you improve quickest in teams and it's likely you wont be accepted into a more skilled team with no team history

my advice is to look for the keenest div6 team you can find and play a season so you can get some proper experience

2 options

Play for a lower div team to work your way up.

Keep pugging, ringing, and meeting people until you find a place. Sometimes it can take 4 years (visitor).

If you destroy kids and don't have a team killing cancerous personality it shouldn't take too long.

For improving core mechanics:
MGE/DM (preference imo) < Pugs (higher level the better) < Scrims < Matches

For improving specialty mechanics:
Jump maps, Surf maps, practicing scout jumps on a local server, and training maps (tr_etc) are all good tools to use.

what stark said, also play dm instead of mge

There is like 1 dm server I know that I have less than 150 ping to.
Kind of obvious that a team helps getting better, that's why I'm looking for one.
But if the general consensus is to always join at the bottom, I guess I will see if any div6/open team is looking for a scout.

If you're able to find 5 other players just as keen as you with good attitudes that you get on with and then just stick with that same roster, you'll all improve massively in no time.

I'm pretty shit myself, but I can play scout/soldier to div 2 level and I'd be willing to help you out/your team out if you have no one else. Add me on steam and I'll try and do my best. (http://etf2l.org/forum/user/23718/)

I know what it feels like to be lacking in aim in comparison to other players at your level. You seem really keen and as long as you have a good mentality, you'll be fine. I remember playing on scout on mge and you seemed quite decent.

In terms of improving individually, beside dm and playing in a team, playing on http://pickup.con-gaming.net/ and http://tf2pickup.net/ will be great practice since most of the players will have more experience than you.

Watching your own demos is incredibly important. Not enough players do it, but it will definitely help you. Identify mistakes you're making in your play, and in the next games you play, focus on improving those individual aspects. Dedicated practice is a lot more efficient than simply playing a lot while trying to 'play better'. Ideally, these demos will be from scrims with your team.

Luckily, there's plenty of resources online especially now that is really helpful. The crack clan videos and yuki's demo reviews to name two. Just getting better at being able to identify mistakes will help loads.

Beside that, just think about everything you do carefully and making logical decisions based off what you know rather than just running around deathmatching.

Practice aim, develop game understanding and decision making and have a good attitude to playing (this is a useful read: http://www.iamgaming.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4174&title=eg-chances-quake-bible) and you'll be fine.

Sorry about the wall of text, I probably repeated myself a few times (I'm really tired right now).

DM and MGE definitely help you improve and help you warm up before scrims/matches.

"I'm thinking about finally joining a team, however, I don't even know if I'm actually good or shit because I have no one to tell me."

Obvious answer would be to find a mentor and join a team, but that's really the only reasonable answer. Mentors are a lot easier to come by nowadays. When looking for a team you don't need to look for a really good team right off the bat. Since you're new and you're wanting to improve, you'd be best off looking for a low/mid team with 5 other players looking to improve as much as you are.

Yeah I will maybe make another thread in the mentoring section

Thanks a lot, will definately add you. I don't remember MGEing you, what do you alias as?

I don't think my aim is THAT horrible, but it's not perfect so I MGE to improve it. Especially my pistol aim is pretty horrible I think.

Before I accidentally deleted everything I did that all the time. Usually, after a good match I remember every time I got a kill or I died, so I usually check the demo afterwards to see what I did right/wrong.

That's another reason why I wanna go beyond MGEing and DMing only when there's no PUG available. I always try to play smart but of course in MGE there's not that many ways to outsmart the enemy. It's even shittier when everything is just empty. Sometimes there's like 4 people on every MGE server playing bball, no one on any DM server, pickup.net is down to some issue and nobody votes me on pug.na. I remember during that time I spent some time memorizing all the map position names, watch rollout videos and play on some better pubs, but I'm sure playing proper matches with a team is more useful than that.

Right now most important thing for you to do would be just playing more, and get to a div 6 team. I'm currently in my first season of 6s and I have played almost double the amount you have. I also have almost 300 hours with scout. Even though I consider myself above div 6, I still want that one season of experience. It's just like a job. You never get to the good jobs right away, you often have to do shit jobs first. :D Also, if you want to be more consistent I'm not sure if 20 hours in 2 weeks is enough TF2...

