If everyone just is polite, then the "toxic" stigma will go away.

In other words, just like you put playcomp.tf in your name, try imagining yourself as people's first impression of competitive and act like how you want the scene to be seen. Be encouraging. Be polite. Give people that extra little nudge to try out in UGC, even in highlander.

I don't think it's that simple but maybe it is

I'm not saying it will happen overnight, but it will eventually happen, especially if you go out of your way to help people.

As good an idea as any that has been posted thus far. I don't pretend to know how we go about doing it, but the best way to spread the good word about competitive TF2 is to make use of the foot work that has already been done by the many user communities that exist outside of the competitive scene. Reaching out to player hubs like reddit, or communities like skial, lotus, and others, has the potential to reach far more pub players than simply running the playcomp.tf tag in our names (not saying we stop running the tag, I think that everyone who plays comp should really start using it, just that we can increase awareness in other ways as well).

That said, a lot of these communities have a poor opinion of the competitive scene because we have largely been insular thus far. If we really want their active support we need to find ways to make it appealing for them to donate their time and resources. These communities want to grow and attract new members as well. It may be worthwhile to try to set up some community centered events. Things where competitive players go out to the various communities and help to host smaller tournaments and things like that. Stuff that we do for the communities in return for their support and advertizing within their player base.

EDIT: As for being polite to get rid of the toxic stigma. It really is that simple. Don't rage at your team. Teach, evangelize. compliment people on things that they are doing right, even unintentionally, and suggest that pubbers check out the various competitive leagues. You can't imagine how much of a compliment it can be for a pubber to hear that someone who plays competitive thinks that they are good enough to try out for a team. And honestly, anyone who has dedicated 100 hours or more to this game is good enough to try out for UGC Iron 6s or HL.

Basically, be the person who got you into comp for someone else.

Can someone please explain to me what these people are thinking of when they call the community toxic?
I'm under the impression that our community is pretty welcoming and friendly to newer players, on top of that you have stuff like the HLO, newbie mixes and shittons of videos specifically geared towards newcomers.
Most of the people I've met in Tf2 have been chill as fuck.

So where is this coming from? Are these people just retarded and judge the community based on encounters with sniper mains in pubs or what? Is it because someone was mean on reddit?

It really isn't hard. You don't need to go out of your way to be the warmest beacon of hope and the shining mentor for the newbie tf2ers...
Just don't be an asshole and alienate an entire community of tf2 fans... Like you just did.

http://puu.sh/dx6my/7301364579.png

It's already been talked about on the UGC forums. They've added playcomp.tf to their sidebar and as you can see from the picture, are willing to periodically sticky up our content so more people can see.

Prior to getting into comp myself I can say that a lot of the competitive players that I encountered in pubs were there to play troll loadouts, spam binds, and assert their own dominance over the lower class of tf2 player known as the pubber. I have since learned that a majority of these players are from the lowest levels of comp play, and tend to be shithead kids who get in mumble with a few friends and think it is great fun to demo+medic combos in pubs and spawn camp.

They aren't the majority of our community, there really aren't enough of them to be counted as a proper minority even either, but the impression they leave is 100x more impactful than a nice competitive player who acts to encourage pubbers.

The unfortunate truth is that we remember bad experiences far more vividly than good experiences.

Comp players are pretty well known for talking down to pubbers. 6s players talk down to HL players. Its a pretty common thing. Have someone come on here and dare suggest something that goes against the meta ("What if we allowed GRU heavies to mid?"), whether they're new or not, and watch them be completely destroyed. Its a passive, but constant part of the comp community, they/we think they're "better" then then the average player, and not just in skill, but in general. If you enjoy engie, you're a dumb ape who can't play the game, if you enjoy pyro, you're a skill less hack who only w+m1s, if you play sniper you're an MLG pro wanna be x420xnoscopex etc etc.

Its so engrained in a lot of people that people don't even notice it most of the time, its just "how it is". Its always been cancerous, and finally its part of why TF2 is looking terminal to some people. You don't have to like it, and you can even believe wholeheartedly that it isn't true....but if the *vast* majority of TF2 pub players do believe its true, the effects are the same regardless. That image needs to change, and calling them retarded isn't helping.

Though the elitism is most definitely there, the comp community's attitude is absolutely the most minimal factor in terms of how big TF2's scene is, especially considering how big both CS and MOBA's are when their communities are infinitely worse.

Making jokes and sidehanded humor will not destroy people's will to play. This is a video game, people shit talk, but players strive to compete. If a few offhanded remarks phase you so much, its probably better you don't play things competitively.

