket League update's new visual indicators to be an intuitive addition to an already clean user interface. At worst, the indicators may prove to be too small and inconvenient to be of any use. That should be an easy fix with a slight redesign, though.

Whichever the case may be, quality-of-life features improving the Rocket League gameplay experience such as this one are always welcome.

The other change arriving with this update affects cosmetics. Notably, it's moving away from labels that remain unchanged since their introduction nearly eight years ago.

See all of the item rarity name changes below:

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