xexe's TF2 Zero to Hero Guide

[xexes]

xexe's TF2 Zero to Hero Guide


How To Be The Best At TF2

N00b: 0-30 (total) hours
Focus on getting to know how to play the game. Game dynamics, objectives, attacking, defending, etc. You're going to die a lot, so get used to it. In the mean time, watch all of the youtube "how to play ____ class". Also, learn not to be a n00b asshat. Respect the better players.

Novice: 30-100 hours
Play all of the characters and start to earn achievements and unlockables. Pick a class or two that suits you and start to hone your skills. It's going to take lots of practice. Stick with the tried + proven mainstream advice for your class, don't try to develop fancy new tactics yet. Learn the common maps like pl_goldrush and ctf_2fort, memorizing medipacks and ammo kit locations is a must. Remember to listen to what others tell you and the information they convey - this is Team fortress. Watch more TF2 videos, the funny ones, the griefing ones, and some frag videos for inspiration. Decide if you are a QQ'er, and play with your mouse sensitivity.

Intermediate: 100-200 hours
Congradulations! You're now about as good as the average player. At this stage in the game it would be wise to get to know your weapons very well. How fast do they fire, what is the spray / blast area / radius, clip size / ammo capacity, delays in weapon switching / launching, special moves (like a sticky jump), which weapon to use when, and your melee. In competitions, chances are that you will never use your melee, but it is an excellent thing to be good at, considering the average player cannot melee at all. Start to really perfect your skills. Watch more frag videos. Take a look at the hax that TF2 player are using, learn to identify them, and hate every inch of those souless cheater's ragdolls. Cheating is not an option, and advoid even playing on a server where cheaters are present. Also, learn how to play well on a laggy server, it'll come in handy once in a blue moon.

Advanced: 200-500 hours
So right about now you are getting pretty good. You can pwnzrz on a n00b server, and on an average server you're usually an MVP. If you want to be the best at TF2 you can't get complacent. Now training is much harder. You're going to need to find the few servers out there with super good players and have yourself a good ass-kicking more often than not. Another way to help yourself improve is to take demos of your gameplay and then review them, scrutinizing every move and how you could have done better. At this stage in the game, you are prime material for the average competitive TF2 clan. Competitions are a great way to train and get away from most of the broadstream weakling TF2 players. Remember to surf around to new servers, don't play exclusively on a single one.

Distinguished: 500-1000 hours
About this stage in your game play, you're feeling really good about yourself. But don't let it get to your head. Keep training. It's hard to give advice for this stage, it's something different for everyone, ask around for training tips. If you get bored of the game, that's okay, take a break and you will find yourself comming back later. Your goal is to now be as good as some of the UberPlayers like American Reptile (youtube: TF2 Reptile the Movie). Missing a shot by a matter of inches is no longer an option.

Hard-Mode: 2,000 hours
The team that you oppose poops themselves whenever they see you. Usually you are synonymous with instant death but sometimes someone gets a lucky crit and sends your sorry ass back to respawn. Yeah, you're not there yet.

Expert: ?? hours
You are now the subject of popular frag videos. Almost there.

Elite: ?? hours
One of the best players in the whole entire world. Gratz.

DEMIGOD: ?? hours
THE best player in the world. You now officially win.

* Sidenote: If you are a female, add 100 to the hour ranges.


How To Be Fun To Play With

The formula for entertainment is more of a recipe for common sense and ettiquite. Know the server's rules and respect the players, ignorance is never an excuse. Be kind to players, helpful to the n00bs just like you were once, and develop friendships. Please respect other players sanity by advoiding using your mic and any soundbytes unless you are over the maturity age of 18. Mispam =/= success. Advoid extremely controversial subjects like politics and religion, and save any techinicial or in-depth questions for the forums because folks will be better able to help you when they are not busy gaming. When someone pisses you off, don't get mad - get even instead. Lastly, make the game fun for others, put them first, give compliments, friendly teases, jokes, etc - chances are they will return the favor twofold. Because you never know what kind of a shitty day someone else just had.


