We have all seen and heard about friendlies. They always try to pretend to be cute little creatures in a video game for attention and turn servers into a dance party. This is all fun and games for the outside player, but deep inside, this is a negative. Not only have friendlies dealt more damage to the TF2 community than any other griefing group, they are encouraged as well. This game has a bizarre history with friendlies, and I will uncover why they are a hidden evil that managed to control a community hand has left this community devastated.


A Massive part of my essay will go into this section. The truth is, friendlies have completely switched the mindset most video games have. Team Fortress 2 is an interesting game, where each mechanic and interaction you have with another player is unique, which is why it lasted so long and why it recieved updates until now. TF2 is a shooter game, where you shoot people, until friendlies arrived. In the Love and War update, VALVe added taunts, some of which were partner taunts to use. This made "friendlying" easier.

When the first friendlies begun taking over, some were skeptical if they were good or bad. Unfortunately, they turned out to be detrimental, but painted themselves as being kind and wholesome. The only problem was, friendlies did not have a name for themselves. Then they had the brilliant idea of separating themselves into a group. They called themselves "friendlies" however they needed to be more convincing. People would either join a friendly or kill them. Since they did not like being killed, they decided to abuse a word known as "Tryhard." The word Tryhard typically means this. "A person usually of little talent who tries hard to succeed, especially through imitation, usually to gain fame or popularity. (video games)." A perfect example of a True "Tryhard" would be like if a Medic joins a team and starts screaming over the mic about how he is better than everyone else, and kicks newer players, and always quotes the popular youtuber ArraySeven, however he himself isn't skilled and dies over and over so he blames his team. People like this can be considered tryhards, However since this word has a negative connotation, friendlies decided to abuse this term and twist the definition. Now, in Team Fortress 2, you are considered to be a Tryhard if you do one of the following:
- Shoot The Enemies
- Capture the Objective
- Ask your team in a nice manner if they can play the game
- Kick a griefer

In addition to tryhards, more words such as "Sweat," or "Competitive Player," were used to insult regular players. This overall heavily damaged the mindset of the TF2 community due to now playing the game normally will get you considered an evil being and gets you kicked from the server. Normal players were discouraged to play the game and instead encouraged to idle. This mindset infected every part of the community, but the worst contender for this are the following: ctf_2fort, plr_hightower, r/tf2. These 2 maps are notorious for being hives of friendlies and r/tf2 literally had its moderation replaced after a bunch of friendly memers wanted to continuously ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, degrading it to this unfunny garbage site where bad players and friendlies alike partake in.

This mindset has also degraded the motivation for newer players to play the game. If a new player joins this game, they know this is a FPS, meaning they will shoot the enemy. TF2 is the only game where you get punished both verbally and in game (Vote Kick) if you play the game normally and kill the dancing man because the front page said this was a shooter. This may discourage the new player, from either playing the game entirely, or converting them into a "friendly" where it will be hard to break that cycle.


Overall, friendlies have negatively impacted our community, and unfortunately this will keep on happening. They have done far too much damage to this game and they will not be going anywhere. In fact, they have dealt more damage than any hacker or cheating group can ever imagine to do. This is a game where idling and helping the enemy team is a "silly and wholesome" thing to do, meanwhile playing the game is an evile thing to do and is actively discourage, and especially by a factor of 10 when entering the 3 places I mentioned above


I will be responding to a bunch of alternative counter arguments that typical friendlies use:

1: Its just a game, there is no need to get mad
- TF2 is indeed a game, but so are the 100s of other games. Being friendly in TF2 is like playing clash royale 2v2, however instead of helping your team mate, you are actively griefing him and messing up his pushes, like activating the crown tower, not logging the gob barrel, etc. Being friendly in tf2 is like if you were to play fortnite squads, but actively show your location to the others and grief your teammates. In addition, the typical friendly gets more mad rather than the friendly hater. Friendlies will pew out slurs, tell the person to "♥♥♥," and insult them just for killing them in a FPS.

2: VALVe added taunts, they encourage friendling.
VALVe also added in the "Strange Part: Taunting Players Killed" strange part. They are aware of the problem, but instead of solving it, they are playing both sides of the coin to come out on top. Friendlies tend to be rich traders or little kids spending money on virtual taunts, which makes VALVe money. If they stopped adding taunts, friendlies would get mad that they aren't able to spend their money. In addition, they aren't even taunts anymore. They are Fortnite emotes at this point because it appeals to the friendly brain and causes them to buy it even more.

3: Just go play competitive
Competitive is dead, most normal players who play TF2 want to play the game normally

4: We are the reason TF2 is still alive, this is a goofy artstyle!
No you aren't. This reasoning is really stupid, and contradicts itself. TF2 is on an active decline with an inflated playerbase, and slowly this game will phase out of relevancy. The reason why people still play this is because the different classes interacting with one another is completely unique and done in a (mostly) great way. In fact, it can be argued friendlies are the ones that keeps this game behind shackles. They actively discourage the competitive play they parrot onto normal players because it's "not tf2" and "not fun when my unbalanced weapon gets fixed." The reason why CSGO, DOTA 2, Clash Royale, League of Legends, Fortnite, and other games are relevant is due to their active competitive community. Im not saying tf2 should be pure competitive, but had this games competitive mode succeeded, we would be getting A LOT more players. In addition, people say that tf2's "cartoony artstyle" makes the game less competitive, but its not true. Look at some of the games I mentioned above, and a lot more. Valorant, Fortnite, Clash Royale, all of these look cartoony and have a goofy artstyle, yet still has a good healthy competitive playerbase.

5: We aren't doing anything! Leave us alone!
- You are actively hurting your team by not only taking 1 available playerspot that can be used by anyone who wants to play the game normally, but also hindering your team by supporting the enemy team. In addition, you spread your disease to the rest of the TF2 community in hopes of receiving attention and controlling the match.


We as a community can do the following:
- Kick friendlies
- Bind together and disinfect friendly infested maps
- Encourage community server owners to ban friendlies
- Focus friendlies

Together we can solve this massive problem of Wolves in a Sheeps clothing