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I want to get some thoughts down about how to run a team and link it to the ‘NEW TO COMPETITIVE TF2…’ thread: http://etf2l.org/forum/league/topic-12510/?recent=274229
maybe help a few new players a bit more. Thanks to Dummy for the suggestion ( http://etf2l.org/forum/league/topic-17356/page-2/?recent=314908#post-314810 ).

Anything you think should, or shouldn’t, be in there, add it to the bottom and I can edit….But be nice.

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Creating A Team And How To Run It

Creating a TF2 team is very easy, anyone can do it. Running a TF2 team is definitely NOT easy. Here’s some tips from me, (and hopefully others from down there), to help you get started, and more importantly, to keep it going.

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How Many Players Should I have?

This depends on how much you and your teamates want to play. If you want to play every night and can find 5 other like minded people, having a 6 man squad could work out. However, finding 5 other people that want to play at exactly the same times and level of seriousness as you, who you also get on with, might be a bit tricky.

Most teams have at least a couple of substitute players or rotating players who can jump in if someone cant play or has internet problems. If you can find 7 people you like playing with, and under some quite intense pressure and occasional rage, then you will be on your way. An 8 man, or more, squad gives players nights off if they want them, however a straight up 6 man squad, playing together night in, night out, may well be able to develop that essential teamwork a little bit faster. It depends on how ‘seriously’ you want to play.

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Which Players Should I Pick For My Team?

First and foremost, you absolutely HAVE to enjoy playing with your teamates. It doesn’t matter how good you think someone is, or how much a player could transform your team, if you, or other team members, have a personality clash, it will remove the fun and demoralise everyone.

Next, you’ll need to consider your class balance.

The rules of competitive TF2 allow only 1 demo man, 1 medic and more generally recently, 1 Heavy Weapons Guy. All the other classes have a limit of 2.

The standard line up used my most teams is, generally, the 1 demo and medic, 2 soldiers and 2 scouts, so finding players who can play those classes well, would be a good start.

The other classes do get used in the 6v6 format, a heavy can be very difficult
to kill on last, but maybe a bit easier with a sniper, and a pyro is a nice counter to the sneaky spy sent in to kill your medic, but some teams do and have run a different line up full time, the choice is yours.

Players who are good at more than 1 class can be very useful to have on your roster, switching in for missing teamates or the ‘off class’ moments that can win you a round.

Reliability is another desireable attribute. Waiting around for people to turn up is annoying. Look for poeple that are online when they say they’ll be, or at least get a message to you if not.

Having players that can take critiscism and take advice makes life a lot easier.

Using a mic is vital to good teamwork. Dont pick players who never speak in game. Enemy positions, damage done and where, what and when you’re going to do something, are all useful information for your teamates.

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How Can I Recruit Players?

Probably the best way to recruit players for a team is to go out and play TF2 on public servers, pick up games, tf2lobby.com: ( http://tf2lobby.com/ ), and anywhere else you can, make friends, play with them some more and go from there.

You can place a recruitment thread on many TF2 sites, however the most active one would be right here on etf2l: http://etf2l.org/recruitment/ .

To create a team you’ll need to enter your steam id on the site, click Team Admin in the top right and then Register team. Any players you want to add to your roster will need their steam id entered.

If you want to change any details about the team, name, website, irc channel or anything, go here: http://etf2l.org/wp/wp-admin/index.php?page=teams and click edit team. You dont need to make a new team to change the name!

To find someone’s steam id, get them to join a server, open the developers console, type ‘status’ and press enter, or use this link: http://steamidfinder.com/. Once registered you can add them by steam id or name.

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Do I Need A Server And Website?

Renting or owning your own server means you can play when, how and as often as you want but it’s not strictly a requirement. ETF2l also has servers available for lending.
Most teams do end up acquiring their own server and prices dont tend to be very high. I’m sure google can help you out with enquiries.

You might be lucky to make friends with someone who already rents a server or who is happy to lend you one when required, so having access to your own isn’t essential, but it makes life a lot easier.

