I’ll simply analyze the absolute train wreck of a video that Soundsmith uploaded to his channel because it’s the source of one of the most common arguments for friendlies. Here is the video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxCZQsN0YdU
0:10 – A fight between friendlies and tryhards.
In the first 10 seconds of the video you are shown that Soundsmith has no idea what it means to be friendly.

1:42 – Argument for friendlies 1#: TF2 is inherently silly.
TF2’s silliness comes from its art style, the personalities of each class and partially from the random moments that happen in actual gameplay. Friendlies do nothing to help the art style, they tend to break it with ugly hats. Friendly “gameplay” has nothing to do with the personality of classes, actual gameplay does (actual gameplay of classes compliments their personality). Friendlies are an active obstruction to gameplay; they effectively reduce the player count, get in your way, tauntkill, cause imbalances… If you think that friendlies add silliness to the game, then you would probably lose your mind if you were to see a silly blood clot preventing blood from flowing. People play the game for its gameplay. I highly doubt anyone joined or stayed in this community because of friendlies.

2:31 - Argument for friendlies 2#: It’s called casual mode.
The name of something does not determine its properties or its functions. Casual in other games is just crappier comp. Casual has objectives, it has classes to do the objectives, it has teams to fight over the objective, it has guns to point at people and bullets to be loaded into those guns and then fired, it’s also played in first-person. TF2 has a lot of things a team-based fps would have, so let’s play it like a team-based fps.
It’s very hard for the silly way of playing and the serious way of playing to coexist, one is a hinderance to the other.


3:05 – In case some of you had doubts about Soundsmith being biased.

3:11 - Argument for friendlies 3#: 12v12 games give more room for silliness.
It’s never a single friendly, though. Balance is always better than slight imbalance. Also, 12v12 is the maximum, it’s going to be a 10v10 or a 9v9 realistically.

4:47 - Argument for friendlies 4#: Just go play competitive.
Soundsmith said that this one is a circular argument, except this one wouldn’t spin like a lubricated bicycle wheel, it would spin like 20 pounds of bricks in a washing machine drum. To “just” play competitive, you’d need to become good at a game (probably spending a few thousand hours playing), then you’d have to join a team, get used to the new formats, lose all the freedom casual offers, heavily reduce the map range you play on, be restricted by ping… The “just play on community servers” argument that tryhards would use makes much more sense – you need to open the community browser and click on a friendly server. You don’t need a team, you don’t need to spend thousands of hours getting good, ping is not an issue because actual gameplay is not a thing, you don’t need to be concerned with maps because actual gameplay is still not a thing there… Friendlies need to do several clicks, tryhards need to spend thousands of hours getting good and playing with heavy restrictions.

5:17 - Argument for friendlies 5#: Silly servers aren’t quite the same.
Of course they’re not; you don’t get to interrupt the game flow, you don’t get to create imbalances in teams, you can’t get away with opening fire on someone… This argument is a pretty big reason I’m fully convinced actual friendlies don’t exist. If they wanted to be friendly and not ruin the flow of the game, they would be playing on community servers. They are constantly causing trouble, they are taunt killing, killing with their weapons to see how far they can push it, randomly doing damage… I have not seen a single friendly get killed 5 times in a row without complaining in chat or straight up turning hostile.
Oh yes, Soundsmith, it’s absolutely hilarious seeing a hoovy (a class with 300 hp that can do 500 dps that is currently crouching) for the thousandth time, it is truly comedy gold, my knee hurts every time I see one because I keep slapping it.

6:26 - …arguing developer intent…
Developer intent is irrelevant. What is relevant is what you’re given and how you use it. If life gave you lemons with an intent that you choke on one of them, would you do that or make some lemonade?

6:56 - Argument for tryhards 2#: Friendlies are griefing.
Friendlies are griefing by creating imbalances and for doing other things I’ve already mentioned. Soundsmith is saying that friendlies are healing the enemy, that has a miniscule effect on the round and is not worth mentioning, the example he mentioned does not happen. This is an argument I see being used by trhards that have no clue what they’re talking about.

8:08 – …beating their heads against a brick wall…
No, Soundsmith, I am kicking friendlies for being idle, I am correctly using the voting system. Friendlies are the one abusing it by calling votes on tryhards.

8:23 – respecting both ways of play
Respecting both ways of play is incredibly stupid. Only one of them is the right way and no one should respect something so obviously wrong and ridiculous (the friendly way of play)

8:29 – “these ways directly hinder each other”
I didn’t even need to debunk the friendly argument 2#. Soundsmith made such a bad and poorly argumented video that he did the job for me.

8:40 – tryhards about how the game should be played
Tryhards want a team-based fps to be played like a team-based fps. They are absolutely right. And yes, you are inconsiderate if you actively ruin that for other people. Tryhards would be inconsiderate if friendlies actually belonged here. And no, Soundsmith, it’s not circular.


9:10
The rule basically says that you ought to play the way the majority plays. On surface, this sounds perfectly valid, but the surface is paper thin and beneath it is an entire sea of reasons this rule is trash and why it won’t ever work.
TF2 is in libraries of 50 million users. Soundsmith’s video has been viewed 1.1 million times. Most of those users are inactive, so let’s say that per 24 players, 8 know the rule. Let’s say that the number is 20. Now we have 20 people that know the rule, that doesn’t mean they’re going to respect it, and if they do, they won’t be doing it for long. There are 4 players that will play normally, they will inevitably start killing friendlies which will then turn hostile and turn even more friendlies hostile. It’s a chain reaction that will turn the entire server hostile. It usually doesn’t even have to be 4 players, one is enough (that tends to be me when I play).
The state of the server will naturally shift to hostile in about 15 minutes. There is no such thing as a rule that can prevent that, and there is no reason to try to prevent that from happening.

9:47
“Majority rules” mindset is a horrible one to have and it’s stupid to think that the majority is coming to a good conclusion. If that was the case, we could replace a doctor with 4 idiots.

10:51
Oh yes, letting a sniper die and killing yourself afterwards certainly won’t have an impact on your team, good job, keep going.
11:18 – Don’t mess with snipers
Standing in front for your sniper’s scope is bad but letting him get killed by a pyro is not, good job, Soundsmith.

14:48 – It’s an imperfect guideline
Don’t worry guys, it’s not a horrible rule, it’s an even worse guideline.
Oh, yes, Soundsmith, those are the flaws in your otherwise perfect plan of saving casual. Fear not, you rule won’t be at all working so situations like those will end like all other situations you claim you have a solution for – with the server turning hostile.

15:45 – a second fight between friendlies and tryhards
This one is to show us that Soundsmith had no idea what friendly means through the entire video.