I don't usually post stuff here but I don't see a lot of MvM discussion and I'm interested in seeing what people here think.

I personally think most of the problems modern-day MvM faces is linked to Valve's approach to teaching players how to play the gamemode. For a new player, MvM can seem daunting. People are afraid to mess up, not contribute enough, or get yelled at or kicked by fellow teammates. Which is to say: HOW does a player become "better" at MvM? Of course, experience is a thing, the more you play, the better you get. If we don't take Steam guides or Youtube videos (some of which contain bad advice) into account, how does Valve teach new players how to succeed?

The answer is, not much at all. MvM has no concrete tutorial: just a couple lines of text explaining the barebones of each class on the selection screen, various eyebrow-raising tips on the upgrades screen (like promoting knockback rage), as well as a couple Normal-difficulty missions that are easy enough for total beginners to complete. However, Valve doesn't really give you any actual tips or feedback for improvment. All you have is a damage number and a scoreboard, and maybe a kill-to-death ratio. It seems simple enough, but this kind of feedback causes a lot of issues, particularly with certain classes. Let's take a look at Valve's tips for each class:

• Scout. Valve's tips aren't too bad, telling that Scout is the credit guy, respawns instantly, can slow targets with Milk and Mark for Death with the Sandman. Of course the Fan O'War is better, but I don't think Valve should hand out the best loadout for each class as a "tip". The overreliance some people have concerning the milk and fan combo is mostly a community thing in my opinion. Scout is perfectly viable while upgrading his gun, while lesser-skilled teams will rely a lot of Scout's support such as milk or redirecting aggro (a very underused PvE mechanic Valve tells you nothing about).

• Soldier. There's nothing much to say here. Soldier just upgrades his weapons to hit harder and blows his trumpet/conch shell for support. Once again I don't think tips should say "go beggars lol". Other rocket launchers are perfectly viable (aside from the jumper of course).

• Pyro. Oh man. A notoriously controversial class (even before Jungle Inferno, trust me). We see some questionable tips here, such as upgrading ammo capacity, airblast, or AFTERBURN (literally a waste of credits - $1000 for a 4 DpS increase!). The tips don't even tell you how to play the class. What ends up happening is essentially new players W M1-ing at squads of robots, leading to their deaths. Airblast spam is also an annoying thing that the tips promote. W M1 can deal some damage to robots, so newer players are actively encouraged to play like this - the infamous canister of gas only exacerbates this problem. Because of this, some players believe that Pyro is an useless class whose only role is humping a tank for 30 seconds, while he can easily be one of the best classes in the game.

• Demoman. He is more versatile than people think. His stickybomb playstyle is mentioned ("destroy high priority targets with powerful sticky traps"). The game doesn't really tell you WHO the priority targets are however. Speaking of which, uber medics aren't mentioned anywhere in these tips (but that's another thing). His tips are similar to Soldier's, just saying "hey you can upgrade!". For some reason there's also a tip for shield charge cooldown but no mention of Demoknight's other upgrades like crits on kill.

• Heavy. Only thing I can say here is knockback rage being a total joke with how detrimental it is, lowering you and your team's DpS. Resistances or getting close to targets aren't mentioned, and one tip mentions that you have to taunt for knockback rage (it's a different button).

• Engineer. No tips about building placement. New players will use their Casual knowledge to place sentries way out of the way in "secret" spots, which leads to robots just waltzing through the entire defense. Similarly, there aren't any mentions of Upgrade Canteens which are an absolutely boon for new players, allowing them to quickly fix their mistakes. I see too many new Engies spend minutes re-building their sentries while a Giant Heavy slowly waddles towards it and mows it down in a second. There's also the issue of Engineers blindly learning "good building spots" for the beginning of the wave, their gamesense crumbling the moment a giant robot pushes through.

• Medic. New medics are very often a waste of a teammate slot, as they mainly just click on their teammates to heal them, not doing anything much (hence the term, idle med). Once more, there is no feedback on this, so new players will believe they're helping the team by essentially acting like a dispenser with legs. The Two Cities tips does mention projectile shield, revives, and canteen specialist, which is good. No mentions of increased aggro if you're healing someone, however. I'm not too skillful as Medic, so I don't really have much to say about him, sadly.

• Sniper. No mention of explosive headshot, the strongest upgrade in the game! The game instead tells you to buy projectile penetration and charge speed. No wonder nobody liked Snipers in the early days of MvM. Contrary to what most people think, Sniper really isn't that difficult to learn. Buy explosive headshots, get reload speed, sit on a high place and focus giants, uber meds, and bomb carriers.

• Spy. Big spy main here. Spy is easily one of the hardest classes to play in MvM - new players often play Spy only once or twice before getting stomped, so you don't see many new spies as much as you see new pyros, medics, or engies. Armor Penetration is a must - Valve doesn't really ask you to go for giants, and rather promotes sapper upgrades (a common noob trap as spy doesn't need sapper upgrades to kill robot hordes). Spy's aggro is mentioned but written as "robots may detect backstabs" instead of "robots will instantly focus you until you hide or get turned into pulp".

This post is pretty just me rambling about Valve tips, but I'd like to see what people think. I would love to see MvM discussion that isn't just complaining about high tours or certain weapons.