A guide for Free To Play players! (F2P)

This guide is for the beginners of TF2, our future community! By reading this, you will be one step ahead of the pack! If you have any doubts about what is said in the guide, please refer to youtube and the TF2 wiki.

Fresh Beginnings

Welcome to guides! Now I realize you may be new to Steam and stumbled onto guide somehow, but let me assure you this is one great step! Most guides are here to help and inform what we can.

Let me preface this with the fact that I am a paid player which means i have spent money on a premium pass or in the Mann Co. store.

Being a F2P is no easy feat, especially in these times. Valve has acted hastily in decisions and now you won't be able to access the voice lines of your characters or the voice/text chat. Unfortunately, the cheaters you will see have gotten around this without paying...

With the formalities out of the way, Let's Start!

Getting Your Items

WARNING : You are F2P and will have LIMITED inventory space for items. I will say more about this after this section.

Now I know you might have seen the VERY click-baitey video of FREE items and such. But I assure you some hold truth in them. I will link the ones I myself used to save you from the hassle! One thing to keep in mind is that they are ACHIEVEMENT items, meaning it is OKAY to use this method.

https://youtu.be/cPdYktyIH_M Here is the link to the video in case it does not work in Steam. You may have to copy paste the link into your browser.

The main take away from this video is simply that you must join a 'Achievement Engineer' or 'FREE ITEMS' server and then type in the command he says. After that, close and open TF2 to recieve the rest of the items. This video is a demonstration of how to do this.

BLAM! FREE ITEMS AND ACHIEVEMENTS GALORE! You will also receive one free taunt for all classes called 'The Directors Vision'. You can equip it by clicking on a characters loadout and then the movie reel that will lead you to the taunt loadout where you can slot in your taunt!

Now another concern may arise: "But my inventory space is going to run out!" and when you are at max inventory and then find another item, a popup will appear asking to either trash the item found or trash one you currently own. No need to worry, these items you will gain anyhow by playing and are meant to be gained.

Side note: You will obtain a Unusual Haunted Metal Scrap which look like a pyramid of grey bricks. YOU WILL NEED THIS FOR LATER! This will be the one weapon that allows you to have an unusual effect constantly on your character as long as you are on a kill streak!

Bonus Hats!

Here are bonus hats you can earn for TF2 in other games.

Note the section that starts at 4:40. This part will tell you which and how to earn these hats. The rest of the sections you will have earned in the previous section. (By have going to a Achievement Engineer server and typing !giveitems or something similar)

These ARE free games. You are able to download and enjoy them.

Managing Inventory Space

Now that you have your items, its time to learn how the 'Backpack' or inventory, works!

You can click and drag items to certain slots and much as you please. Of course, you can be fancy and look to the top right for sorting options! Right clicking on said items allows you to do different things such as inspecting and/or trading the items.

Now for the tough realization, limited inventory space...

With this, I will tell you how to manage it to some extent.
During your playtime, you will find items to a point where you will have a full inventory. Once you are full and find another, TF2 will put you at a decision to either trash the found item or one in your backpack.

BY ANY MEANS DO NOT TRASH YOUR ACHIEVEMENT ITEMS AND ESPECIALLY NOT HATS . These puppies are your F2P life-blood.

What to do with said found item depending on what it is. (WITH EXCEPTIONS)

• If a case or crate, immediately trash, it is a lootbox/gambling with LITTLE TO NO PAYOUT for the average joe-schmoe who doesn't have stacks of moola(money) to burn.
  
• If it is a item you own, trash.
  
• If it is a new item, you can choose between keeping it or getting rid of another non-achievement item.
  

  ---

  
  The Exceptions
  These two will be a wonderful gift! Now these items are essentially little item gift bags(will be explained later in the guide)

Crafting

In this section, here will be a source of items to gain. There are 4 sections, Object Fabrication, which will handle the basic currency in which stuff is made from being: Scrap, Reclaimed, and Refined. (From least to most valuable, with each having the word Metal after)

3 Scrap make a Reclaimed, 3 Reclaimed make a Refined!

Common Objects which will allow you to craft certain weapons. DO NOT USE THIS AS YOUR SOURCE OF OBTAINING WEAPONS(refer to Scrap.tf section)

Rare Objects which allow you to craft hats(at the cost of 3 Refined Metal) and some hats complete sets! Now sets are a special thing. If hover over an item such as the Your Eternal Reward knife for Spy, you will see a list of other items to equip on your character to make the set! Now THIS will be your way of free unusual effects. If you have all the items equipped, you should get an unusual effect around your character when taunting. For the Saharan Spy set, you should get something of a dust storm. Other sets will leave a calling card. DO NOT USE THIS AS YOUR MAIN SOURCE OF OBTAINING HATS(refer to Scrap.tf section)

Specials which allow you to craft certain event items. Remember that Unusual Haunted Metal Scrap you got earlier from the 'Getting Your Items' section? Now it comes into action. Click on the 'Fabricate Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker' (HHHH) Put in the parts needed and click CRAFT! Now you have your first unusual weapon!