A website is very useful for communcating match days, whether official or practice, discussing tactics, communication between other teams and many other things as well, so is highly recomended but is not an essential requirement.

If you do aquire your own server, you can learn about it’s use in many places, here’s one I found: http://forums.srcds.com/viewtopic/5439 but I’m sure google will find many more.

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How do we get practice games?

Once your team is assembled you’ll want to get some practice games, or pcw’s, (‘practice clan wars’), organised, to test out your skills. Finding a simililarly skilled opponent is pretty simple.

If you know how to use irc then connect to #tf.wars on Quakenet and ask for a game or answer someone else’s query.

If you dont know how to use irc have a look at this: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-use-IRC-Internet-Relay-Chat/ or any other guide your search engine throws up.

When trying to find an opponent it is well worth trying to be as accurate as possible in assessing your own skill level. If you and your teamates are quite new to competitive TF2 or maybe played a few lobbies, then you may consider yourselves to be of a “low-(minus)” skill. You may see people on #tf.wars on Quakenet, ask for:

6v6 Low- Server on

meaning they are a 6v6 low minus skill team with a server ready to play on. If you have no server to play on you should advertise ‘server off’

You may also see people asking for “Div6” or “Div5” as well. Div 6 can be considered low, however some div 6 teams are much better, and most confusingly, much worse, than the ‘average’ Div6 team.

Generally(ish):
low-/low equates to new teams/div 6
low/low+ equates to high div 6/div 5
low+/mid- equates to high div 5/div 4
mid-/mid equates to high div 4/div 3
mid/mid+ equates to div 2
etc.

Stick with the div 6 or low- to start with, unless maybe you fancy the old, ‘in at the deep end’ approach and go for some tougher matches, just dont be surprised if the enemy quit after a 5-0 drubbing in 10 minutes…

Dont worry if some games you seem to be playing higher skilled players than you expected. It happens that some mix teams under estimate their overall skill level and end up wiping you in a few minutes with engies and all sorts of shenanigans. This may even happen on purpose sometimes. Best advice here is to poliely finish the map and find another game.

General protocol is each pcw consists of 2 maps with 1 map pick per team.

If you play a really good or reasonably close match against a team, ask if you can add them on steam and get a regular thing going, trying new things out on each other or new maps.

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Keeping your team going…

This is the hard bit. The best advice I think is to:

1) Pick team mates you enjoy playing with.

Obvious, but where so many teams go wrong, try to make sure you like the people you play with.

2) Ensure everyone knows how often, for how long and how seriously you want the team to play.

If everyone knows to be online on Sunday, Monday and Thursday at 20 CET and you’ll be playing at least 4 maps a night or whatever, then it makes life a lot easier. Alternatively you could use a google calendar or something like doodle.com for organizing your team. Scrabbling around on steam looking for mercs or people who are supposed to be there isn’t good for team spirit or getting better as a team.

3) Dont take losses or bad games too hard.

Try to remember it’s only a game, shooting pixels should not be the most important thing in your life, if you get steam rolled, learn from it and move on. How did they kill your medic EVERY mid fight? Who did the most damage to your team and how? How did they hold that point? Where were they standing? Who pushed in through which doorway? Where were they spamming? If someone in the team isn’t doing what you want them to, have a calm discussion after the match and explain what you want them to do. Shouting at someone mid game isn’t going to help.

4) Organise official matches in plenty of time, and make sure people know about them.

Use match pages to work out when to play and do it as early as you can, let your team know when they are and get confirmation they can or cant play. Having time for a warm up before officials is a good idea, even if it’s only 15 minutes on an MGE server.

5) Take some time to walk round maps discussing tactics.

Taking the time to discuss how to attack mid on a map or hold CP2 with your team, will greatly improve your co-ordination and teamwork. Not having to tell your scouts where they need to be when you’re holding CP2 of granary for instance, or having your soldiers know exactly where they should be as they arrive at CP4, will really help cut down on frustration and you getting into bad situations.

6) Accept and give good constructive criticism or advice.

No-one likes to be told they’re doing something wrong, so make sure you’re nice about it. If you’re the one doing it wrong, accept the critiscism and be able to take a look at yourself. EVERYBODY can improve. Watch your own demos and any STV’s you can and try to see what and who went wrong and what and who went right.

