If the pug has Della, I'm not your fella.

If the pug has b4nny, I won't be your nanny

i think the solution lies in the past

last to spec is medic

I'm 1300 elo and only ever add when I can fill med so a pug runs. can feel the pscouts hatred in every comm.
gg instant readd

The solution is easy. We as a community need to create a medic fund. All medic players get paid per scrim/pug and we fuel it with donations

THIS WAS LITERALLY THE REASON I STARTED PLAYING MEDIC IN TF2PL

I love to play med and really dont care who I med for in pugs, even if I dont like em or are not great at the game, but it sucks i have to care about elo to get picked over people that have known each other for god knows how long. Somehow Im supposed to increase my elo on med even tho I can play my best and still lose because I am at the mercy of my team who more often than not is already in an attitude of "whatever go next" JUST because they didnt get an invite med or some better med. It would also be really nice if people stopped trying to treat meds as mind readers or as if because they got picked with you theyre supposed to play literal perfect TF2, it takes one second to plan an uber and communicate what you wanna do, and it takes zero effort to say passive aggressive comments off push to talk.

Hey why is Nursey on your friends list? If I remember, people don't pick you because you get mentored by Nursey.

My opinion:
The higher up you go in the tf2 competitive scene, the more socially stunted and toxic the players seem to become. I played high-level medic in Highlander but never excelled in 6s. During my experiences in invite/adv-level pugs on pugchamp, where I was often the least experienced and worst player, the environment was rarely supportive. In contrast to real-life activities like sports and clubs, where people tend to be more encouraging, the tf2 culture lacks this positivity. While you can always choose to be kind and supportive of mistakes, tf2 is the worst place for that in my experience.

In middle and high school, when I was struggling socially, tf2 seemed like a potential good place. Now that I've grown and developed, I have the confidence and insight to choose healthier activities and pastimes. It's no surprise to me that the scene isn't thriving and PUGs don't run often - it's simply not a welcoming or kind environment! It took my some time to realize it, but you really do catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

People have been calling this behavior out for years but the sad truth is that unless you are among the invite circle and have earned the respect to be listened to no one will listen or care to change it. At the end of the day your value as a player and your accomplishments in the game trumps the decency and respect you deserve as a member of the community.

i been playing this game since i was 13, im 20 now and im trying more than ever to have a better mental (personal life related mostly), but a good deal of maturing to where i am now as a player had been keeping myself from being influenced by toxicity (it's how some teens are, especially online) as a socially stunted high schooler going thru lockdown era at the end of the most important years of school. Sorta in same boat that netso was in.

I'm extremely persistent in playing this game despite having many awful pug and even certain team moments because one or few people that just have to be the most insufferable they can possibly convey in their attitudes. Because I love the game and competing that much more, I am p tolerant of this kind of thing now but am not surprised if the same shit I will tolerate to an extent is not something anyone else will care to keep dealing with and just leave the community. It's draining to deal with.

def similar experience for me. stepping away from tf2 showed me that i was far too tolerant of shitty behavior, and that i was consistently shitty to my teammates. if people in this community are as serious about winning as they say they are, they would develop marginally more constructive communication skills. it sounds preachy and obviously im far from an excellent communicator myself but a small amount of self reflection can go a long way tbh.

newer meds add to adv/inv pugs cos its an easy outlet to improve quicker (since the gameplay is more supportive and u can get picked in a pug WAY above your level), but they also get yelled at more cos theyre newer and make more mistakes. but then once theyre good enough that they wouldnt get yelled at as much, they dont have to sneak into invite pugs to play at a high level. vicious cycle

please remember that if your medic misses a bow it was probably deliberate and they are gaslighting you so you should treat them as such.

as a newer 6s medic, fuck this class. gotta deal with loch & gardener while being told to just surf/dodge. play perfect the full 30 minutes cause five seconds of losing focus loses your team the round gg

the overarching theme of this thread is that it is a TEAM game and the rest of the TEAM makes pug medic a miserable experience if the rest of the team isn't carefully curated (which most of the time it isn't)

also your starting view on medic and the team dynamic as a whole is terrible, I wholeheartedly advise you to not be such a debbie downer and turn that frown upside down! :DDDD

he's right about the loch n load though

Is it time? I let puguhb die again when rgl pugs started up, nothing saying it can't come back.

