A Philosophical Guide to TF2

Disclaimer: This guide does not specifically tell you how to play. This tells you how to get BETTER (unless you're a pro. I'm not a pro, so I have little to teach you

The Plan

With Team Fortress 2, as probably with all FPS games with multiple classes, there are 4 steps to improving at the game. I have not had the time to completely fill in all of these steps to myself for every scenario but the principle that this is based on is sound. The steps to improvement are:

1. Learn the Controls (simple huh)

2. Learn the Classes

3. Learn the Weapons

4. Learn the Techniques

I did put these down simply here as this is just the inroduction and I will go over them in more detail in their specific section. Keep in mind that this is just HOW you will get better, reading this won't magically make you better at the game (probably) but if you follow the steps you will improve. As a final ubiquitous note, practice is important for those wishing to improve as any amount of guides, so remember to actually play the game. Read on!

Step 1: Learn the Controls

Learning the Controls is the easiest of the four steps and will, on its own, bring you up to a state of competence at the great game of Team Fortress 2. You may have noticed that I have been using a capital C for controls. I think that it fully justifies this on the basis that the controls are the most important part of being able to play the game, without controls, how would you do anything? For those new to TF2, I have included a list of controls below.

Movement:
W: Move forward
A: Move left
S: Move backwards (at a slightly reduced speed)
D: Move right
Space: Jump
Ctrl: Crouch

Offensive:
Mouse 1: Fire/Attack/Heal
Mouse 2: Special (varies based on class and/or weapon)
Mouse 3: Change Vaccinator resistance
Mouse Wheel: switch weapon
1-5: Switch weapon
R: Reload
B: Change to last disguise; switch disguised weapon (spy only)
-: Toggle disguise team (spy only)

Communication:
V: Voice chat
Y: Text chat to all players
U: Text chat to your team
Z, X, C: Various voice menus
E: Call for medic

I included only the controls which directly affect the game and thus some are left out. The easiest way to familiarise yourself with the controls is to go into training mode, and, depending on your experience either go for simply offline games or the actual "class." Because the controls are used whenver you play, practicing isn't quite as important as you can practice this along with any of the other steps. Having at least a basic knowledge pf the controls is completely essential to playing the game, lest you be dominated by every player on the opposing team and have an average lifetime of 5 seconds.

Step 2: Learn the Classes

Step 2 is to learn the skills of the nine different ninnies classes in TF2. By learning the classes, I mean to plumb the extent of their abilities and use them to slightly more than the best you can get away with (otherwise you'll never learn).

For example, the Scout can double jump. Say you, as a Scout, had to cross a pit filled with ravenous, Pyroland-derived unicorns an there was a thin, rickety bridge crossing it. To be a true Scout, you would need to know whether you would flat-out be able to jump across the pit or whether you would need the help of the bridge to avoid being lit on fire and eaten. The moral of that weird story I came up with on the spot is that you REALLY need to know what you can get away with. Another example: There are 2 fat, slow-moving heavies on the same team in 2Fort racing each other to the enemy Intel. One runs out onto the balcony. BOOM HEADSHOT. The other heavy goes through the sewers, mows down everything in his path and gets the intel. Again, knowing what will happen to your class in a given situation means the difference between life and up to 15 seconds of respawn time.

To LEARN what your class can do, I suggest either offline mode or a server with a few people on it, as they are generally forgiving of mistakes and you can work out why you die and compensate accordingly. This should stop you from making too many easily fixable mistakes, like W+M1ing as Pyro.

Step 3: Learn the Weapons

By now you should be well on your way to learning how to play efficiently. But wait, you have found a random drop! It is the Your Eternal Reward for the Spy! It looks cool so you equip it and run out into koth Harvest (my fav map) cloaked, pushing B for a random disguise. Then, as your cloak runs out and you have infiltrated the enemy barn, a Soldier glances in your direction and one-shots you with a rocket. What went wrong?

The hypothetical person in that story committed the cardinal sin of not having a base understanding of their weapons. If they had glanced at the description of Y.E.R, they would have seen that it removes their disguise kit and that humiliating death could have been prevented. The third step on the path to skill is knowing whatever the hell it is that your weapons actually DO. Look at them in your backpack and change your set to account for it. Some weapons will force you to change your entire loadout and strategy if you want to use it right. Notable examples Include: Baby-faces Blaster, the Rocket Jumper, Ali Baba's Wee Booties/Bootlegger, the shields, the Sticky Jumper, the Gunslinger, the the Conniver's Kunai and of course Y.E.R.

The way to ger better at these is of course practice, but also to use them in the right places for this practice. This means that using the Sticky Jumper on, say, Kong King is a dumb move because of all the clutter preventing you from using it to its best (helping you caber snipers on 2Fort). Now that I think of it, this applies to choosing your class as well; using a heavy without Uber while you're being spawn camped will probably result in stickies blowing your face off. This is the final step of the conventional three in that techniques are simply extending on what you can do, so it's almost guaranteed that you have picked up a few while playing.

Step 4. Techniques

This, Techniques, is the final step and is different from the other three in that this is basically a Tips-n-Tricks section with a fancy name. For this last bit, I'll just go over a few neat little things to do with a rudimentary explanation of how to do it.

1. Ambush: This one is for all classes, although the Sniper doesn't use it nearly as much due to his style being long-range. First, get behind enemy lines. Second, get behind specific enemy or group. Third, subject them to a backstab or point blank shotgun, minigun, rockets or fire blasts. This trick is very, VERY good when done right.

2. Rocket/Sticky jumping. Jump, crouch, aim at ground, fire rocket, fly. To fly at an angle, fire the rocket at a different angle. There is an advanced form called pogo jumping but I can't give any tips as I can't do it myself. Sticky Jumping follows a slightly different formula. Shoot sticky, walk over sticky, jump, crouch, detonate, fly/die because you used too many bombs. Sticky jumping covers more ground than rocket jumping but is harder to control.

3. Pyro combos. This depends on your loadout as pyro but is basically to light the enemy on fire, airblast into the air (optional) and then either hit them in the face with the Axetinguisher or Postal Pummeler for 195 damage or shoot them with the flare gun for 90 damage. This will get you ridiculous kills if done right, as anything with less than 200 health WILL be killed by the Axetinguisher combo and Scouts, Engies, Snipers and Spies are unlikely to survive the flare gun.

More will be added to this section when I have time/more to add, whichever comes first. Of course, these can be combined for evil purposes ( 1+3, I have my eye on you) and kill streaks. Happy winning :D

To Finish...

... Thank you for reading this guide. If you came here expecting a full-on tutorial, I apologise for not giving it to you, but in fairness I DID say so up top. Just in general, know what you're doing, practice it, and give this guide a good rating. This is my first guide so I'm eager for positive feedback and because Step 4 is by definition incomplete, feel free to post your nasty little tricks in the comments. I'll add them under your name so you feel good about yourself. As a last note, this guide has come off about a hundred hours of TF2 over several months, and there is A LOT I haven't been able to do or complete. Thanks for reading, and bye!

[LAZER PENGUIN]

thanks :)

[Pimpmaster Fistatron]

This is a very well-written guide (for one thing that is different from many others, I could actually read it, and it had good grammar demonstration). Although you could add a bit to examples (as some may not know just what the nuances of certain classes are), this guide is a fantastic start to your guide-making. Keep up the good work!