Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

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Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Fano » Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:59 pm

Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Preface:
This guide will be very general. I won't go too deeply into class-specific strategies and instead will try to focus on things that will improve your efficiency and ability at TF2 as a whole, this includes everything from client side modifications to perfecting your aim.

Let's get started.

Autoexec.cfg
This is the file where we'll be doing most of our client tweaks, the folder is located in “Steam/steamapps/<username>/team fortress 2/tf/cfg” folder, if autoexec.cfg does not exist, create an empty notepad file and name it “autoexec.cfg”, make sure the extension is .cfg and not .txt, as this will not work. The file should start out empty, we'll begin adding to it in the next section.

Network Settings
Having optimized network settings is very important, using the right settings will let the game more reliably show you the correct position of each player on the server, as well as allowing your shots to come out sooner and register more accurately.

The following commands are generally thought to be the best way to optimize your network settings on your client, paste this directly at the top of your autoexec.cfg (note that lines preceded by // are comments):

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//Network Settings
//================
cl_cmdrate 67
cl_interp 0.0152
cl_interp_ratio 1
cl_lagcompensation 1
cl_pred_optimize 2
cl_smooth 0
cl_smoothtime 0.01
cl_updaterate 67
rate 60000
If you experience stuttering, try messing with the cl_interp value. You want it to be as low as possible without it giving you packet loss, 0.0152 is the lowest possible value, other acceptable values are 0.024 and 0.033.

To check for packet loss, join your favorite server and type net_graph 1 in console, if the lerp value on the graph is constantly flashing yellow, it indicates packet loss, which means you should increase your cl_interp value until it's no longer losing packets.
If you want, you can go the extra mile and bind several keys on your keyboard to switch between the different interp values based on the server you're on (I use the numpad for this), I also have a bind that toggles the net graph when I open my scoreboard so I can quickly check for packet loss:

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//Network Binds
//=============
bind "KP_END" "cl_interp 0.0152"
bind "KP_DOWNARROW" "cl_interp 0.024"
bind "KP_PGDN" "cl_interp 0.033"

//Scoreboard + Net Graph
//======================
alias "+sb" "+showscores; net_graph 1";
alias "-sb" "-showscores; net_graph 0";
bind "tab" "+sb";

Performance Settings
If your FPS (frames per second) is rather on the low side, there are some tweaks you can do via your autoexec.cfg file that go beyond the abilities of the in-game options menu, you can monitor your FPS using the previously mentioned net_graph 1 command in console, the general rule is that your FPS should be at least twice the value of your monitor refresh rate, most of us have 60Hz monitors and therefore should shoot for a minimum FPS of 120. This is a rather steep requirement especially since TF2 can get quite demanding with the ongoing updates to the game, so I will say this: If you can hold your FPS at around or above 65-70, you shouldn't worry about it, if however your FPS constantly hovers around the 40-50 mark, you should consider using an FPS Config. The most popular are chris' FPS Configs, which can be found here. There are several to choose from, but I generally recommend the dx9frames one.

The installation instructions for the configs are listed on that page, however note that Chris asks you to save his file as your autoexec.cfg, this is optional, you can save that as a separate .cfg file and then call it in your autoexec.cfg with this command:

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exec <filename>.cfg
This is simply for neatness sake, if you do install the config, make sure to read through the file since there are several options you can tweak in there to get the best performance out of your system, including the networks settings we set up earlier, you don't need to mess with those since we already set them up in our own autoexec.cfg, they will be commented out by default.

Disclaimer: These files will make your game quite ugly, and it's entirely up to you whether you want to install them or not. Like I said, this is entirely unnecessary if your FPS is well above 60, but those constantly in the 40-50 range might want to give it a shot, the difference is quite impressive.


Custom HUDs
These are mostly preference, but if you're still running around with the default HUD, it's time to give some user-created ones a shot. Granted, these can be a pain to maintain as updates can frequently break them, causing you to reinstall them or wait for the HUD-creator to release an updated version, but I think it's worth it.

My personal favorite HUD is Garm3nHUD, It comes in 3 flavors (Yellow, TanLight, and 4MP, which I prefer) and has several different features that you can toggle, such as toggling whether the health cross is shown (as opposed to just the numerical value) and whether to show what class you’re playing (helpful for spy so you can see your disguises, not so much for other classes). Additionally there are different types of scoreboards included for 6v6, 9v9, 12v12, and 16v16. Most interestingly however, the HUD comes with many custom crosshairs to choose from, I basically rely on them now due to their unmatched visibility and impressive versatility (some pulse when you are low on health, for example), this is what my screen looks like with the HUD installed, check out the other screenshots on the HUD page and pick out the one you like the most, installation instructions should be included with the HUD files.

