Taunt when you're doing the worst on your team, so they focus you and let the good players on your team kill shit.

roasting people is the best part of tf2
especially weeb nerdvirgins, they get really mad about it

In the end, it's your team, and you as the leader get to decide how the team exists. If you don't want people shittalking, then don't allow it. Just know that like with any hard and fast rule, you may be alienating players who can help your team succeed. You have to decide between picking up the best players and picking up players that fit your mentality. In my experience, it's always better to have a group of people with similar goals and habits.

If shittalk or binds throw you off you shouldnt take part in any competitive setting wether its esports or real sports cuz people (myself included ) will abuse that to the maximum

just be ok gamers

This

Haha lol

tickzf; does it best with his universally used "im gay" bind, which works on many levels for many situations

if someone disrespects me in RL i shittalk their gaming ability

I personally am usually scimming teams that i myself and sometimes teammates to are friends with so i will through in the occasional "don't let him kill you, he's trash" or "Lets push IT becuase they're bad" and maybe a "how the fuck did you die to ___ he can't even aim" but its all in good fun but i probably would do it to people I don't know in that we are playing in matches. unles they are bad lol

this guy got it spot on

make fun of ur friends; dont make fun of ppl u dont know

moral of the story is that its great for banter among friends but can be easily crossed into insulting another person

This is cool when you're playing a team which is actually competitive with you, just don't be that guy that stomps lobbies while spamming binds.

Inside the game, some degree of shittalk is good; there is a line that needs to avoid being crossed, but as yuki said earlier, it rarely is.

Once the game ends? There really isn't a place for it. Maybe some friendly banter or stuff about next time, but don't go over that.

IMO:

Times when it's okay to shittalk:
1) High stakes matches, especially LANs; winning is important, and if getting under your opponents' skin helps you win, then do it. It also makes the match more fun to watch for spectators.
2) When you know a good player on the other team has a short fuse and it would be beneficial to your team to exploit it. Same reasoning as above.
3) When your shittalk is actually clever and isn't just shitty binds or casual usage of racist/homophobic slurs.
4) When you're just playfully doing it with friends and everybody's cool with it (this is a given, I think).
5) Any combination of the above.

Times when it's stupid to shittalk:
1) When there's no actual incentive to beyond just being toxic [e.g. when you're rolling 4-0 and want to brag, or when you target a player who hasn't even said a peep over the course of the entire game for no particular reason].
2) When your idea of shittalk is "ironically" spamming shitty binds or casual usage of racist/homophobic slurs.
3) When the stakes are virtually non existent (looking at you, people who throw shade in lobbies and pugs). When people throw shade in low stakes situations I just get the feeling that they shittalk out of habit, and it's a shitty habit to form.
4) When you're losing. Don't be a sore loser.
5) Any combination of the above.

That's about all there is to it for me. Shit talking is acceptable in plenty of situations but I see so many people shit talk for no reason except to be assholes, and they're often really fucking lazy about it and not even mildly clever. That stuff is toxic as fuck, no matter how hard you try to spin it as you playing "mind games".

I think it's fair game as long as you don't attack the personal stuff, if you know something going on irl of your opponent, do not trash talk about that.

I've never had the pleasure of playing against someone else as emotionally fragile as sgp

when someone shittalks me it makes it more fun when i shit on them

if i know someone on the other team takes chat seriously and easy to get mad then i will shit talk them

I don't see the point, just play the game.

There's also difference between trash talking and complaining when you die like a retard though.

corsa didnt you refuse to scrim because of goldfish taunting you?

http://i.imgur.com/FLINvVO.png

One thing I want to point out is that some players are REALLY easy to be manipulated by comments, "shit-talking", binds and I have even played versus/with a few people who go crazy after you taunt them once (I am talking about officials not casual pugs or doublemixes...etc).

If people are going to get so bothered by such a thing, they should not be surprised people will do it to them if they are likely to react and break their concentration. One example of note is the ETF2L NC tournament where Sweden were purposely taunting one of our players because they knew he would play worse if you did that to him.

There is a line you should not cross, but there are also mind games and if people aren't strong enough mentally to deal with this, they should expect a worse performance.

shit talking in person is way better than online

but agree on the spectating part

hit NiCO with the "?" when you 1v1 him and he'll probably type retry in console multiple times during the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugSBkSPwaMA

In my opinion, shit talk between friends is fine. I've had a few instances where I'll be playing an official or a lobby and a friend of mine ends up on our team or mine and I shit talk him constantly. He doesn't mind because he knows I'm joking. But you also have to remember that a lot of TF2 players might kids who got this game because their parents didn't think anything could be wrong, and you'll occasionally come across one in lobbies or something similar and he won't really know how to deal with it. Take into account that matchmaking is coming out and some of these kids may get interested and join, and then get really upset when somebody calls them bad.

TL;DR

You never know who might be on the other side of the mic, they might have issues, so better safe than sorry.

EDIT: On the flip side, shit talk is good. Remember all the times in Smash Leffen has caused a stir because he said shit about somebody? So it can be good or bad. Refer again to the TL;DR.

Trash talk between teams used to be extremely healthy back when Quakeworld TF and Quake 3 fortress was around. Animosity between several players on each team sticking up for teammates existed in spades. The main reason this was so healthy for the community was because teams stuck together from season to season. It was common place to play 3-5 season with the same 8-9 players on the same team for all that time.

In TF2, that simply doesn't exist. Teams rarely ever stay together for even 1 season let alone 3-5 seasons. Constant trash talk on a healthy level will burn bridges with players in the TF2 community. For players like myself who are not part of some circle jerk of players, it is not good to trash talk anyone. I always want to keep all options open for future seasons so I can possibly join different teams of players who don't dislike me for talking shit in some scrim.

man im definitely a cream puff but ya'll talkin big about trying to put nerds on tilt... its like, you're actively trying to make someone feel worse just so u can get an artificial advantage. like maybe its empowering to exploit other people's emotional weakness but you cant pretend its not sorta scummy and not doing it wouldn't make you the better player IMO