7) Dont argue or raise points mid game. Take note and talk after the map has finished.

Arguing mid game will only ruin moral, destroy comms and be massively destructive. Remember what happened and discuss it after the match, calmly and maturely.

8) Have occasional off class nights or fun matches.

Release some tension and go play a lobby offclass or a mix with other players every now and then. Not only will it help release a bit of pressure but it may even educate people on the other classes roles within the team. Playing demo in a mix or lobby team with no scout protection will soon educate you in your scout duties during mid fights for example.

9) Problem players and attitudes.

If you are running a team and one or more players are starting to cause you problems. Deal with it early. Spot a problem with someone’s attitude or gameplay etc early and you can help them improve. If not it can become habit.
Do not be scared to kick a player. If they are being a Dick tell them. If they continue to be a Dick kick them. A lot of players will get kicked from a team they liked and its a kick up the arse they needed.

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Progress

Improving will come as a natural effect of playing the game more often, both individually and as a team, combined with the walk though sessions mentioned above, however lots of teams find they hit a ‘brick wall’ in terms of progression and frustration can set in.

Don’t be afraid to asking for help from higher division players. They may be able to take a bit of time to give you some help if you’re struggling with basic stuff in certain scenarios, all of which can easily be improved with a bit of individual or group mentoring. Most of this community are a lovely bunch and I know of lots of people who would be happy to lend a hand.

Players spending a bit of time each week on DM or MGE servers has been known to help an individual improve, but there’s nothing like playing matches with your team and working stuff out together.

Try to analyze how teams beat you when it goes wrong, work out how they attcked or defended and more importantly, why they did what they did.

Vanilla TF2′ Fish’s http://www.vanillatf2.org/2011/10/ask-fish-team-developmentTeam Development Guide[/url] is another one to have a good look at too.

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TF2 is an incredibly rewarding and addictive competitive game. When that push you dreamed up works a treat or you hold last and manage to push out due to your super strong hold, it’s a nice adrenalin rush. Taking a team up the divisions is a great feeling too, but it takes time and patience and the ability to deal with totally different people, personalities, cultures and beliefs to succeed.
You wont become great at this game overnight and you’ll get badly beaten every now and then, but the community is generally a friendly and helpful bunch and there’s a lot of resources out there to find that can help you improve.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the most successful teams have been proven to have the largest collections of hats, this statement has absolutely no evidence to back it up, but is still a fact.

Good luck, have fun and remember, it’s only a game.

Nice guide, pinned!

To get your steam id you can use this page http://steamidfinder.com/
It’s way more easy than joining a server and typing status in the console etc.

To find suitable dates for your matches (in case you do not have fixed days that everyone can play) I would recommend the use of doodle.com, a simple online tool to fix appointments. That takes some effort of your peons though.

You can change the name of the team at any time by going http://etf2l.org/wp/wp-admin/index.php?page=teams and clicking on “Edit Team”, you do not have to create a new team if you spelled the name wrong.

Great guide monkeh! You forgot to mention the importance of hats though.

Quoted from Jammi

I guess this is for the people that are totally new to comp / team based gaming?

Probably still relevant for some of the current clan hoppers on this site :]

I don’t think this is as much about leading/running a team as it is “What to expect if you join a team/want to create a new team”.

Leading a team is a thankless job and can be soul crushing at times, make sure to include more about the soul crushing :P

very good read

I’ll need a writers fee of a hundred thousand dollars, some quality assurance guarantees, a date with Megan Foxx organised and some small level of hero worship from anyone that reads it. As long as all these conditions are met, go for your life. If these conditions are beyond your means, then go for it anyway.

Quoted from Monkeh

I’ll need a writers fee of a hundred thousand dollars, some quality assurance guarantees, a date with Megan Foxx organised and some small level of hero worship from anyone that reads it. As long as all these conditions are met, go for your life. If these conditions are beyond your means, then go for it anyway.

º_º can i just get you a girl with no std’s and big boobs?