Other popular HUDs I've come across are CommunityHUD and FrankenHUD, both of which offer great advantages to the default HUD, but fall short of garm3nHUD in my opinion due to the lack of custom crosshairs (which aren't actually crucial but I’m a baby who MUST see the crosshair at all times, so just pick the one you like the most).


Other General Tweaks

Hitsound Settings
If you don't have your hitsounds enabled through the options, I highly suggest you turn them on! This setting makes a ding noise whenever you hit somebody, incredibly useful when shooting around corners or spamming into a chokepoint, the following settings in your autoexec.cfg also make it so that the pitch of the sound varies depending on the amount of damage you do, it'll be a loud gong if you do a ton of damage, and a high pitched plink if you do a tiny amount of damage, add this to your autoexec.cfg:

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//Hitsound Settings
//=================
tf_dingaling_pitchmaxdmg 15
tf_dingaling_pitchmindmg 140
You can also install different hitsounds if you don't like the default one, a lot of players like the quake 3 one, I personally just stick with the default.

Useful Binds
Switching Classes
Switching classes on the fly can be pretty cumbersome if you have to navigate a menu, for this reason I've set up a quick series of binds that allows me to do it quickly using the F1-F9 keys, the classes are in the same order as in the spy disguise menu, so you're probably already familiar with which class corresponds to each number, add this to your autoexec.cfg:

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//Join Class Binds
//================
bind F1 "join_class scout"
bind F2 "join_class soldier"
bind F3 "join_class pyro"
bind F4 "join_class demoman"
bind F5 "join_class heavyweapons"
bind F6 "join_class engineer"
bind F7 "join_class medic"
bind F8 "join_class sniper"
bind F9 "join_class spy"
Switching Weapons
It’s sometimes hard to use the number keys, or Q, to switch your weapons mid-fight, especially if you are trying to dodge and aim at the same time. I prefer using the mouse wheel to switch weapons as this frees up my left hand to dodge and move as fluently as possible.
However, using the scroll wheel to switch weapons can be very unreliable you have it set to scroll through your entire loadout, having to make sure you scroll only one tick in order to get to the weapon you need puts you at a disadvantage, I have set it up so that scroll the wheel upwards switches to my primary weapon, and scrolling downwards switch to my secondary, this way I don’t have to worry about how many ticks to scroll through, just which direction. I also have it set so that clicking the mouse wheel brings up my melee, but I still find myself using the number keys to switch to it for some reason, doesn’t hurt to have it though:

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//Weapon Binds
//============
bind MWHEELUP "slot1"
bind MWHEELDOWN "slot2"
bind mouse3 "slot3"
Null-Canceling Movement Script
This one is a bit more technical, when two opposing movement keys are held (this applies to any source engine game), they will cancel each other out, resulting in no movement in either direction. This script would prevent this from happening by ensuring that only one key in each axis can be held at any point in time.

For example, holding left strafe then holding right strafe would normally result in the player coming to a complete stop. This script would result in the player strafing right. If the player then released right strafe, normal left strafe would resume.

The concept behind this is that it will help making your movement flow better, particularly as a scout, in certain cases it can make you harder to hit since you change direction much more smoothly and rapidly, with no stutter or stop in-between.

Will this make you a pro scout? No.
Does it make any difference in gameplay? Probably, and it certainly won't hurt to have it, add this to your autoexec.cfg:

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// Null-Canceling Movement Script
//================================
alias +mfwd "-back;+forward;alias checkfwd +forward"
alias +mback "-forward;+back;alias checkback +back"
alias +mleft "-moveright;+moveleft;alias checkleft +moveleft"
alias +mright "-moveleft;+moveright;alias checkright +moveright"
alias -mfwd "-forward;checkback;alias checkfwd none"
alias -mback "-back;checkfwd;alias checkback none"
alias -mleft "-moveleft;checkright;alias checkleft none"
alias -mright "-moveright;checkleft;alias checkright none"
alias checkfwd none
alias checkback none
alias checkleft none
alias checkright none
alias none ""

bind w +mfwd
bind s +mback
bind a +mleft
bind d +mright
Of course if you're one of those people that don't use WASD as your movement keys (ESDF is a popular alternative) you can tweak those keys at the very bottom of the script.

Improving Your Aim

Turn on Raw Mouse Input
A recent addition to the game by valve is the option to use raw mouse input data in order to calculate your mouse movements, this bypasses all windows settings and allows your mouse to send raw, unfiltered data to the game, this is in your best interest, if you have “enhance pointer precision” checked in your windows control panel, I suggest turning that off as well.

In order to enable raw mouse input, you can either toggle the checkbox in the options menu or add the line m_rawinput 1 to your autoexec.cfg, it is crucial that you do this before going to the next step.

Finding the PERFECT mouse sensitivity
This next section is mostly lifted straight off the CS:S Mouse Optimization Guide, with various edits done by me in order to make it relevant for TF2, The full guide is a long and tedious read, you can check it out here, if you so choose.

