Forum

Led a number of HL teams and (non-serious) 6s teams over my many years of comp tf2 – and honestly, I have found it to be a very rewarding experience. If it is your thing, you will generally have a good (albeit sometimes stressful) time!

While a great many things could be said here, I have always found the most critical thing is making sure that everyone is on the same wavelength in regards to your team’s aims and ambitions. Regardless of whether your team aims to have fun or to win, make sure everyone is on the same page in that regard. While I am thankful that very few of my teams have dramatically and catastrophically folded (say, after a poor official), virtually all of my teams fell apart gradually – and that was often due to ‘philosophical’ disagreements between the players. Perhaps some players think the team ought to scrim more; others less. Perhaps some of your players would rather just mess about, while others want to sweat as hard as possible. Maybe some players really want to win, while others don’t care. Etc. Regardless of the reasons, I have found that these sorts of tensions can build up over time and really frustrate your players. In my experience, this has often resulted in players gradually leaving to find a team which suits them better (which is perfectly fair in my view, even if it can be frustrating). However, such player-losses can really stack up – and one’s team may incrementally fall apart. Or, things can end up boiling over quite quickly and dramatically – leading to a team suddenly and catastrophically folding (of which I have heard many tales!).

If everyone is on the same page though, things tend to roll along fairly smoothly. From there, keeping everyone (and yourself) happy is a sure recipe for longevity (whether one’s team is ‘successful’ tends to be a quite different matter :P).

Quoted from xCape

Hello ETF2L team leaders!

I’m currently in the process of finding myself players with whom I want to form a long-running team. What tips can you share to make it more effective and enjoyable?

Not sure exactly what level you’re at in terms of finding people, but generally you want people share similar goals to you. Organisation system in place everyone is happy with helps, I had a few different ones, the best one was on Discord with people responsible for posting their schedule for week + you then find games/mercs based off that. Just generally making it clear to people before they join your expectations ie – “We scrim Tues-Thur and Sunday”. “We aim to make playoffs” “I expect you to tell me if you can’t play 1 hour before scrim”.

Most frustrating is when people cancel last minute, you can’t speak for other teams cancelling on you last minute but your own team you got some control. Don’t hesistate to kick unreliable people or people who aren’t sharing your goals/ideals but do discuss it with them/team first because otherwise you’ll be seen and gain a reputation as a “Dictator” or “Snake”.

Constant communication all the time with people, keep people informed of changes, know timezones well, get the server 5 minutes before….etc. Serveme.tf premium account helps a lot. Know the routines of your teammates, if they got a Job, if they’re in School/Uni, if they got a partner/wife/kids. If they’re the type to ditch mid scrim to go to their girlfriend’s house (Had that before).

Trialling bunch of unknowns and picking people up whom you like is a good method and just trying lot of people out is good and if they got friends, even better. Lot of teams I ended up having started just me + 2 guys and we filled the rest up with tryouts or people we trialled could get a friend to play who we liked.

In general just enjoy the process, the fun in TF2 isn’t winning as much as it is just playing with friends, the bits I’ll remember are less the insignificant random officials I won and more just the experience of playing with my TF2 teammates. And the character you’ll build from it will be invaluable in all aspects of life.

GL and HF

don’t cut ur players, just because ur friend wants the main spot