Crafted objects will have YOUR NAME on them. Nothing beats something that you worked hard to make.

Scrap.tf

I will preface this with the fact that I AM NOT SPONSORED BY THEM.

Info about being F2P on Scrap tf[scrap.tf]

The only way to gain tradable items is if someone gives them to you in a trade themselves or in a raffle. PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK ME FOR METAL, I WILL HAPPILY TRADE YOU(to the best of my ability). With the metal people give you(even me), you can get started.

This site will be your go-to for any TF2 needs. Go to https://scrap.tf (copy+paste into your browser)

First things first, you must follow all the steps to creating a Scrap.tf and linking it to your Steam account.

I've had my account for a long time so I do not remember the process of creating it. I am sure there are YouTube videos and even the site will lend a hand.

Once you are done with that, now comes the fun part! Unlike the archaic ways of the crafting system, you can easily get more items for cheap! The reason why items are so cheap is the result of thousands of players gaining and selling items over the years.

The main two sections you will use are 'Trade' and 'Raffles'.

Raffles

THIS IS THE MAIN WAY TO GAIN TRADABLE ITEMS AND METAL FOR FREE. When you click the tab of Raffles, you will see all sorts of things. For the time being, ignore the bottom half. Make sure to ALWAYS join the Megaraffle because there you can win UNUSUALS! Now for the other 2 options. In public raffles, you will see a list of raffles going on. It will display the title, the contents of the raffle, and the creator of the raffle. Once you click into it, you will see some writing for the raffle. In puzzle raffles, they require problem solving but reward you with higher chances of winning!. Below, you will see a 'Enter Raffle ->' button, click it and it will tell you that you've entered! Now do that for all the rest of the raffles and have a great time reading! Some people use raffles to write dairies, share stories of their life, or even goodbye messages to TF2, the possibilities are endless.

Accepting the raffle means claiming the prize through a Steam trade, simply check the contents, approve, and look below and hit confirm trade(not exact words, sorry for memory).

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DISCLAIMER

MAKE SURE TO REGULARLY CHECK YOUR INBOX FOR WINNINGS AND CLAIM THEM IF ANY. SCRAP.TF PUTS A LIMIT ON HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE TO RECEIVE YOUR WINNINGS BEFORE THEY RETURN THEM AND PUNISH YOU.(punishment may be a temporary ban from joining raffles)

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Trade

Here you can buy and sell all sorts of different things. With the items won from the raffles, you can trade them for other items through the subheaders 'buy' & 'sell'. The 'buy' will allow you to purchase things from that category. The "sell' will allow you to sell things OF that category. The one you will use most commonly are the 'Weapons' & 'Hats' section where you can get stuff for cheap!

The Incinerator, hidden in the 'More' section. It is basically like dumpster diving, you will find things there once in a blue moon, but hey, doesn't hurt to check!

Hardware Problems?

If you are running on a low-end machine, hopefully my recommendations will sooth your pain.

TF2 has a console (learn how to enable by a YouTube video) and it allows for wonderful things.

However, the main focus should be 'mastercomfig[mastercomfig.com]'

When on the website, at the top you have to 'Choose a preset'. Simply click the one you'd like, with the lower options allowing for more performance over visual quality.

Now to prevent you the time and hassle of having to manually input a FPS cap, click on customize and scroll down to the box where it shows tons of options. On the right, click on the HUD tab, now scroll up slightly to where you see 'FPS Cap' with a slider and slide it to as low as you need. When set, simply leave as is and continue scrolling down to the 'Select any addons' section.

In the 'Select any addons' section, I highly recommend you choose:

• Null-Cancelling Movement, allows for finer movement.
  
• Flat Mouse, consistent aiming movements.
  
  When choosen, the addons will be highlighted in a box. Continue scrolling down.
  
  Now at 'Download your files', click the link that says, 'Download [your chosen preset] and selected addons. Then click 'Download customizations' that include the file with the FPS cap so your don't fry your toaster! Below the link, it will say how to install. The way to get there is similar to the video except for instead of clicking custom, you click cfg and creator the 'user' folder in there and drop the file in.
  
  Download all the files and have the ready on your desktop.
  
  Scroll down further into 'Next Steps' and click 'How to install' to learn how!
  
  Here's a video I made showing the process of installing the files into TF2. YES YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE THE 'custom' FOLDER YOURSELF.
  
  Sidenote: After clicking into the YouTube link, you will need to refresh it so it can play the video. No clue why this is an issue with Steam.

HUD (OPTIONAL SECTION)

Now the default hud, while having the artstyle intended for the game, does you no favours in the performance department. Head to HUDS.tf to pick a hud of your liking.

You will need WinRaR for this. simply download the zip file, open contents with WinRaR and place into your 'custom' folder. Some huds will have a 'master' folder that will contain the actual hud within. To know what the hud folder is, look and see if its just one file containing things like 'resource' and 'script' folders or if the folder contains another named hud.

The Mercenaries (and Weapons)

I will not talk about the playable characters since there is so much depth to them one section of a guide will not do it justice. Please refer to other guides and YouTube tutorials to help you in your pick of class.