This is the longest part of this guide, but if you do it correctly it will improve your aim by an incredible margin, if you gather anything from this guide, let it be this.

----
I can describe an excellent way of getting very close to your ideal sensitivity in-game. The way this method works is you start your own server in TF2 by typing map cp_granary into console, join up on either team as a class of your choice (preferably one that you play often that can wield a shotgun), you now have an empty map to roam in, type mp_tournament 1 in console to get rid of the time limit.

Start by looking at a wall somewhere in the open and fire 3-5 shotgun shots into it. Now keep the bullet marks in your crosshairs and start strafing, aim fixed as best as you can on the bullet holes. The goal is to be so perfectly on target looking at your bullet marks that it's as if there is a pole hinged from them that's attached to your gun, and you just rotate and move as one around the marks.

You can strafe around your marks from different distances, including close range and farther away to get a good feel for the exercise. Also consider what spots you play on your favorite maps and the distances you usually will encounter enemies from while playing when you decide how far back to be from your marks. It also helps to move your mouse smoothly and not drag your hand too much while doing this exercise. When you are finished practicing, write down the exact sensitivity (you can find out the exact number by typing sensitivity in console) you were using on a sheet of paper and get a calculator (or use the windows calculator if you don't mind to Alt+Tab).

Now in console, type sensitivity and double that value. Try the same exercise again with twice the sensitivity. Once you quickly get used to the new speed, see if you are tracking the marks better or worse than before. Write this sensitivity down on the sheet. Now you are going to compare to one half the original value, the calculator will help you find this, you only need to bother with precision to the nearest thousandth (3 decimal places) when you write your sensitivity down. Quickly adjust to it and do the strafing experiment and aim the best you can. While you are trying to decide consider the following: if your mouse sensitivity is too high you may find trouble controlling the crosshair and it may bounce around your marks and jitter, conversely if it is too slow, you may find yourself sliding off your mousepad or falling behind the bullet holes while you strafe.

Now look at the sheet of paper. Cross out the worst highest or lowest sensitivity remaining, leaving your best two sensitivities on the sheet. If you kept the higher sensitivity, double it again and test at that new higher value. If you kept the lower sensitivity, divide it by two and test at that new lowest one. Write down the new sensitivity and again eliminate the worst highest or lowest value remaining. If you found that the new one was better, repeat this paragraph, crossing out the worst lowest or highest sensitivity until you get one that is worse than your previous.

Now you have two sensitivities on the sheet, above one you are 'worse', below the other you are 'worse'. Your ideal sensitivity should be between them. Average the two values by adding them together and dividing by 2, round to the nearest thousandth when you get decimals. Write down the average but don't test it yet. Instead, carefully test the highest and lowest sensitivity remaining and decide which is worse, cross it out, then repeat this paragraph with the new two remaining sensitivities until you can't for the life of you tell which of the two sensitivities are worse. Then average those two that were indistinguishable, and you now have very closely pin pointed your ideal sensitivity.

I tried this method from different starting values and always come within .05 of the same value each time. In the process of writing this guide I did this whole process on three occasions, first time getting 1.181, then getting 1.200 and another time getting 1.155. That is pretty accurate although there is some normal variation but it's less than 5%.

So why is it different each time? First off because you are feeling differently on different days, it may be worth it to test more than one time over a few different days and from various starting values. After maybe 3-5 trials throughout a week's time span, average the different final values you have determined and that will be your long term perfect sensitivity.

This way, no matter how you are feeling, you will be the closest to what sensitivity would be perfect for you on any given day of the week. This also means you don't have to change your sensitivity very often and when you do change it slightly (less than 5%) you stay in your optimum "range" of good sensitivities. This is important, finding just one value and sticking to it! The mind likes consistency, and if you are constantly making big adjustments more than 5% up or down to your sensitivity you can expect to play inconsistently and have slumps more often.
===================================

Practice!
Now that you’ve got your perfect sensitivity down, the only thing to do is to get out there and practice! Join your favorite server and just play like you normally would, keeping your sensitivity constant is very important as the more you play with the more you will start to develop a feel for it and increase your accuracy.

Practice Maps
Practice maps are available for the more dedicated, though they are entirely optional and totally unnecessary. The map I will provide for you is intended to be used in short 10-15 minute bursts each day in order to help train your muscle memory, it’s not absolutely mandatory to play this map every day, it’s just something I like to boot up every once in a while when I’m bored and get a little practice in without finding a server full of people.

The map is tr_aim_training (Downoad Link), it’s composed of several rooms for practicing airshots, muscle memory, and twitch aim. The room that entices me the most is the scout room, which is quite a fun challenge, the muscle memory room is also really useful as well if you can squeeze 5 or 10 minutes of that a couple of times a week.

