how to turn a f2p acount into p2p and buy silly hats

guide to understand how to turn your account into a p2p and some basic trading (as in NOT buying weapons from the mannco store or the comunity market if you just want the normal ubersaw. i am looking at you, who bought a vintage one not knowing any better. you know who you are)

f2p vs p2p

in tf2 there are 2 kinds of accounts f2p (free to play) and p2p (pay to play). this doesn't mean that the game is pay to win, since all weapons are available to all players through the random drop system and achievements. however there are a few key differences between them:

• f2p accounts cannot trade. this means that as a f2p you cannot exchange your items with other player or pay with metal (more on that later)
  
• f2p inventories are limited to one page, meaning they only have 50 inventory slots, while the basic p2p has 300. this means that f2p cannot own all weapons at once, there being 160.*
  
• finally, f2p users have communications turned off. this means they can't use the text chat, voice chat or even voice commands on valve servers. important things such as calling for medic or warning about a spy are impossible.
  this was done by valve, supposedly, to help with the bot problem, but not only did it not work, but it screwed many players.

*note: each smissmas all players receive a stocking with a backpack expander that grants the player 100 more inventory slots (among other things)

how does upgrade to premium work

becoming p2p requires 2 steps:
getting at least 5 dollars (or the equivalent in your currency) in your steam wallet and then buying something on the tf2 in-game store. the only things worth buying are keys (and mvm tickets)

this is because keys (and metal) are the currency used by the community to trade and most websites (and people) will only take these as a payment. the price of some items in dollars can be so low that using normal currency isn't worth it.
in the case of mvm tickets (their official name is Tour of Duty Ticket), they are cheaper than keys (approximately 1 dollar) and can be traded for metal without loosing that much value.

DO NOT BUY ANY WEAPONS OR HATS. weapons at the mannco store are overpriced to say the least. you can buy all basic weapons and some reskins by less than a cent on trading websites so DON'T FALL FOR IT. regarding hats, plenty of hats will go for much less than a dollar, so please don't. it's not worth it.

*note: some people believe you need to spend the 5 dollars you put on your wallet on the store to get premium. this is not true as you can see in this video that can be found on the official tf2 wiki.

get your weapons

because of the way tf2 economy works, you will need to activate the steam guard before trading anything. this is a mobile authenticator needed for instant transactions. without it, any trade you make would be put on hold for two weeks, but even with it, anything bought from the in game store or the community market will have a 2 week trade hold. (if you are having trouble with it try steam pls[steampls.com])
activating this will take one week. after it, you will be able to trade with people and in 3rd party websites like scrap tf[scrap.tf] stn trading[stntrading.eu] and backpack tf[backpack.tf] (i personally use the new ui[next.backpack.tf])
*note: by doing this you aren’t sharing your password


you can now take that key or mvm ticket(s) you bought and trade for metal. for this i'd recommend scrap.tf since you can do it automatically after signing with steam on the site. to exchange keys for metal, go to the key section under the trading menu¹. in the case of buying mvm ticket(s), you can do the same on the items section²

¹


²


great! and now that you have metal, you can get all weapons you didn’t have on the game simply by picking the auto buy option on trade -> weapons -> autobuy
*note: by doing this you can only get the weapons currently on the site and available on bots, so it may take a few trades to get ALL weapons.

Some weapons such as the rocket jumper or the vaccinator might be difficult to get a hold of and you might need to get them at backpack tf


you can even turn all your weapon duplicates into scrap by picking the option next to it (autoscrap)
*note: in game, you can only scrap together 2 weapons for the same class on the same slot, but this allows you to “scrap” any 2 weapons together.

hats?!?!

this will leave you with some spare metal, which you can use to buy some hats and some of the cheaper one class taunts.

in the case of the cheaper hats (craft hats) i would recommend using scrap tf again (this is because you can get many of them in one trade)
*note: if you own a craft hat and want to change it for another, don't sell them! there's an option on the site that allows you to exchange hats. hit the toolbox next to the shopping cart and you will be able to pay with items without losing value.
** as of right now, the craft hat category on scrap tf is mostly empty, but they can still be found at the bottom of the higher value hat section
(to check your loadout and see how hats look together, you can try out https://loadout.tf/)

not all hats will be on scrap tf, so if you want something more specific you can try on backpack tf
there, you'll have to log in with steam, the same deal as scrap tf, but instead of automatic trading, you'll have to do a few more steps

what do you mean there's math now

backpack tf, unlike scrap tf, is a site to list offers and requests, which means it’s not automated. to trade for an item, you trade with the individual puting it up for sale. most listings are done by bots that can automate the process by adding them to your friend list and copy-pasting some piece of text they have on the ad into a message. HOWEVER, check if the amount is correct, as sometimes the offer will be off by some metal.
in case you don’t want to deal with this, you can just send send the trade offer yourself calculating the metal

calculating metal... is honestly a headache. look dude i did not study social sciences for the last 4 years just to do math in my free time. solution? https://calculator.tf/
(the basics are 2 weapons = 1 scrap (0.11 ref) | 3 scrap = 1 reclaimed (0.33 ref) | 3 reclaimed = 1 refined (1 ref) (this means that 1 ref = 9 scrap) | and the rest depends on inflation! which right now! sucks!)
(source for the graphic[dontneedadictionary.tumblr.com])

huevos de pascua

ok, now for some common problems:

where do i find my trade link? here's another guide on how to do it

it keeps saying "confirmation error" when i hit accept: don't worry, this means you have succesfully accepted/sent the trade request and you are now trying to confirm it again. hit refresh and it should be gone!

i want to trade keys now if you want to start spending NOW and you're already p2p, buying keys from marketplace.tf will allow you to trade them instantly (they are also cheaper there!)

this sounds cool and all, but i want to avoid 3rd party sites/ i don't wanna do math son of a gun, now you're making this complicated on purpose. but it's fine. to pay with normal currency, you have 2 options:

• marketplace tf[marketplace.tf] (and similar sites) will trade you tf2 items for real currency. (items obtained by this system are automatically tradeable.the minimum price for an item is 0.02 cents, meaning that weapons cost approximately 8 times more)
  
  
• or you can buy at the community marketplace, the official valve system. (getting ANY item with this method, makes them untradable for a week. due to the cut valve takes from each purchase, and already low value, items such as unique craftable unpainted weapons won't be for sale on it)

you can also trade with people at trade servers, which can be found on the community servers list. this can be a good method for getting weapons without using any 3rd party site

fin

please, remember that before buying anything of bigger value, you should check it's price on the market.
don't accept random trade requests and watch out for scammers

get that drip and enjoy playing!

[monkeymanAM]

orange box is also a way to get premium

[Dredgen Pain]

This seems like a great start, thanks!

[desolation0]

I believe the Valve Complete Pack bundle still offers premium status in TF2, DOTA 2, and CS:GO. For around $5 during a holiday sale, you also get Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead series in the deal.

[red_bucket]

its pretty good. good job

[AndyZekcsi]

im already p2p but its good