There are 160 weapons in TF2 to play with, please learn about them in other guides and videos as this one is long enough.

The Gamemodes

You've done it! Now all that boring mumbo-jumbo is over! But the reason I spent so much time on those topics are because its things I wish I had told to me so I could have all my things ready for my TF2 journey.

Now the big question: how should I play and where should I?

The main form of playing is in Casual! When you click on that section you will be met with a list of game modes to tick off to search for.

Attack/Defend: This is a simple gamemode. If on RED, keep the BLU baddies away from YOUR beloved control point. Vice versa on BLU.

Capture the Flag: Now this mode has been subjected to a heavy influence of the community. This is delegated as a 'form of team death match' and completing the objective is frowned upon by a portion of players.

Control Point: Commonly referred to as 5CP. This is a tug of war between the 5 capture points. The closer the fight is to a base, the more resistance they will be able to put out.

King of the Hill: You fight to control the objective to make your timer reach 0:00 and win!

Payload: This is the bread and butter of TF2, it has a place for every class to perform at their highest potential. The majority of players will be in this gamemode.

Now at first glance, it seems like these are all the gamemodes ;however, if you scroll down, you will see alternative gamemodes that you can explore freely.

[https://youtu.be/KuqImZKygvw] video of the picture above. LazyPurple has great videos on TF2. His work schedule is quality over quantity.

Halloween and Christmas! (and Other Minor Events)

These two events are the most joyous times of TF2. ESPECIALLY HALLOWEEN.











Halloween begins somewhere in October so you won't just get 1 day of events. You get to do contracts which lead to cool Halloween costumes and items and tons of wacky game modes to have a ton of fun. Even better with pals!

Christmas, while being less jam-packed with fun, is still great! Everyone gets together to play TF2 on snowy maps and sing joys about Christmas. Here you will get your Christmas sock which CONTAINS A BACKPACK EXPANDER FOR FREE OH MY GOODNEsS GRACIOUS! (A backpack expander allows for more inventory which means you will be able to enjoy more items at a time.)

Now two other events to note are Full moons which were addes as part of the Blue Moon Update and TF2's own birthday! If you play on August 24, you will receive a free party hat and a party noise maker with uses only limited by the fact if its TF2's birthday.

The Community

The community of this game is unlike any other. It has matured and grown over 14 years! There is so much art and fan made videos of it(Such as LazyPurple, Uncle Dane, B4nny, jpeg, and many others!) The videos range from analyzing the intricacies of a weapon to the lore of the game, to personal stories had on TF2. People make rants and discuss a wide variety of topics.

A Community is like a ecosystem, the more diverse it is, the more structurally sound it becomes. There are many facets to enjoy this game. Some people rarely play but make tons and tons of art for the game they love so much. Other mod, some grief, some complain, some praise. To understand the community, you really gotta be in it.

Community Servers

Adding from the Community Section, they have also created servers for people to play on! Since you are a F2P, you will benefit the most from these since they allow you to speak in the chatbox as well as with voicechat. For starters, I recommend Casual TF[casual.tf] since it is relatively easy to navigate. They have a working anti-cheat, which means no bots! The downside to playing on community servers is that you have no choice in what you will play. The server will allow to vote for maps to pick from but thats it. There are some quality changes such as fixing the mann melter particles and cleaning up the flamethrower to not become a wall of flame when firing it.

Disclaimer: when clicking play on "Play Now!" and it asks to open steam, this is perfectly normal. Please open so it can direct you to the server.

I mainly play on here so feel free so say hi in the chatbox!! Although trying to speak to me in voice will not work since i turned off voicechat.

Closing Sentiments

And with that, I hand the torch of TF2 to you, my friend. I have given you all the tools I learned into 1 neat guide. I alone cannot keep the flame going. It is YOU! YOU will be the players after me, having fun and making memories. YOU will take your first steps into the unknown world of TF2. YOU will see how this game evolves or stagnates. I have seen many things of my time in TF2, some good, some bad. Maybe you will enter the next golden age where I cannot have hoped to dream of.

Now with a tear in my eye and hope in my heart, I bid you good luck!

Thank you for reading and learning.

[frostzapper]

As a p2p that recently was a f2p I can't recommend you this dear fp2s

[Bandit]

my head is on fire, am i good now?

[terrarialord201]

Thanks!

[bajodor]

@terrarialord201 it could be that you've unknowingly used the metal or it could be gained with the command '!halloween2014' in a similar sever. When i did the command, i receive it. But please do not wipe your account.

[terrarialord201]

I just recently did the achievement engineer step, but I have be playing for a little bit, and already had some items in my inventory. I checked, and I think I've messed up, because some of the items aren't there, most notably the metal. I feel like the best choice would be to wipe my account. Is that correct?

[Corpse]

Amazing guide. I'm not even a free to play and I must say I learned some new things form this. Keep up the great work!

[Gawr Gura's Gazillion Gallon Guy]

that, was actually pretty good.

[Automatic]

i wouldnt say the community is the best

[Krosh]

alr free item plz

[Burzum]

the community is the best? might wanna double check that