MGE Mod
If you’re a bold and brave adventurer, you’ll want to hit up some MGE servers for practice, MGE Mod is a 1v1 source mod with several key map locations to practice on, such as badlands middle or granary’s last point. Don’t be surprised if you run into some really good players on these servers though, it is the preferred method of practice for most competitive players, tr_aim_training gets boring pretty fast.


Improving your general game
Before I go on to class-specific strategies, I'd like to take the opportunity to mention this: The best way to improve, generally, is to play the main competitive classes, those are scout, soldier, demoman, and medic. Why you ask? The answer is simple, these classes allow you to more easily develop a skill and game sense that can be applied across the board, you'll learn concepts that will take you a lot longer to grasp by playing a support class like sniper or spy, I'll give some examples.

Playing scout will teach you about flanking, hitscan aim, dodging, and will emphasize survivability.
Playing soldier will teach you about positional advantage, protecting your medic, playing aggressively, and retreating safely.
Playing demoman will teach you about predictability, area denial, and how to rely on your teammates.
Playing medic will teach you about communication, safe positioning, dodging, and how to time pushes.

All of these are global attributes that can be equally applied to pyro, engineer, sniper, spy, and heavy, but won't necessarily be learned as easily if you play those classes exclusively. Granted, there are several things you can learn by playing the other classes, but they're usually more specific to that particular class as opposed to a universal skill that will help you improve across the board.

The bottom line is: The competitive classes emphasize fundamentals, having solid fundamentals is the key to being a great TF2 player.

Class-specific Strategies
This section will be short, having the fundamentals mentioned above will have you well on your way to learning most of these on your own, however I figured it would be nice to have this section at the very end for the sake of completeness.

Scout
Flanking:
Try to always come from an unexpected angle, if you come at an enemy from where he can see you from a mile away you won't have the element of surprise on your side, and it'll make it ton easier for him to take you down.

Retreating:
You're the fastest class in the game sans rocket/sticky jumping soldiers and demos, this means you have the option of disengaging from any given fight at any given time, if you don't feel the encounter going your way, get out of there and regroup! There's no shame in backing out of a fight to live another day, emphasize survivability above everything else.

Ideal Loadout
Scattergun
Pistol/Mad Milk
Atomizer

Soldier
Protect Your Medic!
As a soldier you are hands down the best class for protecting medics, you can move faster than they can (via rocket jumps) so you'll never have to worry about keeping up or slowing them down. Also, your rockets are the perfect weapon for getting rid of pesky flanking scouts and spies, this makes the soldier + medic combo the most flexible pair in the game, a good medic will almost always choose to pair up with you as opposed to a demo or heavy, it's in your best interest to return the favor by sticking to him instead of rocket jumping away the second you get overheal, always be mindful of your medic and put him above everything else.

Learn your Rocket Jumps!
As a soldier your most value tool in your arsenal should be your ability to rocket jump effectively, both during battle to get a positional advantage over your opponent and also while you walk out of spawn to get to the front lines more quickly Additionally, after mastering rocket jumps the gunboats become a very viable sidegrade secondary, they're especially useful if the team you're on doesn't have a medic, they’ll give you far more mobility and most importantly you'll be able to disengage from a fight by rocket jumping away without having to worry about killing yourself.

If you want a practice map for rocket jumps (very useful), give jump_beef a run, other good rocket jump maps are rj_rocketeer (slightly easier than beef) and jump_adventure (similar progression, but much harder towards the end).


Ideal Loadout
Rocket Launcher
Shotgun/Gunboats
Equalizer

Pyro
Flank!
As with scout, flanking is a very strong tool for you as a pyro, it's perhaps even more important to you than to a scout because your flamethrower has a very short range but can be very lethal if you can get the jump on someone.

Airblasts:
The airblast is a useful mechanic, but don't sit there at a distance waiting for a soldier to shoot at you in an attempt to reflect it. The idea is that you should be closing the distance and using your airblast as a way to save yourself some time while you get in range to use your flamethrower, don't get me wrong, reflecting rockets back is incredibly useful, but don't sit there and wait for them, make a move. I'll often encounter a pyro who is keen on reflecting my shots as soldier and he keeps a distance while waiting for me to shoot, I find it silly and simply back away from the fight or pull out my shotgun before shredding him to bits.

Ideal Loadout
Degreaser/Backburner
Shotgun
Axtinguisher/Backscrather (if no medics)

Demoman
Play near your team:
Your abilities as demoman are greatly diminished in 1v1 situations, because of this you should always try to play near other players of your team who will be able to get rid of immediate threats such as flanking scouts or pyros, this will allow you to focus your damage on the players pushing the front lines, lobbing pipes/stickies from a distance is very useful, especially if you surround yourself in a way that makes it near impossible for the other team to counter you.