ALSO STOP SAYING "HEAL ME, BOW ME, TANK ME, BUFF ME"

SAY YOUR CLASS!!!!!!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

I like playing medic actually :)

Coming out of the lurking woodworks to say during my active years I played a fair amount of pugs, including plenty on medic, and was always especially encouraging to people who seemed out of their depth or just having a bad game. But it was also exhausting fighting back against what was a generally negative sentiment from a lot of fellow players. There's levels to respect, and there's a lot of toxicity amongst even respected players when someone's simply not doing well or makes one "major" error. It often leads to a race to the bottom where people are preemptively toxic or try to get on the good side of whatever player(s) they know are going to be critical, better to laugh at others and be ignored vs. getting criticized yourself.

The solution is really just better self-policing and fostering an uplifting attitude from the top down, but if that was realistic it likely would've happened by now. Instead being selective about who you won't play with, and perhaps being vocal about it in a constructive way, is about the best most can do. There's a reason I played on teams with the people I did, they were overarchingly good and kind individuals. The same principle applies to a lesser extent with pugs. But that's also what lead me to stop adding

Anyways, much love and back to checking TFTV every other month

yall not fucking wid rogo???

RGL PUGs are like the first, most obvious way to get into competitive at the moment. I've seen a bunch of people add up who've never played 6s in their life, and I think it's reasonable to be frustrated that someone on your team doesn't know how to play (though you shouldn't be flaming people for being new). I don't think it makes sense for players like that to be able to wander into higher level PUGs. Brand new 6s players should be playing newbie mixes, TF2Center or in the case of RGL, the Open PUGs. The Captain PUGs are built around the idea of the players actually knowing each other and trusting each other's skill level, but when you have brand new/amateur players in the same lobbies as Invite players, there's gonna be a huge disconnect in not just skill level, but also banter and familiarity.

It's cool that you can get in games with top level players as a mid level player (and if I add up to an Invite PUG I know what I'm getting myself into), but there's not much benefit and a lot of drawbacks to letting a brand new player get into the same lobby as an Invite player. It's just a recurring toxic cesspool for the new player, if they even choose to re-add; I've definitely felt the cycle of being flamed for being bad, yet still adding up because I feel like it's the only way to play/improve, and this has happened even before RGL PUGs.

I think Captain PUGs currently have like a 1200 Elo requirement to get picked? I feel like increasing that requirement so that people need to have at least some sort of established skill rating would be a good way of increasing the quality of Captain games, as well as encouraging new players to play Open PUGs (or pointing them to resources like the Newbie Mixes or TF2CC), which are designed to automatically balance and pick PUGs. The 6s player base is way bigger than its Advanced-Invite community, yet those are 90% of the players I see added up to PUGs.

I avoid Open PUGs because they're never populated and I don't trust the match quality, but at the same time I've always wanted a system for 6s that was similar to other competitive games, where I can just click a button to get automatically matched into a game. It's kind of a chicken and egg problem where Open PUGs suck/are dead, but maybe as a community we should look to be pushing a format which is more friendly to newer players.

I get those goosebumps every time, yeah, you come around, yeah
You ease my mind, you make everything feel fine
Worried 'bout those comments, I'm way too numb, yeah
It's way too dumb, yeah
I get those goosebumps every time, I need the Heimlich
Throw that to the side, yeah
I get those goosebumps every time, yeah, when you're not around (straight up)
When you throw that to the side, yeah (it's lit)
I get those goosebumps every time, yeah

I come up pootis every time yeah, When we’re two down yeah
They dry thru five don’t know if we gon survive
Worry bout that cap time, It’s way too fun yeah
Got too much gun yeah
I come up pootis every time, I eat the sandvich
Throw it to the side yeah

PLEASE ADD UP TO OPEN PUGS WE CAN GET THEM POPPIN MID DAY IF PEOPLE JUST ADDED UP

https://i.imgur.com/1gg5UMS.gif

rick just get a pack bro

One time Eugenio screamed at me in a pug for arrowing someone else