Tf2center is not a good place for beginners, it's mainly used for higher divisional players when they are bored and no other PUG space is running. It's closer to a daycare for weird uncles in thanksgiving than an actual space. The tolerance for being a bad or new player is significantly lower outside of a few great individuals (Fac, Kryso, Taylor, Kuzo etc.)

Introduction

Competitive TF2, like any sport has two main parts. Formal play, competing in a league against teams with your very own and informal play which include PUGs (Pick Up Games). You can think of informal play as sparring or playing ball at a community centre. It's meant to be lower stress, with lower stakes and a different configuration of rules. Many people participate in more informal play because there is a lower commitment.

The two main spheres of interaction are league play and PUGs. For North America, the main league that people play is RGL (Recharge Gaming League). I recommend you play in RGL if you want to actually play on a team. PUGs nowadays are relegated to discord servers, some more public than others. I will provide some recommend places for you.

There are many different competitive formats but by far the most popular in order are: 6's (6v6) and Highlander (9v9). For 6's, you may have seen that the primary roster of classes is 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo and 1 medic. 5CP and KOTH are the primary game modes. Specialists or "off-classes" are used in more specific scenarios that are more befitting. I.e, engineer for defending last point, pyro for stuffing ubers or breaking certain holds and sniper for getting a pick. Highlander forces representation for all classes and use KOTH, Payload and Attack / Defend as its game modes. My recommendation is that you play 6's, in my opinion it's much more fun, has less moving parts on the surface, there are more resources to help you and will give you a more calm room to learn fundamentals. Judging by your gravitation towards Demoman and Soldier this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Highlander can be fun but I think 6's is better for beginners.

Practical Advice

First, play Newbie Mixes on Fridays 9 PM EST. They run games that have coaches sit in to teach you the game. The pace is slower, more strict and they pause after every round to go over what went right or wrong. Since they sit in, they can also provide you feedback on your communication.

Next, since Newbie Mixes is only on Fridays you may want to play more PUGs or just games at different times. You should start with TF2 Coaching Central; then branch out from there.

If you enjoy playing 6's and want to get on a team, you should sign up for the Newbie Mixes Team Drive. They manually matchmake other players into a 6's team for RGL so that you can participate in league play alongside a coach to guide you. The current RGL season is half-way in so the Team Drive will probably start around late spring. This is an 8 (and potentially more if you make playoffs) week long commitment where you will have one official match-game on Wednesdays and scrims throughout the week. If you want to be part of a team with less commitment you can signup as a substitute player who fills in when the main starter is unable to.

Outside of the program, finding a team is a process of talking to other people or responding to LFT / LFP posts in the RGL discord.

TF2CC also hosts the Newbie Cup 2-3 times a year. This is an internal event where they in a similar vein, manually match make you into a team with a coach. You train for 3-4 weeks and then play official matches over the following weekend. There are other events that you can engage in but they don't realistically come by that often.

I hope this is useful and you become a familiar face around the scene. Cheers.

https://demos.tf/958832

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I would be more sympathetic but some parts are not adding up. You didn't actually say whether these alts are yours (or your roommates) or not, so are they? Why this many accounts? Especially since they are also both younger than your "mains". You also omitted the fact that one of the alts did in-fact play during 2020. So that means that sandbagging was actually involved. Not to mention, if the account that played before krow started, that means that the admins were not able to make a truly informed decision about what divs she should've been allowed to play or be restricted in.

Plenty of people in RGL have roommates, old forgotten inactive accounts, or old RGL accounts and I've never seen someone get banned for that; it just gets marked as an old account. You seem to be moving the goalpost by saying that "oh they're old though!". Just because you two are separate people does not mean you were incapable of any wrongdoing.

Why ban the alts only now?

I don't know but maybe it was not considered to be necessary. As you said; they have been inactive. Possibly, they are not the only ones. You are equally able to lie or omit information as RGL is.

Yeah you do, you even played with them yesterday and today lmfao. For your sake I do really hope you grow up and realize it's actually more fun to just chill and interact with more people without relying on slurs and doing stupid shit. At this point it's just sad.

I used to be eerily similar when I was younger, I kind of realized that being like that robbed just being able to relax and enjoy things. I don't wish the same on anyone, to be trapped in only a toxic corner because nobody else really wants you around. If you ever one day feel regret, that's a good sign; it means you've grown.

I don't know if you made a typo in your config but you did make one in your post, your second underscore is a hyphen in the post.

Our blog post courtesy of Valve just came through! We still need coaches! So if you know anyone who is able to, tell them to sign up as a coach!

If you want to help this is a great place to really test your mettle and 6's knowledge. We're always looking for more Newbie Cup coaches and helpers for events.

New players always enjoy the guiding hand when playing the cup and this is a great opportunity to cultivate new blood into the scene! It's kind of hard to describe the feeling you get when you've couched a few Newbie Cup teams and watched them grow from newcomer all the way to Intermediate and main.

Requirements for coaches:

IM+ playoffs experience is preferred but will accept even seasoned amateur players (or equivalent). Our base ranges from people who are new to the game itsself to experienced pubbers and below 3rd place Newcomer who are all very new to 6's. You will be teaching them very basic concepts, how to get scrims and occasional demo reviews.

Overview:

This is a 3 week long commitment starting December 15th to January 5th. You will need to be available online around twice a week, and able to answer text questions from your team throughout. You can also request a co-coach to split responsibilities.

If you don't have a lot of time commitment but still want to help out and participate, we are looking for coaches to do general map reviews for everyone in our teaching corner (or other concepts) during the cup.

EU coaches are also welcome but you will have to work around NA times.

If you're interested, join the TF2CC discord and apply for coach in the linked channel.

Merci!

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Quick Necro to ask to whoever has had this issue, including Mark; what resolution do you play on and is it native

I usually play on 16:10, 1440x900p but I decided to just try and see if playing on my native 1080p resolution would make a difference. I've only tested this via 2 scrims and so far it hasn't triggered yet.

I thought I was going crazy. I have the same issue, I also recently started using my logitech G600.

I assumed it had mouse acceleration by default but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's a fresh mouse and my drivers are updated too. I'm starting to think it might be a problem with the newer logitech mice and the source 1 engine since I haven't had this issue with source2 so far.

Auto-record all tournament matches. I just checked my demo folder and no casual matches are in there. I also have scoreboard screenshots enabled for when a match ends so I can double verify.

EDIT: Ok so I tested it in casual and checked my console and it seemed to be failing to record casual games(?). So I was actually wrong, it does indeed try to record casual games as well. I reinstalled my game with the same recording settings and sure enough, it's grabbing casual matches.

However, it's not taking screenshots of the scoreboard at the end of casual games, so you can still know which demos come from a scrim / match. So it's servicible but ultimately is less convenient overall and bloats more than P-REC.