Focus on your pipebomb aim:
Most of the time the pipes from the grenade launcher are mostly used as spam, but these are your one and only defense in 1v1 situations, stickies take too long to arm and melee weapons are unreliable. Pipebombs however do a ton of damage if you can hit players directly, they also don’t suffer from falloff, so they’ll do the same damage at any range, useful to know.

Sentries:
When ubering into a sentry, always lay down 3-4 stickies on the sentry before detonating, this ensures that the sentry dies in one hit and the engineer won’t get the chance to repair your damage. I usually try to lay down as many stickies as I can before the uber fades, this way if the enemy team sees you laying down stickies and not killing anything as the uber is fading they’ll assume the uber was unsuccessful and start getting closer, getting caught in the explosion as you detonate and back out having killed 4-5 players and a sentry nest, feels good.

Ideal Loadout
Grenade Launcher
Sticky Launcher
Pain Train/Bottle

Heavy
Don't get tunnel vision, learn to retreat, as a heavy this is more important because your slow speed means you must disengage earlier if you wish to get out safely, I don't know what more else to say here because heavy in his current state is honestly quite easy to play, just pack the sandvich and GRU and skillhose your way to the top.

Ideal Loadout
Minigun/Tomislav (if the recent beta patch makes it into the game, sticking with the minigun would be preferred)
Sandvich
G.R.U.

Engineer
Avoid turtling:
Well, unless you want to bore the other team to victory. In most situations spreading your buildings out can offer certain benefits, I’m speaking mostly about your dispenser and your teleporter exit, though it kind of applies to sentries as well. It’s a bit difficult to go into detail about what I mean since this applies differently on each map, but the general idea is that it’ll be more difficult for a demoman to blow up your buildings with a single uber.
On A/D or payload maps like badwater, it’s always smart to put your sentry somewhere the enemy team won’t be able to spot from their spawn door. A great example is above the tunnel exit right before the first point of badwater, this leaves the sentry in a great position to cover the upper part of the map while also being far enough away from the enemy’s spawn that by the time they spot it it’s likely they have already used their uber and are waiting to build another one.

Use your shotgun!
Your shotgun is your strongest weapon besides your sentry, and it’s a shame to let it go to waste, I often see engineers chasing against enemies with their wrench, when in reality the shotgun would be far more preferable. Melee is finicky and requires a much higher risk while the shotgun provides reliable burst damage from a distance, which allows you to dodge incoming shots more effectively; it’s a no-brainer.

Mini-Sentries:
Mini sentries are great for non-A/D maps like badlands and freight; they also work incredibly well on koth maps like viaduct and harvest since you’re always around the same area and are able to constantly keep a mini sentry up thanks to the cheap build cost, consider carrying minisentries if the front lines change a lot (5CP maps) or if a definitive front line isn’t clearly defined (most KOTH maps). I would recommend against using mini-sentries on payload, it can work though.
A useful bind to have is one that creates mini sentries in front of you instantly so you can quickly deploy it during battle, if you like, you can open up your engineer.cfg file in the cfg folder and add this bind to it:

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//automatic mini sentry
alias +sentry "destroy 2 0; build 2 0; +attack"
alias -sentry "-attack; lastinv"
bind shift +sentry
With this bind, holding down shift will pull out the sentry gun blueprint and place it down for you immediately, and tapping shift will destroy your current sentry.

Ideal Loadout
Shotgun
Pistol/Wrangler
Wrench/gunslinger

Medic
Prioritize Targets:
This mostly comes with practice, but above all, you want to keep your soldiers, demos, and heavies healed up above all other classes, why? Because they are the best at keep YOU alive, saving that sniper isn’t going to do you much good if the soldier you were previously healing suddenly gets taken out.

Multi-Uber:
While ubering, you can still switch heal targets normally, you’re not tethered to the player you ubered, this means two things: 1) it’s possible to switch uber targets on the fly if you suddenly find a player in a better position and 2) it’s possible to uber more than one player at once. If you take your heal beam off somebody while you’re ubered, the effect will remain on him for about a second or so before it fades, if you switch rapidly between two players, it’s possible to keep them both ubered for entire duration of the uber, making your push that much stronger.

Use this knowledge wisely, don’t uber more than one person if you don’t need to, the more you switch your heal beam around, the faster your uber drains, this was put in place to prevent medics from ubering 3-4 players at once for the full 8 seconds. It can, however, be a very useful tactic if you can, for example, flash a teammate with uber right before he eats a rocket, and then switch back to your original target.

Sentries:
Sentries will automatically lock onto the closest player they can find and start shooting, this means that if you’re ubering into a sentry, it’s in your best interest to move towards the sentry and absorb all the knock back so your pocket can aim more effectively and have more freedom of movement, if your pocket doesn’t take care of the sentry then obviously you should move out of the way, but absorbing that knockback can help close the distance and allow your pocket to deal with it much more easily.

