advice for tf2

FAST
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advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

Hey everyone

I'm trying to establish a solid tf2 server but since tf2 is completely new to me not sure what maps or settings I should be running.

For those who have experience with tf2 what would you recommend?

I know 2 fort and dust bowl are extremely popular maybe I should start with those?

Thanks
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soja
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

Valve really screwed over new communities with their new matchmaking system

Run a 24/7 Valve map(dustbowl probably easiest), register it for quickplay, and get a team to help you populate it.
Quickplay FAQ: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... -AFGJ-3513

People seem to love cosmetic addons(from the likes of sourcemod). Pay 2 win is very frowned upon, as well as MOTD ads.

A few cool cosmetic addons are:
Store https://forums.alliedmods.net/forumdisplay.php?f=157
Colored text https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1722291

Store isn't easy to install, but feel free to ask here or there if you need any help.

Keep active admins, hacking is very common in TF2(compared to other games), partially because of free to play.
http://smac.sx/ SMAC will help keep your server relatively clean when you can't admin it. Do not use the anti wallhack plugin, it uses a lot of CPU.


Managed or unmanaged?
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FAST
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

Thanks for the heads up.

Yeah I did read how new communities entering will be at a disadvantage due to quickplay

Running on managed (windows). I would imagine running multiple maps would not be feasible at this time ?

I'm probably the only one out of 70+ members in my group that is actually going to play this lol so getting others to help probably won't happen :s

Thanks for the help. Game is quite fun.
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soja
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

FAST wrote:Thanks for the heads up.

Yeah I did read how new communities entering will be at a disadvantage due to quickplay

Running on managed (windows). I would imagine running multiple maps would not be feasible at this time ?

I'm probably the only one out of 70+ members in my group that is actually going to play this lol so getting others to help probably won't happen :s

Thanks for the help. Game is quite fun.
NFO sets up managed servers very well, if it was unmanaged I would give you a few commands to give you the best performance possible :)

A rotation server without a stable base of players probably wouldn't be a good idea.
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FAST
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

Yeah I imagine running on Linux would give a better performance but I am happy with my Cs:s DM server running on my managed machine for a year now.

Would a dust bowl/2 fort rotation work or keep it even simpler?

Quick play only works if you have about 10 players in there already (according to some) And running a 32 slot server probably won't see any quick play traffic which was something I wanted to do. I guess I could wait until server sees regular traffic then bump it.
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by joshh20 »

Valve basically discontinued quickplay for community servers. On all TF2 clients, there is now a check mark that is selected be default that makes you join only Valve official servers, so unless the players disable this, they will never join. Due to this, I would recommend that you try to make your server unique instead of following Valve's requirements as you will very likely not be getting many players via quickplay, so I would say go ahead and choose whatever slot count you want.
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

Oh I didnt know that.

That sucks

So if you had to choose between 2fort/dust bowl/harvest /goldrush which one will be more attractive. I like all modes so I dont care.


I'm not sure how to.be unique when there are thousands of unique servers out there lol
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

Dustbowl is the most popular, but is accompanied by the most servers.

Personally, we have had the best success with dustbowl when we were entering the vanilla gameplay crowd, so that is what I would recommend.
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

Thanks for input guys

I was able to get the server populated last night on dustbowl albeit it was only for couple hours. I also created a new server just running 2fort, this morning
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

Not bad for a brand new server :) Keep it up and I wish you the best of luck!
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

So I thought I give you an update.

Running 3 servers. Turbine, dust bowl and harvest all of which get some action but does not stay full very long. It lasts no more than a couple hours a day. It is still pretty good considering these are new servers.

Any ideas to prolong this? I am not really making an effort populating. It does on its own for the most part.

Thanks!
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

Avoid breaks in action as much as possible, on dustbowl it is kind of un-avoidable, but for turbine etc make sure the map never changes, it is just unlimited rounds. Usually if you give people a natural stopping point they will take the opportunity to leave.

Make sure your servers meet all of valves stock standards(as viewed by the quickplay options menu) such as 24 slot(visible), no settings like "nocrits" or "nodmgspread".

Im sure this isn't an issue because you are on NFO, but just make sure your servers are running at peak performance, 24 slot servers should never drop off 66 fps.

Other than that, just try to build a following for the servers, so you end up with quickplay traffic plus regulars that have the servers on favorites etc.
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

excellent pointers thanks

Yep Im running on stock settings and maptime is currently 999 minutes. :)

It does suck that quickplay actually favors semi-popular to popular servers.

I am running in game bots. I see some players cussing and leaving. In a way it does help but on the other hand I understand it is annoying but my server clearly states this (in the tags)
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by soja »

FAST wrote:excellent pointers thanks

Yep Im running on stock settings and maptime is currently 999 minutes. :)

It does suck that quickplay actually favors semi-popular to popular servers.

I am running in game bots. I see some players cussing and leaving. In a way it does help but on the other hand I understand it is annoying but my server clearly states this (in the tags)
How many bots do you use? I found 6 bots what leave as players come in is the best balance.
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Re: advice for tf2

Post by FAST »

I use 12, maybe that is too much. I will drop it to 6 and go from there.

Do you have a cap for CTF captures? I have mine at 20. Maybe I should increase that?

Cheers
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