Your first TF2 games

I was going through my unfinished articles. I hate all of them. But one of them is a gigantic, unfinished guide on everything you need to know about being a newbie to TF2. One day, I do plan on finishing that (when Competitive Matchmaking leaves beta, I guess), but for now, I’ll work on it occasionally. But for now, let’s think about those first few games of yours.

The ideal first few games would be quite simple. You play the tutorial for Soldier, you play the second part with the bots, then maybe you play a training game with easy bots before pressing the big multiplayer button and being thrown into a random server, in which you don’t do very well, but you make a new friend or three. On top of that, you get an achievement or two and a weapon drop. That’s not the best case scenario, but that would be great to most newbies. You see, people aren’t interested in tutorials, they just want to jump in and play.

Now, more realistically, a new player’s first game will involve ignoring the tutorial completely, clicking on the big Quickplay button and being thrown into a game of Dustbowl or some other simple game mode, wandering around for a few minutes before being killed by a random crit, never really. Maybe they’ll get a weapon drop, but it’ll most likely be a crate. With an inventory of 50 spaces, one of which is already taken up by the Mercenary Badge, most items will end up being scrapped or deleted anyway.

Thing is, while the new player experience in TF2 isn’t that bad, it isn’t that great either. TF2’s tutorials are lackluster and feel old and outdated, especially since there’s only tutorials for four of the nine classes. You don’t need long tutorials to explain Heavy and Sniper, but a brief tutorial covering all classes at once would be a great idea, rather than relying on the second part of the Soldier tutorial to teach players about different classes. Also get rid of the unlocking tutorial thing, because 1. it resets all the time and 2. maybe I can work Demoman out for myself but want to see how Engineer works.

Weapon-wise, luckily that isn’t too bad. Stock weapons for the most part can stand against unlocks. You don’t want to give a new Medic the Ubersaw anyway, you want them to have the Medi Gun out (and I still want the idea where Medics always spawn holding the Medi Gun, not the Syringe Gun, unless you are using the Remember Last Weapon settings) and a new Engineer won’t really get the Wrangler or Short Circuit anyway.

Really, what I think would be best is some sort of new players area, not a tutorial area, but a players VS AI area where newbies can get to grips with each class. Of course this would be optional, and possibly restricted to players with less than X amount of hours, but it also has the positive that new players can work and learn together. Throw in some floating tips and a random weapon at the end of your first few plays and you’re golden.

Then again, I don’t think new players really care about any of that anyway. Maybe it’s just me that worries about the first few games of a newbie.

Of course, nothing will ever beat my sister’s first moments in TF2, in which she joined me and my brother on a Turbine server and killed an invisible Spy with the first shot she ever fired. Talk about luck!