A useful bind I will share for medics is what I like to call “The idiot radar”. This script uses the medic auto-call feature and switches the value to 150% while you hold down the specified key, this means everyone on your team will start calling for medic for as long as you hold down your bind, it’s very useful if you ever find yourself alone in need of a pocket but you don’t know where anyone is, holding the key will direct you to your nearest teammate(s), this code should go in your medic.cfg:

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//autocall radar
alias "autocall_default" "hud_medicautocallersthreshold "60""
alias "autocall_all" "hud_medicautocallersthreshold "150""
alias "+radar" "autocall_all"
alias "-radar" "autocall_default"
bind shift "+radar"
Note that this bind uses shift, the same as the engineer bind, they should override each other if you place the scripts in the appropriate files, but you can also use different keys if you like.

Ideal Loadout
Syringe Gun/Overdose
Medigun/Kritzkrieg
Vitasaw

Sniper
Aim before your scope:
This one is simple; the idea is to place your crosshair around the general vicinity of the player you’re aiming at before you scope in. When you scope, your crosshair stays in the same place, so it’s a lot less disorienting to aim for the head, scope, make a small adjustment, and shoot, in that order.

Know your sightlines:
Map specific, obviously, but you should be familiar with which spots on certain maps offer the greatest sightline, not only so that you can use them as sniper, but so you can learn to avoid them when playing as the other classes.

Zoom_sensitivity_ratio:
This is a cvar that adjusts your sensitivity while zoomed in. When zoomed, your sensitivity is multiplied by the value of this cvar, allegedly allowing you to make finer adjustments if you set the value below 1.
In reality, this can mess with your muscle memory, so I recommend setting it to 1.0, that way your sensitivity stays the same whether you’re zoomed in or not. I believe the value is actually 1.0 by default, but you may want to check.

Ideal Loadout
Sniper Rifle
SMG/Jarate
Bushwacka

Spy
Use your revolver:
I see a lot of spies completely ignore what is supposed to be their primary weapon; the revolver is an incredibly strong weapon, capable of taking down most light classes (including medics) in just 3 hits, 2 if you use the enforcer. It’s great tool to use if for some reason you miss a stab or just can’t seem to catch up to a certain target. It can also be a great tool to harass engineers with from a distance as they’re building, engineer buildings deploy with 1 health and build up to their maximum over time, so one pistol shot will immediately down a building if it has just been placed.

Spy is not always the best choice:
Being the second (or third…or fourth) spy on your team is usually not recommended, spying relies on ambushes and surprise attacks, if the enemy knows a spy is roaming around they’ll more alert to you and be able to shut you down effectively, at this point you’ll be a bigger asset to your team by playing another class.
Additionally, there are some maps where spy just flat out doesn’t work, linear maps like dustbowl and spammy payload maps like hoodoo are just bad for the class, that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful, it’ll just be that much harder, and possibly not worth the effort unless the enemy team is hilariously bad.

Ideal Loadout
Revolver/Enforcer
Knife/Spycicle
Invisibility Watch/Dead Ringer


Conclusion
That’s the end of my guide, I’ve set you up with what I think is a recipe for success, the one thing you must remember is that it all takes PRACTICE!

If anyone wants to learn some of the key aspects I’ve mentioned, feel free to contact me by adding me on steam (you can access my steam profile right below my forum avatar), if you’re in the TheVille steam group that’ll help me recognize you, so consider that if I happen to ignore the request because I don’t know who you are :P

I can help a lot with rocket jumping and general DM, we can either run through jump maps or play some MGE, I have several beginner and advanced maps set up on my server and we can hop on there whenever you like. I’ve already helped out a couple of villuns with their game, like peahats and YNWA, I hope this guide will attract more players to practice with us!

Feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Last edited by Fano on Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by The Domer » Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:19 pm

Really nice guide Fano. Great tips for beginners and long time players both (I don't know much about editing the autoexec.cfg file). Thanks for posting it!

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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by THE Flying chihuahua » Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:22 pm

Why no detonator.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Fano » Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:29 pm

THE Flying chihuahua wrote:Why no detonator.
I haven't played around with it very much to know how much the jumps benefit the pyro, but no crits on burning enemies is a huge downside as you're missing out on about 50 damage or so each time you hit someone
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Soup Nazi » Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:34 pm

Looks like you put a lot of love into this post, thanks for your effort!
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Zork Nemesis » Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:12 pm

I don't mean to be critical about this, but "ideal loadout" more or less is a matter of preference. Yes, some work better than others, but it will be a cold day in hell when you pry the maul out of my hands in favor of an axetinguisher. In terms of early loadouts, what you've provided work very well for those who aren't exactly the most proficient players, but once you've got experience, fool around with your weapon choices and see what fits your playstyle, something i'm still doing here and there.

