Play Soldier, shoot the other team. You have a lot of health and do a lot of damage, but you also have more mobility options than a Heavy, for another example of big slow damage dealers. But honestly, very few people have "set" classes that they use forever and ever. We all have our favorites(My Scout, Soldier, and Spy hours far outweigh the others), but I've played everything that's not an Engie for many hours of gameplay, depending on what I think the team needs at the time, or what I feel like doing. That's the great thing about TF2, that you can be so many different things whenever you want and contribute to the team. Maybe you want to get right on the frontlines for offensive pushes or defensive holds with the Soldier or the Heavy. Maybe you like to get behind enemy lines and cause chaos with the Spy, or ambush players with the Pyro. Maybe you just wanna sit back and deal out headshots with the Sniper, or maybe your aim isn't doing that hot today but you wanna help, so you go Medic.
I say play Soldier just because he's probably one of the easiest classes to get out there and do damage. There's never a BAD time to be a Soldier. You won't hear anybody bitching about "Gah, too many soldiers on this team!" You have a lot of health, so you tend to escape some situations other weaker classes might not, and your weapon is very straight forward. Jump, shoot at their feet, rinse and repeat til death or have to reload. Switch out to shotgun to pick off enemies, it's hitscan so it's faster and more accurate than a rocket. I tend to use it to finish off enemies when I have to reload(because reloading rockets is sloooow), or Scouts who dance right out of my range.
The thing about TF2 is that it's primarily objective focused, so you tend to know where the action is(around the control point/payload/hill/etc), and there's helpful colored arrows all over the official maps that point you in the right direction, so it's easier to learn them then other FPS maps, I found.
The hats don't do anything(but they mean EVERYTHING and you're much sexier with them), and you can get by with the default weapons 90% of the time. Very few are straight upgrades(see: Soldier's escape plan > default shovel, Medic's UberSaw > default BoneSaw). Weapons can be bought, traded, crafted, or you get them through random drops. The more you play, the more random drops you'll get, it'll just show up on your screen following a death, "Ooh, you got the doohicky thing!" Even if you don't want it, you could trade it, or use it to craft other things like hats or weapons that you DO want. You can see more information on classes and weapons here on the
official TF2 wiki, but don't let all those numbers and weapons disencourage you; again, you can do just fine with the default weapons, the other weapons are more like alternatives.
A few tips that have helped me and might not be in any other TF2 guide:
-Turn on Damage numbers. Every time you do damage, you'll see -## over their heads, like a RPG. This is very helpful in knowing how much damage you're doing, at what distance, did you hit them at all, is it worth continuing to engage them, etc. It'll make learning the game and it's encounters a lot easier, I find, when you're not wondering, "Shit, how much health does this guy have am I even hitting him!?"
-Increase your Field of View to 90 in the options. You'll see much more of the screen, giving you a larger peripheral vision of the level. It's more enjoyable this way, trust me.
-Try to avoid any 24/7 32-player Instant Respawn servers. The game is made with a max of 24 players in mind, that was Valve created and balanced the game around. Now anyone who plays this game with even semi-regularity knows that Valve hasn't been perfect with balancing character classes and weapons, but anything about 24 players the game starts to break down into chaos. Spies are more useless than ever because there's more classes to worry about bumping into. Scouts have too many damn people to worry about with the increased bodycount. Snipers are now top of the scoreboard gods with way too many targets. More people equals more Engies turtling it up with 3+ sentry nests on the cap point. Defense(and Offense) is less rewarded because killing enemies just sends them right back into the fray with instant respawn, no breathing room to gather supplies or change positions for the next encounter. It's just a big spammy mess. Not saying those can't be fun every now and then, and I'm not saying the people playing that are idiots, but I feel it goes against the original spirit and core of TF2, and as a new player you should get familiar with that core before anything else.
-Do not worry about K/D. It doesn't matter. There's no TDM, this isn't that kinda game. Hell, don't fret over losses, either. Team Fortress 2 is exactly that, a TEAM game. No matter how good or bad you are, no matter if you were playing CS with one hand and Quake 3 with the other since you're five years old, one man most likely isn't gonna turn a game around, it has to be several people. You have to work together to achieve anything in this game. Often I find myself looking at what our team composition is, and thinking what's the best way I could help. I get more kills with the Soldier and have more fun with my Spy shenanigans, but if I think the team needs a Medic, hell, I'll go Medic! I get satisfaction of knowing I've helped the team(and thus myself) achieve victory, or at least tried.
-Try and have fun! Most of us in here are cynical bastards who don't even play the game half the time, worn down by hundreds of hours of mayhem, questionable TF2 updates and the dreaded NeoGAF Jank server rotation(Hightower...the horror...THE HORROR!), but it's a great game, one of the very best, no doubt in my mind. Valve has been very kind to it's community, giving us hundreds of free updates over the years, full of weapons, maps, modes, and oh so many hats. It's an ever evolving game built on a rock-solid core of class-based warfare, filled with colorful characters, an appealing art direction, smooth controls, and instant accessible playability. And it's all for free! It's one of the most played games on Steam with plenty of new players, so it's never too late to join. Stick with it, find some servers you enjoy, learn the classes and the maps, and you'll have a good time, I guarantee it
Ya know, until your team has 3 snipers on offense and your engie builds level 3 sentries right outside your damn spawn for "teleport protection"...then you ragequit and bitch about it on the internet. And that's part of the fun, too!
