On 5 December, Rocket League announced Season 13, together with all the changes and new content it would bring to the game. It's safe to say this couldn't have been received by the community in a worse way, with the vast majority of the players heavily criticising Season 13.
It's not that the Season 13 launch didn't go as planned, or that players were plagued by multiple bugs, users didn't like the content, or lack of it, introduced by the new season. This generated a gigantic wave of criticism and disapproval that had never been seen before.
So, let's find out what left the Rocket League community worked up.
Rocket League didn't listen to its community
The main pillar of every game is its community. Your community will tell you what you're doing right or wrong, how you can improve the game, and most importantly, they will tell you what "line" you should NEVER cross.
For the Rocket League community, this "line" was removing the Player-to-player Trading system. When this was first announced, the community reactions were so negative most people thought there was no way Rocket League would actually go through with this.
However, despite a petition, and a review bomb of the game on Steam, the move went through as planned, with the justification that this was being made to "align with Epic’s overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies".
This left Rocket League players angry at Epic Games and also incredibly sad, so sad they even made a tribute song about the Trading system.
Eliminating the trading system, which allowed players to trade items with each other and was very important to the community makes almost no sense. Doing it under the pretext of "aligning with Epic’s shop policies" or that "This opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games" makes even less.
A plethora of Rocket League cars have already appeared in other Epic Games titles, so I don't see how the Player-to-Player Trading system was stopping that from happening again.
Furthermore, was it really that detrimental to the game to have both the Player-to-Player Trading system and the new cross-game ownership feature? I don't think so, and the majority of the Rocket League community shares the same sentiment.
So of course removing such an important community feature would leave players unhappy, especially after they were very vocal about their opinion on the matter.
Not listening to your community is a cardinal sin, and Rocket League did that in the worst way possible. However, other aspects of Season 13 don't please the community.
A big package of nothing
Eliminating the Player-to-player Trading system is without a doubt the most hated change introduced in Season 13. However, it's not the only thing players dislike about the new season.
Most players think the changes introduced in Season 13, such as the new menu interface, the tournament rewards, the new Rocket Pass, or the new look of Farmstead and Wasteland Arenas, are meaningless changes that don't add that much to the game.
The Farmstead and Wasteland Arenas simply grew some grass and is not like that makes the Arenas insanely different. For most players, the Rocket Pass was also disappointing with the rewards leaving much to desire. Some fans went as far as saying the content was "low-effort".
The season 13 update is not great, the fact that it introduced the removal of the Player-to-player Trading system makes it the worst of all time. At least that's how most players look at it, and it's easy to understand why.
It's an underwhelming update, that is receiving a lot more hate than expected, because of one specific change. One thing is certain, the Rocket League community has never been so displeased, angry, and disappointed as of right now.
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