And if anyone actually believes TF2 has a more cancerous community than CS or LoL/Dota you obviously have never played either at a competitive level or you're just a baby who probably doesn't do well in a competitive environment anyways.

I don't think we can change a lot about this, because (as you stated) the people doing it are mostly kids fucking around thinking they are hot shit because they recently found out how to use sticks.
The only way to counter them is to give pubbers an actual insight into comp. tf2 and it's community so they can understand that most of us are here to enjoy videogames.

But then again, if you get turned off by people shittalking you in pubs then maybe you should stay away from competitive videogaming altogether...

there's this popular view on these forums that we have to recruit and lull the masses of pubbers that play this game outside of competitive. that's unrealistic and will only result in burn out for those who subscribe to the idea

maintain the highest levels of play to inspire up-and-comings and give them an outlet to try the game. the players you want who will actually stick around to grow the scene are those who understand that improving oneself and growing as a player or teammate becomes more important than who called you bad. if they enjoy the game competitively enough, they already have the thick skin they need to soldier through whatever "toxins" lurk in a community

then you provide an outlet like pugs, tf2center, or newbie mixes to give them a feel for the game and if they enjoy it enough. lead by action

i know someone's going to say well isn't that approach just business as usual and my response is that yeah it is. today people are just getting apathetic about a 7 year game's competitive scene which has been propped up mostly on the shoulders of its community. this is nothing new in a long line of PC fps games that have come and gone

so, like i said, an active approach in "saving" comp tf2 is going to be futile. I've seen this approach tried in so many other fps games -- the burnout is hard to watch. You can't trick people into thinking they're competitive players. They have to see the diamond in the rough and get it for themselves.

mebs right

I don't see how we can ever hope to have people take this community seriously when stuff like this is not only allowed to be posted, but actually receives +frags. I know this is a singular event but we don't have a big enough playerbase to get away with this shit like the dota or league playerbase does. Like avast said, cs and mobas have worse communities than ours, BUT they get away with it because they don't need to make a good first impression. Their games are already at forefront of esports, mobas especially.

Regardless, by this point, I'm pretty much convinced that there's no real hope for the competitive scene really ever getting big. At best it'll stagnate at stuff like 1.5k viewers for HL grand finals, and that's fine by me. However if we are still concerned with helping the scene grow, there needs to be an effort made around here to promote a slightly more PC environment. It's cool if you say shit like "salty ass nig" in your mumble channel around people you know aren't easily offended/totally okay with that language, but this is a public forum and behavior like this really just doesn't belong here. It makes us all look bad and this community can't afford that.

"well [x] is more toxic" doesn't particularly make you or I any less toxic, no

quoting my post from a different thread, still proves correct:

congrats on the self-fulfillment, though. everyone else in FPSes are apathetic, so games not propped up by company support dies off, so obviously that's proof that being apathetic is the best option, I guess?

Except for the fact that this community is really not toxic at all. Honestly. This community's attitude has nothing to do with how big this game is, especailly considering it is overall relatively more welcoming than any other currently relevant game.

But I do agree with you that community lead efforts can grow the community.

you will never be able to please every soul who wants to play 6v6 tf2 because they feel its toxic

this idea of "man i would participate in this competitive community but the people there are so mean" is in all competitive games and most of those people are just bullshitting honestly

You aren't wrong in most of this, but I disagree in the idea that it is futile. I think it really depends on what you are expecting to achieve, and what timeline you are using to judge that success or failure.

If you expect that by putting playcomp.tf in your name, and going "door to door" to get all the active communities on board with your idea is going to result in an instant influx of new players than you are wrong, and you are going to kill yourself trying to make that happen. But wearing the tag, talking to new players, reaching out to pub stars and people who obviously have an interest in the team work aspect of the game... that will never be futile.

As for those who are going to stick around and grow the community. We can't judge that, and trying to hand pick who we think is best suited to the scene is the wrong approach. If you get a pubber to look at this site, or UGC, or even just playcomp.tf, then you have done your job. If you also take a few minutes to answer some of their initial questions, and help point them to the best place to get started you've helped to promote the sense of community that we all know and love.

If you let new players add you, and offer to give them tips on whatever class they are most interested in, then you have likely added a long term member to our community because you've made them feel like they belong even before they find their first team.

There is no switch to make everything perfect and get tf2 to be big. But if we are content with the status quo, with business as usual, then this is all we will ever be. That isn't to say that trying will yield the perfect results, or that the process will be quick. There is no certainty in any of this, save that if we do not try to affect change ourselves change is never going to happen.