For example, the Scout loadout provided gives a great balance of offense, defense, and manuverability. In a personal opinion, i've trained myself to use Force-a-Nature/Pistol/Sandman for my loadout. Less staying power in combat with the reduced primary magazine and reduced health, but the triple jump is preserved, flanking attacks can hit much harder and possibly catapult key players into deadly situations, and the addition of the stun attack can further screw with opponents.

Many other weapons suit different playstyles. Defensive Pyros for example may opt to pack a Homewrecker instead of the Axetinguisher. While puff-and-sting tactics are quite effective, they can backfire, and if the Pyro fails to catch the spy before he stabs the engy and saps the gun, the gun is likely to fall unless the Pyro can help (provided there's no second engineer nearby). And in the case of ambushing Pyros, I find a great synergy between the Backburner and Detonator as they allow me to access areas that are normally restricted to jumping classes. Not many people expect a Pyro to come into the Goldrush 1 attic from the right-hand ledge.

A little detail about the Detonator from my experience, it's not for quick-switch pyros. I used to use it as such until they finally fixed the critical bug (where it would critical if it wasn't equipped, i.e. you fire then switch weapons), but I still maintain using it for it's utility. Do note that the detonator flares will sill mini-crit, which only does about 9 more damage than standard flare damage, but can still be useful on fleeing light classes. The flare jump you get will get you a little higher than a Scout triple jumping (I think it's quadruple jump height), which does allow a Pyro into some interesting areas. The Detonator also has the ability to light multiple targets on fire from a distance; the only other weapon that can do this is the Cow Mangler 5000. In addition, a very much overlooked fact about the weapon, the flare explosion destroys any stickybombs in range, allowing a Pyro (especially a Backburner/Phlogostinator user) to disarm an entire sticky trap without risking sending it toward his/her team through airblast. Finally, one of my favorite uses for it, you can use it like a rocket launcher or a sticky launcher to help build your medic's ubercharge, as the flare does roughly 37 damage to you if you fire it straight at the ground.

But overall, this is a very good all-around strategy guide here. And like you've said multiple times here, practice does in fact make perfect.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by YoullNeverWalkAlone » Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:33 pm

Wow. So I made some edits and Im about to try them out. Wish me luck....


My cursor isn't as cool as yours. I'll have to fix that
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by One_Medic_Army » Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:58 pm

Fano wrote:
THE Flying chihuahua wrote:Why no detonator.
I haven't played around with it very much to know how much the jumps benefit the pyro, but no crits on burning enemies is a huge downside as you're missing out on about 50 damage or so each time you hit someone
I've played around with it a bit recently, and I've ended up getting more kills with it than the flaregun. It's much better for harassing groups or harassing people at extreme range. If you manage to get 2-3 people all on fire, they're going to be competing for medic attention and healthpacks.
The jump height recently got boosted, it's now usually enough to get on top of things, somewhere between a double and a triple jump in my experience.
It also lets you boost a medics uber if they're healing you, which is worth a note.

It's much more of a general utility thing, as opposed to the 90dmg pure killing power of the flaregun.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Fano » Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:07 am

Zork Nemesis wrote:I don't mean to be critical about this, but "ideal loadout" more or less is a matter of preference. Yes, some work better than others, but it will be a cold day in hell when you pry the maul out of my hands in favor of an axetinguisher. In terms of early loadouts, what you've provided work very well for those who aren't exactly the most proficient players, but once you've got experience, fool around with your weapon choices and see what fits your playstyle, something i'm still doing here and there.

For example, the Scout loadout provided gives a great balance of offense, defense, and manuverability. In a personal opinion, i've trained myself to use Force-a-Nature/Pistol/Sandman for my loadout. Less staying power in combat with the reduced primary magazine and reduced health, but the triple jump is preserved, flanking attacks can hit much harder and possibly catapult key players into deadly situations, and the addition of the stun attack can further screw with opponents.

Many other weapons suit different playstyles. Defensive Pyros for example may opt to pack a Homewrecker instead of the Axetinguisher. While puff-and-sting tactics are quite effective, they can backfire, and if the Pyro fails to catch the spy before he stabs the engy and saps the gun, the gun is likely to fall unless the Pyro can help (provided there's no second engineer nearby). And in the case of ambushing Pyros, I find a great synergy between the Backburner and Detonator as they allow me to access areas that are normally restricted to jumping classes. Not many people expect a Pyro to come into the Goldrush 1 attic from the right-hand ledge.

