TF2: How To Trade

A Startling true fact

Trading, I would say, is probably the second biggest reason to play Team Fortress 2, closely behind the sheer amount of complexity to its plot, humor, and hat collection. Since this is such a big part of Team Fortress 2, Valve decided to monopolize on it by doing something unheard of: making TF2 free. This, to the average person, may seem like a bad move. But think about it, with half the community trading, and a cost to F2P members to get trading privileges (in total $10 purchase from the Mann Co. Store) and the promise of keys alluring in the eyes of new players, people jumped on it. Yes, the Mann Co. store was a fantastic move, but if you’ve now upgraded to a premium account, or actually bought the game, what do you do now to get to that end goal that you really want?

The first thing you have to know when you start trading is that you have to have a goal, otherwise, you’ll end up getting a hat, and never want to let go of it. I know because this happened to me. Many times. My current goal is set at a vintage earbuds, because why not? It’s a good idea to shoot higher than you think possible, and then bring yourself back down to a reasonable level when it seems like you’ve come close to something you’d like, in my case, either a Sunbeams Texas Ten Gallon or a Sunbeams Hotrod. Any earbuds after that will go into a pyro unusual, and then I’ll put the other things into earbuds, or other promos onto my way up to vintage earbuds.

The thing that will get you farthest when you trade is being polite. I’m not kidding, I’ve experimented with this. When you play the cool guy card, and are nice to people when trading, then you end up with the upper hand. When I trade people, I’m generally trying to be as polite as possible when the guy I may be trading is a complete dick. Why would you want to put up with this? The average person isn’t trying to be a dick, and probably puts up with a lot of them. When you’re nice, they may appreciate it, and that will get them in a set of mind that could get you that trade.

There is a strategy to trading. It’s all in the bit of advertising. How do you drag people into trading with you? The answer is selection, which comes with time, and power. I hold multiple amounts of metal, keys, hats, and other items to increase interest, but how do you tell the crowd what you’re selling? Simply put, like this:

Trading all items in my backpack. I’ve got keys, metal, nc/nv/v hats/miscs, nv/v/strange weps, and more. !bp LuLz. Pirate to see.

Breaking down my own add, let me explain its parts:

• Trading all items in my backpack: already implies that I have a good amount of items, which I do.

• I’ve got keys, metal: the two biggest forms of liquid money, most people want to sell their stuff for keys or metal, and I’m a provider of both.

• Nc/nv/v hats/miscs: shows that I have non-craftable hats, vintage, and normal hats and miscellaneous items, brings in a greater amount of attention.

• Nv/v/strange weps: tells them my stock of weaponry, once again attracts attention

• !bp LuLz. Pirate to see: the command !bp works on most trade servers, and typing in !bp followed by someone’s name will open up their backpack for you to see. Since as a trader, I want to trade as many items as possible, it helps to just trade everything, if you’ve got an item you don’t want to particularly let go of, raise its price to a level that someone won’t probably buy it at, and at that price you make a good chunk of profit.

With that in mind, you need to know prices. I use 2 sites for this: TF2TP (Team Fortress 2 Trading Post) and TF2OP (Team Fortress 2 Outpost), both sites allow you to post items from your backpack, and trade them, after using a log-in pass from Steam. This can help you trade items without getting on, and save you some time. It can also help you trade higher level items, and look for an unusual.

Some people may use spreadsheets, but I don’t. I’ve opened the TF2 Spreadsheet a grand total of 3 times, and never when I was on TF2, or actually trading. I use TF2TP and TF2OP for pricing, because I can immediately see what people are giving/wanting for the item at hand, which puts it as the most up to date data you can possibly have: community trends. After a while, you’ll get more item’s prices remembered, and won’t have to use this data as much, but it always helps that you’re in the Steam Overlay, and can easily look up some values on the fly.

When I trade, and some comes up to me, I always ask them what they want for their item. A good example of this is a couple weeks ago, a guy traded me and  asked me for a key. I answered with “What do you have for one?” and he proceeded to show me a bunch of items, but what caught my eye was a Fancy Dress Uniform (FDU), a strange Eyelander and a reclaimed out of the 20 or so items he had up. A FDU is worth 4 refined or so at the time, so I ask him “would you do the FDU, reclaimed and Eyelander?” The guy said sure, and I got it. I made about 1-2 refined profit, and walked away a happy man. To some people, this method is considered “sharking” and I took advantage of the guy, since he didn’t know the FDU’s worth. I personally believe that I was just doing him a favor. He traded me, telling me he wanted something of mine, he showed me the items he wanted to sell for a key, and I asked him if he was okay with it. He was happy with it, and so was I. For all I know, he unboxed an unusual, who cares? Pricing is in the eye of the man who wants an item. If I wanted a Ghastlier Gibus, and gave kid 17 keys for it, and I was fine with it, it was a fair trade.

With these ideals in mind, you have my basic method for pricing, buying, and selling items. I won’t lie, when you don’t have much, it takes time to get up to the level that I’m trading at, but it isn’t impossible. With a good head on your shoulders, you can get there with a bit of thinking, and of course, patience. It’s up to you to reach your own goals, as I’ve spent my own time reaching mine, hopefully this guide may help you get there a bit faster.

--Santa

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