Forum

(I rarely post on forums, so if I’m doing something wrong, please do tell me.)

Hey there, consider this as my “Hello” to the entire community. I’ve recently got back into playing TF2 after being absent from it for a some time, but wanted to play it more competitively than casually this time. Problem is, I have no experience playing in a competitive environment. So I would like to ask a few questions to players who have had actual experience in “competitive” play in TF2. (As of writing this I’m reading through the rules and FAQ’s, so if there’s answers to questions elsewhere, could you point me to them. Thanks.)

+Do I just just straight into finding a team and playing with? Or do I wait a while, learn how everything is done and so on.

+Do I need the “Best” weapons (and hats) there is in TF2, or will some standard class items stuff do?

+Is this worth looking into, or should I just forget what I’, doing and just play casual? (I do believe this would be more fun though)

+Do I have to be amazing at all classes? Just one class? I’d say I’m an average player when playing all classes, only had MVP few times but just an “average” player at the game.

+How hard is it to actually become part of a team? I know it will take time for a team to develop into something stable, but will it take forever to actually find a team who would let me join?

I guess that’s really it, thanks in advance, can’t wait to read the experience of others during competitive and I can’t wait to get started myself.

play a bit of pickups / mixes, standard class loadouts are fine (might want boston basher and the winger, kritzkreig, ubersaw, crossbow), you should probably focus on improving on one class, but generally when you get better at one class, you’re probably getting better at all of them (just less than on the focused one obv), as for the team thing, it usually takes a bit of time, just find a team with good atmosphere and with people that you “click” with…

I’m gonna go ahead and try and answer all your questions best I can and give advice to an extent, as I recently got into the competitive scene and had some of the same queries.

First off, despite what people tell you, getting into the comp scene is one of the funnest things you could possibly do in TF2, it may take work to be good at it, but regardless it’s fun. Making new friends and forming a team (or bringing already acquainted friends together to form a team), has to be one of the best aspects of it, as you can all improve together (given you find fairly inexperienced players like yourself).

– I recommend to start of with, you watch a few POVs on Youtube of whatever your desired class to play is, then after that you play a few http://rc.tf2center.com lobbies to get a feel of what your desired class(es) do in whatever format you wish to play (Highlander/6s). I’d personally recommend you start off with Highlander as it’s a hell of a lot closer to pubs than 6s would be. Once you feel comfortable with your role, try putting up a recruitment post for the lowest division, either on here or on UGC.

– Your loadouts heavily depend on what class you want to play, if you’d reply and tell me what class you’d most likely be playing I could give you more insight, but for the most part they depend on what your team wants you to run. In other cases it’s common sense (Ie; If you’re in a Highlander game and on the flank as Soldier in an enclosed building, then shotgun is probably a lot more of a viable option that gunboats are). Also NOBODY cares about hats in the comp scene, you’ll soon realize that.

– As I already stated in my opening paragraph, it’s so worth getting in to.

– Being good at one/multiple classes really depends on which format you want to play, being a good Soldier, for example, opens up opportunities for 6s as well as Highlander. In Highlander though it’s really useful if you can play a handful of classes up to a decent par for TF2Center lobbies and such (You can’t always get your desired class in other words).

– Finding a team can take time, but regardless, once you find one that’s right for you, you’ll feel right at home. It’s up to you to judge if the teams are right for you or not, so it’s really dependent on your preference whether you stay in a team or not. I know the teams I’ve been in personally haven’t been too picky on my previous comp record, if that’s what you’re worrying about.

I hope this information helps, but as I said; it’s a little limited as I’m fairly new to the comp scene myself, feel free to reply about some of my responses if you want a little more insight.

Quoted from STOGE

I’m gonna go ahead and try and answer all your questions best I can and give advice to an extent, as I recently got into the competitive scene and had some of the same queries.

First off, despite what people tell you, getting into the comp scene is one of the funnest things you could possibly do in TF2, it may take work to be good at it, but regardless it’s fun. Making new friends and forming a team (or bringing already acquainted friends together to form a team), has to be one of the best aspects of it, as you can all improve together (given you find fairly inexperienced players like yourself).

– I recommend to start of with, you watch a few POVs on Youtube of whatever your desired class to play is, then after that you play a few http://rc.tf2center.com lobbies to get a feel of what your desired class(es) do in whatever format you wish to play (Highlander/6s). I’d personally recommend you start off with Highlander as it’s a hell of a lot closer to pubs than 6s would be. Once you feel comfortable with your role, try putting up a recruitment post for the lowest division, either on here or on UGC.

– Your loadouts heavily depend on what class you want to play, if you’d reply and tell me what class you’d most likely be playing I could give you more insight, but for the most part they depend on what your team wants you to run. In other cases it’s common sense (Ie; If you’re in a Highlander game and on the flank as Soldier in an enclosed building, then shotgun is probably a lot more of a viable option that gunboats are). Also NOBODY cares about hats in the comp scene, you’ll soon realize that.

– As I already stated in my opening paragraph, it’s so worth getting in to.

– Being good at one/multiple classes really depends on which format you want to play, being a good Soldier, for example, opens up opportunities for 6s as well as Highlander. In Highlander though it’s really useful if you can play a handful of classes up to a decent par for TF2Center lobbies and such (You can’t always get your desired class in other words).

– Finding a team can take time, but regardless, once you find one that’s right for you, you’ll feel right at home. It’s up to you to judge if the teams are right for you or not, so it’s really dependent on your preference whether you stay in a team or not. I know the teams I’ve been in personally haven’t been too picky on my previous comp record, if that’s what you’re worrying about.

I hope this information helps, but as I said; it’s a little limited as I’m fairly new to the comp scene myself, feel free to reply about some of my responses if you want a little more insight.

as for the go highlander not 6v6 part, i’d generally say go 6v6 because first, i think it improves a player much faster, and 2nd, if you’re good at 6v6, you’re good at highlander, but it doesn’t really work the other way around (if you’re prem at highlander you’re probably not gonna start in prem in 6v6).
also highlander is a cluster fuck ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Quoted from Morgus

The best way to get into it is by playing mixes, every country has their own and there was a newbie mix group somewhere, let’s you get a taste of the real deal and you might even find a team there, just wait until someone fills you in where the mixes at or ask around your country´s tf2 communities.
Have fun

I don’t think he needs country specific mixes as he’s british but w/e.
If you don’t give a fuck what people think you should play on tf2pickup.net, just make sure to learn rollout first (jumping to the middle point).

Could also watch some high level teams play the different maps to get an idea of how to play. Teamfortresstv is probably the go to in that regard.

http://www.twitch.tv/teamfortresstv/profile

https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamFortressTV

Quoted from Yeowdle

Also @Bighomer (or anyone else), could you please explain what the terms, “Rollout, “DM (Deathmatch?)”, “MGE” and “Soap DM” mean.

Rollout = rolling out to mid (Getting there as fast as possible by jumping). Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc8alcQvUjA

DM = Deathmatch
MGE = 1v1 practice, put mge_ in the map filter of the server browser.
Soap DM = The DM plugin

Yeah, as demo you’ll want to practice rollouts before you play lobbies, so youtube search “demo rollout [map]”. Here’s the maps for 6v6:

badlands
gullywash
granary
snakewater
cp_process
viaduct
logjam

Then play lobbies until you hate them, then make a recruitment post. For highlander (9v9, 1 of each class) you could probably play lobbies now and hate them immediately.