A little detail about the Detonator from my experience, it's not for quick-switch pyros. I used to use it as such until they finally fixed the critical bug (where it would critical if it wasn't equipped, i.e. you fire then switch weapons), but I still maintain using it for it's utility. Do note that the detonator flares will sill mini-crit, which only does about 9 more damage than standard flare damage, but can still be useful on fleeing light classes. The flare jump you get will get you a little higher than a Scout triple jumping (I think it's quadruple jump height), which does allow a Pyro into some interesting areas. The Detonator also has the ability to light multiple targets on fire from a distance; the only other weapon that can do this is the Cow Mangler 5000. In addition, a very much overlooked fact about the weapon, the flare explosion destroys any stickybombs in range, allowing a Pyro (especially a Backburner/Phlogostinator user) to disarm an entire sticky trap without risking sending it toward his/her team through airblast. Finally, one of my favorite uses for it, you can use it like a rocket launcher or a sticky launcher to help build your medic's ubercharge, as the flare does roughly 37 damage to you if you fire it straight at the ground.

But overall, this is a very good all-around strategy guide here. And like you've said multiple times here, practice does in fact make perfect.
All fair points. However remember this is, like I mentioned, meant to be a general guide at excelling at TF2 as a whole and not any one particular class, the loadouts I described will help build the fundamentals needed to improve your game (while also being arguably the most effective in terms of raw killing power) as opposed to, say, a FaN loadout like you described which seems like more of a specialized strategy that one develops after a long time playing the class.

You'llNeverWalkAlone wrote:Wow. So I made some edits and Im about to try them out. Wish me luck....


My cursor isn't as cool as yours. I'll have to fix that
The custom HUD cursors are really a pain to maintain, sometimes they may be off center and need to be adjusted in the HUD files themselves, which is a much more daunting task than working with cfg files.

Additionally, when you find the right numbers to center the crosshair, I advise you to write them down somewhere as future updates to the game (or the HUD) can and will break the HUD's functionality, forcing you to redownload the file and adjust all the numbers again.
Last edited by Fano on Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by YoullNeverWalkAlone » Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:51 am

So my FPS seems low, mostly in the 20's and sometimes up to 40-50. I don't want things to look ugly though, should i try the fps stuff here? what will I see in a difference?
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Fano » Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:58 am

You'llNeverWalkAlone wrote:So my FPS seems low, mostly in the 20's and sometimes up to 40-50. I don't want things to look ugly though, should i try the fps stuff here? what will I see in a difference?
chris' dx9frames config is at a decent midpoint between okay graphics and good FPS, the fancy things, like HDR, will be turned off, as well as several other things that you probably won't notice, the difference in FPS is highly noticeable.

The other configs listed there will run your game at directX 8 as opposed to directX 9, the max frames config will make your game look absolutely horrid, but guarantees a very impressive gain in FPS.

For comparison, there are several screenshots of what each config looks like on chris' site.

see dx9frames badlands vs maxframes badlands

If you do choose to install one, remember to read through the config and follow the steps at the very top, as they require you to add some launch options to your game to work correctly.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by One_Medic_Army » Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:31 am

Everything I've heard about FPS pretty much says that the number to aim for is around 60ish, since the human eye can only detect framerates of below 30, and 60 gives a good buffer before things start showing visually.
This also explains why many games these days are locked to around 60frames/sec.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Peahats » Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:11 am

I'm really glad you put the time into this guide Fano. I'm defiantly gonna try out some of the cfg files and the mouse sensitivity experiment see how well those work.

I just have one question, in the engineer sentry bind:

Code: Select all

//automatic mini sentry
alias +sentry "destroy 2 0; build 2 0; +attack"
alias -sentry "-attack; lastinv"
bind shift +sentry
will that only work for a minisentry, or will it also work for a regular sentry?

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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Fano » Mon Jan 30, 2012 10:32 am

Peahats wrote:I'm really glad you put the time into this guide Fano. I'm defiantly gonna try out some of the cfg files and the mouse sensitivity experiment see how well those work.

I just have one question, in the engineer sentry bind:

Code: Select all

//automatic mini sentry
alias +sentry "destroy 2 0; build 2 0; +attack"
alias -sentry "-attack; lastinv"
bind shift +sentry
will that only work for a minisentry, or will it also work for a regular sentry?
it will work for both, though it's not as useful for regular sentries since you don't really need to drop them on the fly.
One_Medic_Army wrote:Everything I've heard about FPS pretty much says that the number to aim for is around 60ish, since the human eye can only detect framerates of below 30, and 60 gives a good buffer before things start showing visually.
This also explains why many games these days are locked to around 60frames/sec.
visually, you're somewhat correct, although I'd rather not delve into the details of how much FPS the eye can see and etc., there are more than just visual advantages to have a constant high FPS, mainly mouse smoothness, if your framerate can't keep up with the server tick (default is 66) than you'll experience more packet loss and jittering when playing, additionally, your mouse movements won't transfer as smoothly to the screen so you may have trouble tracking reliably.
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Re: Fano's General Guide to Improving at TF2

Post by Soup Nazi » Mon Jan 30, 2012 5:48 pm

Yay! Perfect sensitivity!
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