Team Fortress Wiki:Tips Revision

The tips seen during the TF2 map loading screen have a variety of problems. We, the wiki community, will be revising these tips to improve accuracy and relevance continually. Our tips will then be reviewed by Valve and implemented in-game.

Currently, all community members may take part in adding their own suggestions for tips to the Suggestions article, though edits should be made carefully to ensure accuracy, quality, and relevance. All suggestions are regularly reviewed for addition to the Final article, which is what the tips will look like when they are reviewed by Valve.

Please refrain from adding tips to the Final article! The Final article is for tips deemed of adequate quality by the moderators of the project. Instead, put your own tips in Suggestions.

Have questions about the project? Submit them to Ballad.

Tips

• /Current – tips as they are currently in the game (from tf_english.txt)
• /Final – the final draft of tips including selected new ones to be reviewed by Valve.
• /Suggestions – suggestions for new tips, or changes to /Final tips.

Editing guidelines

When editing tips, one should make sure that one's contribution...

• ... uses correct spelling and grammar. Obviously, someone else will probably correct your mistake if there's a typo (unless you're the only one translating non-English tips, in which case, be very careful!), but you should still preview, reread, and refine your edits before submitting them.
• ... has no inaccurate or outdated facts about game mechanics. If you're uncertain about the accuracy of a claim, discuss it first.
• ... is unlikely to become outdated. Tips should give general advice, not provide detailed statistics that may become obsolete.
• ... is important for players to know. New players need key information to be as helpful to their team as possible, and we should help them with that. Avoid things that the general population doesn't need to know to play decently well.
• ... is hard to or takes long to discover. Facts that are obvious after playing just a game or two aren't worth discussing.
• ... pertains to gameplay, not trivia or lore. The loading screen is meant to help new players jump into the game, contribute to their team's goals, and avoid confusion. Extraneous details belong on other articles.
• ... is based on undisputed consensus instead of personal opinions/styles. If something is common--but not universal--practice, it might be more appropriate to describe it to players so that they can recognize it, instead of prescribing it to them so they do it. Controversial tips are likely to be cut.
• ... keeps the tips short. Tips should be as concise and succinct as possible. The longest tip before starting the project was "As a Demoman, the Chargin' Targe's explosive and fire damage resistance in addition to its charge ability compliment the Eyelander's lower max health and inability to cause random critical hits." Avoid exceeding this length if possible.
• ... maintains consistency with other tips. For example, class tips start with "As a [class], [advice]", and this should be maintained when possible.

The actual text of the tips should not include wiki markup, as they will be submitted in plain text for inclusion in the TF2 text files.

Tips implemented!

Any patches implementing tips from this project shall be listed here, just for the sake of (?:documenting|being proud|showing off).

• March 22, 2012 Patch - Implemented tips of ours that did not require any additional programming on Valve's part (i.e. not the gamemode specific tips [except arena, cause that was already supported]).
• March 28, 2012 Patch - Implemented revisions to tips introduced in the last patch, shortening some ones too long for the in-game TipLabel and accepting minor tweaks to the wording of some tips.