TF2 Abriged Common Abbreviation Guide

LOL - laugh out loud
ROFL - rolling on the floor laughing
SG - sentry gun
spyro - an enemy spy is disguised as a pryo
cheers! - thanks dude, have a beer.
CP - capture point
CTF - capture the flag
TC - territory control
WTH/ WTF - what the heck
STFU - stop talking
hax! - you got extremely lucky


TF2 Special(er) Moves Listing (As of 1/8/09)

Medic - double/triple uber, medic train
Soldier - rocket jump
Demoman - sticky jump
Pyro - rocket reflect, reflect jump
Engies - using your buildings to climb


TF2 Common Command Listing:

Console:
cl_showfps 0/1 - toggle a small FPS indicator
net_graph 0/1 - toggle a ping and FPS indicator
record <name> - records a demo called <name> for you
stop - stops the recording

In game:
TAB - show scores / player listing
F5 - take a snapshot
F10 - hax menu


TF2 Incomplete Listing of Misc. Less-Known Tips:

- As a medic, the more hurt your patient, the faster your uber goes up. Same applies for overhealed patients. The longer they have been hurt, the faster you heal them. Multiple medics can heal a patient, but your charge builds much slower. You cannot build up an uber faster by any means durring pre-game setup. Medics earn the most points, but don't be an asshat and only heal the top player. Personal medics are overrated. When you are ubered, don't be afraid to act like it - sentries fire at the closet thing to them, and a lone ubered medic can prevent the opposing team from capping. Remember that as a medic your wounds heal over time and that buffing your team / front lines is extremely beneficial as a team with 150% health is quite a front breaker over a team with 100% health. When you have a couple of medics with an ubergun, it might be beneficial to switch to the Kritzkreig, of course this also depends on knowing the battle field conditions, how many demos/soldiers/heavies there are, and how good they are.

- As a pryo sometimes you can flame through walls, grates, corners, etc. You are the official spy checker, and as silly as that may seem, doing your job will save your ass more often than not. You are an ambush flanker, and you will die often. With the backburner, run the opposite way your opponent goes to get more crits. With the flamethrower and good timing, you can stand your ground and intimidate soldiers with reflected rockets and even help defend your team's sentry guns. With your some good airblasts you can also devastate an uber by seperating the medic and his patient.

- As a demo, you can hide your sticky bombs on ceilings, doorways, etc. When detonated, they have a large splash damadge range, and can detonate them in midair. Become a master of trajectory and use the sky box to your advantage on maps where available, you can bounce grenades off of them at a sharper angle rather than arching your grenades to destroy structures on the other side of a wall.

- As a soldier, rocket timing is important, better to aim for the feet. Also, a rocket launched from above to enemies below is harder to dodge because opponents have less time to see and react to it. Don't forget your rockets have a good splash damadge range. You can rocket jump with a turn-around-rocket farther and for less health than with one in front of you and those crit rockets will send you higher but at the cost of more health.

- As a sniper, a fully charged snipe is often overkill, your teammates have probably already hacked away at opponents' health, a quick snipe or even a no-scope will often be enough to take them down. Dodge and weave, keep moving when you are scoped, and keep your lazer dot at head level. There is no recoil on your gun so you can walk outside and shoot. When you snipe and your target doesn't die, move to cover while scoped and then finish him off.

- As a scout it is your job to be a constant pain in the ass to the enemy team, killing medics, picking off the wounded, distracting and irritating the other players. You ARE the ninja cap. Remember to dodge and weave, don't advance in a straight line, keep firing even when in mid-air. Use your pistol for long range, retreating, and picking off other scouts. Your main advantage is your speed, use it to dart in and use the scattergun at close range for a nasty blow.