Oh, don't judge me by my tf2 stats pls. I have no idea why but they are messed up to no end.
First of all it says I have 2 years of service. But when I started, egypt didn't exist.
Once I idled for 3 days and nights straight to see if something was wrong, I got 20 hours added to my total play time. By feeling and estimated maths I'm pretty sure I should be around 1500-maybe 2000+ hours. I have friends at 1000 who play much, much less than me.
I played several hours like every day except a few days last week for the past several weeks.

This all sounds silly, but I play much more than steam thinks I do. I don't like it either.

If you play several hours a day those stats seem to match. :d

Still, it doesn't change the fact that not many high div teams want an unexperienced player, no matter how godly his dm is.

By several hours a day I mean something between 2 and 5. Definately more than 20 hours in 14 days.

But of course I understand that teams want to take people with experience, I'm just looking to get into the best environment possible to improve.

Yeah, sure. Good luck on that. :)

It's rare for a high div team to just pick up a player with no exp. As painful as the first season in a low div is, ultimately it'll get you to high divs faster than waiting for a high div team to pick you up.

Hah, laerin! I remember asking myself if I had seen you somewhere before.
Lol, when I played you I was at like the lowest level I could possibly be. 2 days no sleep+hungry. I apologize for having sucked if I did, I don't even remember.

Don´t make the same mistake i made, don´t rush trying to get in a team.
I would actually recommend you getting to know people, mercing for the team of a friend to get some experience, play some mixes with your friends etc. If you´re going to rush things you´re going to end up like me... and that´s without a team.

Be keen, but don´t rush anything.

Yeah well, I thought that too but I really did everything I can do at this point I think.
Couple years of pubs. Couple weeks of lobbies full of trolls. Then PUGs, MGE and DM. I'm still pugging of course, but that's all. I really don't have any friends that are into comp like I am, pretty much all my friends that play tf2 play mostly pubs, sometimes we MGE together but I always win. I feel like getting into a team is the next logical thing to do, especially since I have more time to actually give a shit about tf2 now than ever before. Until I get into one of course I will continue pugging and doing other tf2-related activities.

Just try to find a team, and use pugging to meet people, getting on a good team is just as much about networking as your own personal skill - if nobody knows who you are you won't get picked up except by desperate folks. If you don't know 5 other nerds, you're forced to have to join an existent team - just do your best to get your name out there, since you have no history, just shoot for div 6, worst case that will at least establish you, and perhaps give you the opportunity to back up for a better team and get even more connections (as long as you stay dedicated as a back up, you'll get your shot eventually).

Well I want to play, so I would probably be a very dedicated backup.
The question is, if I join any div 6 team, am I going to be playing in div 6 the rest of the year? I mean at top level, people hop around teams pretty much on a daily basis, but I don't see me doing that, even if I would get an offer from a different team.
I mean, am I supposed to steam PM my team and say "yeh, was a good time with you but I know some people who need a scout and they're div 5 so go fuck yourself and get a new scout huehue"? I think that would make me an asshole. I would like to point out that I am not an asshole. So yeah, I will just try to find a good team and do my best.

Go for it then, if you´ve waited that long it isn´t rushing anymore is it? :P
If i were you i´d just search for a div 5 team as div 6 is pretty much for people new to comp imo.

There´s people that always stay in 1 team no matter how well they do.
There´s people that hop no matter how well his previous team did.
There´s people that want to grow in comp tf2 and those people have choices:
- Do you want to go up divs? Stay if your team is doing better and better, Leave if there´s no improvement.

Look, there´s people playing for only fun, there´s people playing to become a name in comp tf2 and there´s people who are a mixture between those two.
Just see what you want to do with comp tf2.

You can kind of compare looking for a team to searching for a job. As people have said, experience is pretty much key. On the same token, just because you have been in 6000 teams doesn't mean you're experienced, it probably just means you're a clan hopper, or your teams have not lasted very long.

As you mentioned earlier, playing pugs is a really good way to get your name out there. If you play well in pugs, for all you know you may get vouched for by a player with a fairly 'well known' reputation. It's also about who you know!

If you find a group of 5 other like-minded people that all want to improve and have fun, then that is easily the best group of people you'll find. Good luck

Just played with you, I would say div 5 maybe even higher, not 100% sense I didnt really focus on your gameplay, I'd recomend searching for div 5 teams but settling for div 6 teams, dont be too picky when its your first team.

fyi etf2l div 6 is far from open

higher or lower?

He probably means it's lower since we have UGC here for our lowest divs, but you don't have to be good to play in open.

lower