I for one think this game can be more than it is right now, that doesn't mean I expect wearing the playcomp.tf tag, or talking to a handful of pubbers about the comp scene, is going to be the magic pill. But every player I get to join an Iron team in UGC is a player we didn't have before. And maybe one of them ends up being the next Lange. No one is ever going to convince me that that is a futile effort.

We don't need to change it, that isn't the point here. We just need to be aware that it happens, and will continue to happen, and make sure that we represent a better side of our community. We don't need every person who plays tf2 to love us. But we do need to give some of them a reason to give us a shot. And that happens by presenting a better sort of first impression as often as we can.

This shouldn't be something new or revolutionary. Just don't be a dick. If you see someone on a pub you frequent who is consistently at the top of the score board ask them if they know about 6s or HL. If they don't, tell them about it, if they do, talk about it. And if other people on the forums ask questions, answer them.

Seriously, all we need to do is stop going around pretending that we are somehow better than everyone else who plays this game simply because we are on a team and compete in a league. Sure we know more about the game, but we started in exactly the same place they did, and someone pointed us towards the comp scene just like we can point them to it.

We don't need to be angels. We just need to not be dicks.

Can the hurt feelings police fuck off please. If the reason people aren't playing comp because some people say mean stuff on the forums or because someone was mean to someone in pubs. Then we can pull the plug right now because all hope is lost.

People that get turned down by this shit are useless anyways, you play comp to get better because you want to get better.It's about improving and having fun while doing it. That's it. If forums or people being mean in pubs keep you from doing that then you weren't gonna get far/be good anyways.

perhaps people should be more apathetic about the game they pour hundreds to thousands of hours into like you are, and never feel emotions

this will solve everything, surely

See the edit to my above post. We don't need to be angels, we don't need to hold hands or baby new players into their first team. But we can be people, and more importantly we can not be dicks. Don't ridicule or !rep a lobby medic who is actively listening and trying to learn. Don't spend all your time in pubs spawn camping and telling people they are bad and should uninstall the game. And if someone asks you a question, give them an answer.

This isn't the hurt feelings police, if you think that this community is welcoming and wonderful then you probably don't have a change a thing about what you are doing and how you are acting. Just drop the playcomp.tf tag in your name and call it a day.

My post was actually mostly directed to #15 and everyone else that thinks we need to 100% politically correct on internet forums so the reddit/pub community can grace us with their huge masses of players. I probably should have quoted him.
I actually agree with you and I would do the playcomp.tf thing but the only public servers I play on are dm servers...

The sad thing is I cant think of a single person in the tf2 community who I would not call a douche

Yeah I agree. Here I'll name the first.

MOOSE_

I feel like, simply having a small bind to encourage/educate people wouldn't be so bad.

bind key "say Tired of pub stomping and want to take your game to the next level? Come visit us at www.ugcleague.com or www.teamfortress.tv!"

That sounds pretty cheesy, but you get what I'm saying. It's effortless and still gets the message across whenever you feel like pubbing.

FWIW, I'm against most forms of moderation for stuff deemed offensive, because I feel like, at best, that's a bandaid and doesn't actually solve why those things are being said by those people. I'd prefer simply letting people change and grow better over time, because that saves a lot of splintering between the faces of the community and "those people" like you see in CSGO/LoL. the FGC does this to what I think is good effect, and they're as no-holds-barred as it comes, it's just that the shaming is done by other people within that community.

I also wouldn't recommend absolutely obsessing over a better community, either, but that's why a community-wide effort is important. this is why I think stuff like playcomp.tf as a tag is a brilliant idea, because it's miniscule effort on everyone's part, but en-masse, can do quite well assuming everyone uses it. I'd rather take a lot of mini-langes over one lange that inevitably gets burned out from carrying so much weight on his shoulders, I suppose

u

If youre not going to play a video game you like because you think people in the community are mean stop being a bitch cause that applies to everything everywhere, just never do anything ever in that case

Also people in this community get off to trying to be the nicest, and out-nicing other people to prove they're the nicest lol so if people really think that go try the cs community or lol or something, in fact I think people in pubs are more 'toxic' than in competitive to be honest.

And not to beat the dead horse but the amount of people who play this game will be around the same number until either:
1. Saloon.tf - a lot more people play
2. Matchmaking - a lot more people play
or
3. ESEA dies and its over

though I do think the playcomp.tf is pretty cool but unfortunately its taken a long time for someone to actually do that

considering this seems to be popping up as a common response, I'd say it's a good assumption to think otherwise