- Being an engie is often quite boring, but it doesn't have to be. You can move around and attack with your shotgun, pistol, and wrench; you don't need to spend all day huddled behind your sentry. Also, you can be an offensive engineer, planting surprise sentries. Good engineering keeps the team from loosing ground. The wrench is a great melee weapon and its crits are often brutal.

- Good spies know all about hit boxes. Facestabs are legitimate and sometimes give you a nice crit; the opposing team will hate you for it. You have plenty of time to sap a sentry, backstab the engie, and dissapear. Don't act like a spy, suspicious activity will get you caught on fire. On a full server, it is more difficult to slip behind enemy lines, and you will usually be set on fire after a backstab, you might choose to pick a different class with 32 players.

- As a heavy against a group a good tactic might be to use the shotgun to weaken then spray with your minigun. You move slowly so you are a prime target for a sniper and spy, but you can spin up in mid-air. When you start critting, it's better to keep firing until the crits end rather than cease firing in the middle of a crit-phase. Offensive heavies need medics, but as a defensive engie, you can fire nonstop if you park yourself in front of a dispenser. A sandwich is better suited than the shotgun for saving your life when on fire. Be at the right place at the right time, fire first, and fire effectively.

- With any class, know when to fight and when to flee, know your limitations, health, ammo, surroundings, and the health/ammo pick-up locations. The higher rank you are on your team, the more you crit. Any suspicious player, one that shows a heightened interest in engie buildings, or one that sneaks up behind you, is probably an enemy spy, don't hesitate to check. Sometimes the 'Medic!' call is not a request for healing but rather a game of Marco-Polo . Do not be afraid to switch classes to help out your team. Be a team player rather than a point-grabber, you'll go farther in life.


Special Thanks To

- The guys who kick my ass mercilessly.
- Melba Toast, S.COREA, [lego]Jewsus, Advent, Taekwon-joe, Full Metal

[Selby]

your kpd is 0.795...

Zero or Hero?

[dintbo(aka bosco)]

Nice post xexes.

Selby..... Shut up

[Johnimus Prime]

Xexes thats really good - must have taken you ages!

However, I think you should add at the end:

"Alternatively, just drink loads of beer, have a smoke and join tf2.festersplace.com.
We can't guarantee you will get good, but we can guarantee you will have a good time!"

[Toco]

great guide xexes although i dont agree with the lil female note u made as u are dharma are just as good as the rest of us and have prolly put in a fraction of the time as most of us and jased how the fuck have u put in over 1000 hours lol im sittin at like 500 and i never see u on the server these days

[Taekwon-joe]

Nice work. But the whole "don't play exclusively on a single one" stuck out to me. I'm sure theres allot of people here on Festers that don't even know there are other servers.

In relation to the spy-> When playing on a large 32 player server it is much harder to get behind enemy lines undetected. Also for every back-stab that you somehow manage to get there is a spammy pyro waiting to torch your ass. The best course of action to tackle this is to not play as the spy

[BBloke]

Top stuff xexes
Can you advise if im a uber or just too stupid to stop playing player.
soldier 585.8 hours
pyro 382.7 hours
scout 33 hours
demo 21.9 hours
engineer 19.3 hours
madic 18.9 hours
sniper 10.5 hours
heavy 7.6 hours
heavy 6 hours

=1085.7hrs played

Jase, you are just hardcore.... I've yet to break 100 hrs on any class... my top two are Demo and Spy: 94hrs, 83 hrs.

[DHARMA AGENT]

Wow xex, nice one.

great guide xexes although i dont agree with the lil female note u made as u are dharma are just as good as the rest of us and have prolly put in a fraction of the time as most of us and jased how the fuck have u put in over 1000 hours lol im sittin at like 500 and i never see u on the server these days

Thanks Toco, I agree-as girls are better at aiming (statistically).

[LazyEagle]

Excellent guide Xexes!

I think you should add in that if you have a good singing voice, sometimes the drunks like to hear a song or two.

[Del]

heavy 7.6 hours
heavy 6 hours

seeing double already???