Trademark Gamers

TF2 is a fantastic game, though I'll be the first to admit that on Random Public Server X, it doesn't look too appealing. It's a class-based first person shooter which is played in a very different style on public servers to the competitive format.

I've been asked to write a guide for those of you that haven't played the game a great deal. I'll try to discuss things from a competitive aspect, but I'll add comparisons to public server play where possible.

GAME MODES AND MAPS
The most commonly seen gameplay in TF2 is the five point "CP" (capture point) map, such as cp_granary or cp_badlands. Each round, teams start at opposite ends of the map and they race to the middle CP. A battle ensues and the winning team capture the middle point. Once that point has been captured, the winning team can try to attack the next CP. You can only capture the point nearest the CP you own - you can't cap CP3 then push straight to CP5 and win the round, you have to cap CP3 then CP4 then CP5. Also, the defending team can try to capture the opponent's points in the same manner - if the opponent has CP3, you can try to recapture it.

Capturing is done simply by standing on the point - the more players you have on there, the quicker it captures and scouts capture at twice the speed of other classes.

As an example:

• Red team wins CP3.
• Red team attacks CP4, fails to capture it and all of their players die.
• While red team respawns, blue team recaptures CP3.
• Blue team attacks CP4, captures it.
• Blue team attacks CP5, fails, red team recaptures CP4.
• Blue team recaptures CP4.
• Blue team attacks CP5, captures CP5, wins the round.

The team with the highest number of round wins after 30 minutes win the map. Generally two maps are played per evening.

Certain CP maps can also be played in attack/defence mode, such as cp_gravelpit and cp_dustbowl. Red team defends, blue team attacks then the teams swap over. The game times how long it takes for each team to attack and capture the opponent's points and the quickest time wins the round. Usually two rounds are played per map.

As an example:

• Gravel Pit has three CPs - A, B and C. A and B can be captured at any time, C can only be captured when both A and B have been capped.
• Blue team attacks A, blue team captures A.
• Blue team attacks B, red team fends them off for 5 minutes until blue finally cap.
• Blue team attacks C, red team fends them off for 2 minutes.
• Teams swap over, red team captures A, B and C in 12 minutes total and loses the round.

Dustbowl is slightly different again, having map stages - the blue team has to capture 2 points on each stage to be able to progress to the next stage, with 3 stages in total. For fairly obvious reasons, only one round of such a map is usually played. Again, because defending with 6 people is very difficult, the competitive scene use the built in stopwatch facility to time rounds.

There are also payload (similar idea to Dustbowl, but the team has to push a cart instead) and capture the flag game types, but neither are common in the competitive scene although that's generally because the maps developed for those game types don't fit the competitive format. Hopefully they'll be included at a later date!

CLASSES

The mainstay classes of competitive TF2 are as follows:

- Medic
Health: 150HP
Speed: Quick
Weapons:

1. Needle Gun - standard ranged combat weapon.
   UNLOCKABLE UP: Blutsauger - leeches 3HP per needle.
2. Medi-Gun - heals whichever player you point it at, on your team, at various speeds depending on when the person last took damage. Can also overheal players to 50% of their standard HP, but that drops pretty rapidly once the heal beam is taken off said player. All healing done adds to the weapon's "Ubercharge" - once the ubercharge meter has reached 100%, the medi-gun can be alternate-fired to make the medic and whoever he heals invulnerable for 8 seconds. Every player that the medic targets within this time drops the uber by 1.5s so you can't uber the whole team for a full 8s.
   UNLOCKABLE UPGRADE: Kritzkrieg - heals the same as the medi-gun but its ubercharge effect gives 8 seconds of critical hits - triple damage. The medic is obviously as vulnerable as normal during this period however so if the medic dies, the kritzkrieg effect ends, or if the player being healed dies, the medic has to quickly latch the charge on to someone else and that reduces the duration by 1.5s. The Kritzkreig uber does charge 25% quicker than standard uber, however.
3. Bonesaw - standard close combat weapon.
   UNLOCKABLE UPGRADE: Ubersaw - slower hitting weapon but each hit with the ubersaw gives the medic 25% ubercharge.

- Soldier
Health: 200HP
Speed: Slow
Weapons:

1. Rocket Launcher - 4 rockets in the chamber, max of 24 rockets carried. Relatively slow firing, does around between 40 and 100 damage depending on distance from opponent.
2. Shotgun - 6 pellets in the chamber, max of 42 shells carried. Can do up to 100 damage up close, large trail off at distance partially because of spread.
3. Spade - standard close combat weapon, can do up to 100 damage, slow swings.

- Scout
Health: 125HP
Speed: Quickest in game, with double jump ability
Weapons:

1. Scattergun - 6 shells in the chamber, max of 38 shells carried. Can do up to 104 damage up close, massive trail off at distance as the spread is so wide.
2. Pistol - 12 shots in a clip, max of 48 bullets carried. Does relatively small damage, around 14 per hit up close, but can be fired rapidly.
3. Bat - Low damage, rapid swinging close combat weapon.

- Demoman
Health: 175HP
Speed: Medium
Weapons:

1. Grenade Launcher - 4 grenades in chamber, max of 20 in chamber. Can do up to 125 damage (notes about static damage below). Curved line of fire, slightly quicker rate of fire than the soldier's rocket launcher.
2. Sticky Launcher - 8 sticky grenades in chamber, max of 32 carried. Can do huge damage, up to 170 (rarely) depending on where the grenade is located in relation to the opponent's model. Primary fire launches the sticky, alternate fire detonates it. 8 stickies is the maximum number that can be detonated at once.
3. Whisky Bottle - standard close combat weapon, can do up to 80 damage, medium swings.

The other classes in the game, which are used less often, are as follows:

- Heavy
300HP, slowest class in the game, even slower when firing his minigun. Rapid rate of fire, huge damage at close range.

- Pyro
175HP, quick speed, flamethrower causes people to burn for 50HP over time as well as 30HP per contact-hit.

- Engineer
125HP, can build sentry guns, dispensers (heal/provide ammo) and teleporters. Used regularly on maps like Gravel Pit and for defending last CPs.

- Spy
125HP, can disguise as any class in the game, can use his knife to backstab (instant kill) any target or use his sappers to destroy engineers' buildings (engineer can use his wrench to destroy the sappers). Fairly easy to detect when you have experience with the game but can still be an incredibly useful class.

- Sniper
125HP, has a sniper rifle which when scoped and hitting an opponent's head does triple damage meaning instant kills are fairly easy. Good snipers can be incredibly tough to counter, used often in the US TF2 scene.

FORMAT AND LINEUPS
 
Generally competitive TF2 adheres to a 6v6 format - critical hits are turned off (excluding sniper/kritzkreig, pyro backburner specials), static damage is turned on (at one point TF2 had a 25% spread in damage as standard, this latest command allows that to be turned off, meaning for example the demoman's grenade launcher can do a maximum of 104 damage). Usually leagues enforce a 1 medic and 1 demoman limit, with 2 limit on all other classes.

Most teams tend to play 1 medic, 2 soldiers, 1 demoman and 2 scouts. Alternatives include replacing a soldier for a heavy, providing a slightly less mobile lineup or swapping a soldier or scout for a sniper which can be particularly useful on maps with large open spaces or when defending/attacking last points.

Class images taken from http://tf2wiki.net.