Spamming

“

You're all a bunch of no-hopers! Click to listen — The Sniper on seeing a mess of a team

”

Spamming refers to the act of doing something repeatedly which may be legitimate, such as spewing out as many projectile weapons as possible, repeatedly laying down Sappers on an enemy building within a short period of time, or annoying, such as spamming the server with repeated chat messages or voice commands.

Weapon Spamming

This generally happens when a player repeatedly fires their weapon in the hope of hitting an enemy player while utilizing little or no tactical consideration or skill.

Spamming is often associated with Soldiers and Demomen due to the nature of their primary weapons, though patches to these classes' ammo capacity has reduced this problem somewhat.

It is not to be confused with:

• Laying down suppressive fire to prevent entry into an area.
• Searching for cloaked Spies by firing randomly.
• Standing next to a Dispenser firing continually to achieve the above.
• Continuously sapping an enemy building in order to destroy it.

This technique is considered to be annoying to some players due to its perceived effectiveness without required skill.

Ways to counteract

• The best way to deal with weapon spam is to team up with a Medic and work up an ÜberCharge to to push forward the opposing team's barrage.
• With the Pyro's Compression blast, you might be able to reflect some of the projectiles right back at them.
• Sometimes if a spammer runs out of ammo, you might be able to catch them off guard while they try to find anammo pickup, or a nearby Dispenser.

Voice Spamming

This whenever a user plays a number of sound effects, voice clips, or even music from an external program with the in-game VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). This occurs in most servers that have the sv_alltalk command enabled. Most people consider this an annoyance, as this might break their concentration, or effect their ability to listen out for any oncoming dangers such as uncloaking Spies. Voice spamming also might block out some or all of their teammate's alerts or responses.

Ways to counteract

• Sometimes the option of simply asking the spammer to stop will work if they're considerate enough.
• Voice spamming can be easily remedied if a Sever Admin is present. Having a user muted by the Admin will also block out their text messages. However, some Admins will ignore this depending on the rules of the server.
• If no Admin is on the server, you can simply open the main menu and select the user you want muted. This option is best if you don't want to wait for any Admins to notice or take care of the issue.

Message Spamming

Similar to voice spamming, but with now with messages that are located on the bottom-left of the screen. The user will repeatedly copy/paste via the clipboard, or bind a key with the say command. These messages might include them begging for trade requests, or say racist/sexist comments, usually in all capital letters.

• Just like with voice, an Admin might take care of the problem, and mute them.

However, you will not be able to take care of it manually, as it only mutes the VoIP, not their chat messages.