Well, I guess there are probably tons of reasons which can make a person ragequit from a game like TF2. Griefers, stupid behavior of the other players, being owned constantly or a series of bad maps are most likely on top of everybody’s list.
But for me, blessed by being able to play regularly on a well admined server with a lot of (for the most part) mature players and a relatively high skill level (for a pub, anyway) it usually boils down to two reasons.
Ragequit because I suck
I’m not a very good player. The mind is willing but the fingers are slow. And even my mind has the uncanny ability to deceive me by making wrong decisions. Dodge left or right? „RIGHT“, my brain yells. Well, sure enough that’s where the enemy rocket found me.
Up these stairs or around that corner? „Take the stairs“ a voice whispers seductively, „and then along the corridor, drop down the ledge and roll up the enemy team from behind“. And I can almost see multiple death messages in the upper right corner of the HUD. Okay, I saw a death message. My name left, the name of the heavy I ran into on the right.
I also guess I’m at least a quarter lemming, because I have an irresistible urge for suicide runs. „Attack and retreat“ is for people who give a damn, and I don’t. Must be a genetic trait, I can’t help it. I will advance and fight until I die. Or I stay my post on defense, whacking that sentry even while stickies are piling up left and right in the futile hope that that last whack would keep the sentry alive.
But wait, come to think of it that actually doesn’t bother me too much and would not make me ragequit. What led me off this tangent? Ah yes, personal stupidity. I guess most people (especially professional players) would call my suicide runs stupid, and they would be probably right (Certainly in regard of a 6vs6 matches where a single man down might get a CP capped or even decide a game).
But what angers and frustrates me more are my myriads of little failures. I have come to accept the sad fact that apparently I can’t hit the proverbial broad side of a barn. I’m a terrible sniper and I only use the Direct Hit if there are chances I will encounter clusters of enemy players. It’s so frustrating to do that familiar dance of death with a demo or pyro (or whatever) and fail to hit him. Something like that is not enough to make me ragequit. But it can be quite the fundament on which anger and frustration can freely build upon.
Just a couple of weeks ago it happened to me twice that I had stickied the final CP on Badlands and while getting distracted the enemy managed to cap it anyway.
Playing medic and losing ubers just because I misjudged the situation („I’ll wait, I’ll wait, I’ll ... D’OH“) is another classic cause for rage.
Getting owned by better players doesn’t actually bother me too much. If you are a mediocre player you learn to accept your place in the food chain. Getting owned by players I secretly consider to be weaker than I am (their numbers are few on my favourite server, but they exist), now that’s something which can occasionally gnaw at my ego.
A series of such events, failures and misjudgments can easily make me ragequit, move my self-esteem into the basement (gamewise) and prompt me to swear never to play this game again (this is one of those serious oaths, belonging to the same category as „I will lose weight“, „This is my last cigarette“ or „I will never look at another woman again“).
But I’ve mentioned another source of rageqittage
Ragequit because my team doesn’t get its shit together
Not to be mistaken with the statement that a potential teammate might suck. Though I’m used to the fact that many people I usually play with are less „suckage“-prone than I am I still see it happening from time to time and that’s fine. In fact it’s quite a relief to see other – especially better – players fail as well. So this to me is more a source of benevolent amusement than rage, even if this might lead to us losing a round.
But what can make my blood boil are stupid choices, tactics DESTINED to fail and lack of basic strategic thinking.
When the people you usually play with – in my case this includes a lot of regular visitors, so many people on the server know each other and know what to expect from each other - are experienced and skilled, expectations are naturally quite high. You know the potential of teamwork and skill because you have seen it often before. You look at the scoreboard, see the people on your team and the opposing team and thikg „Now, this should be good“
Just as naturally the disappointment is even greater when those expectations are circumvented significantly.
Again, I don’t speak of losing the game. If’s there’s solid teamwork and my teammates are doing their best, but the other team is simply better than us, so be it. That’s a „Good Game“ nonetheless (and can be really enjoyable, despite the defeat).
No, what I mean is a team not making use of their potential, pissing away a game for reasons not always easy to grasp.
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean:
The team going into battle without a medic. Or losing its medic (or worse medics) and not caring (enough to rectify this disadvantage). Predominance of light classes when clearly heavier classes would be needed. Class choices made without consulting (or perhaps not caring) which classes are already in use. Too many of a class, especially the usual classics of snipers and engies (the latter of the lonesome, not-working-together type). Ineffective positioning. Overprotective attitude on the battlefield (just don’t jeopardize that precious KPD, even if that might lose the match).
Hmm, let’s stop here for a moment and take a closer look at that last one. This one is a major ragequit-fertilizer of the most potent kind to me. Those people who proceed veeery carefully. To some degree trying to play it safe. Staying alive, sometimes at all cost. They might rather hold back than try to push if the risk is too high.
It’s probably unfair to blame stats and KPD alone (or even primarily) for that. I think this is also a mentality influenced by the 6vs6 match-style where the life of a single player is so much more important (potentially even game decisive) than in your usual 16+ pub matches. But that attitude doesn’t apply for these kind of pub games, and pushes or defenses are often achieved less by careful and skillful tactics than by brute force (it’s a pub game after all). A „good“ push sometimes requires wearing the enemy down, and by acting too careful and guarded you will just enable the enemy to regroup and resupply. The more skill and tactical understanding is added to that equation I sometimes think it only rather gets worse than better, because brute+skill can really wreck much more havoc than careful+skill.
Losing a game that way makes me wonder why we even bothered to play that round? It certainly makes me wonder why *I* bothered to play that round. The more since I was probably doing my little lemming routine to keep the cart going or to keep the capture meter up (or similar) while a number of my teammates proceeded conservatively (for whatever reasons). Such a match to me is time wasted; time I could have better spent on something more useful or entertaining. You can hand me a defeat in an hard and honest battle any day, and I won’t mind. But treat me such an half-arsed game a few times in a row and watch me ragequit.
Maybe I’m spoiled by all the good games we are usually having on that server. As I said, expectations are high. Mine certainly are. And sure, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Any attempt of basic teamwork somehow slips through the team’s fingers and it all becomes a number of unrelated individual actions. That happening against a team which is just slightly more organized, more „in the zone“, if you want, and defeat is almost a safe prospect.
And while there are games which are indeed pissed away in such a matter there are also those interesting games, which are moving along those lines in the beginning. But slowly people are starting to get their shit together. They start to notice that there’s something wrong, and they try to correct the course. I’ve seen those games as well. Sometimes it’s happening too late, and the team can’t avert defeat. In such cases I usually can’t help but think that this might not have happened, if some people would have applied more (existing) experience and common (game-related) sense from the beginning.
But sometimes the miracle is happening and you can turn the game around. Being rolled badly on Badwater and then holding the final CP for 10 minutes. Or being pushed to the final point on Granary and five minutes later capping the enemy’s last CP.
Those games are rewarding and often very satisfying. Perhaps that feeling is unjustified. But I guess it’s too close to the popular underdog-tales often portrayed in those sports-movies, where a ragged band of unlikely heroes finally win the championship.
But heck, why not! I enjoy it while I can. Because I can be sure that I will be on the wrong team again soon enough. Then it will be ragequit time all over again 
Having said all this (especially the second half) I should once more stress that there are by far more good games on my favourite server than such „bad“ ones (and just because they make me ragequit doesn’t mean that perhaps other people still enjoyed it ... *shrug*). It’s – after all – the server which always lures me back to play, and that for good reasons. And since I’m sucking up I can do it properly and take that opportunity to thank each and every one playing there who contributes to the good games and good atmosphere there. Love you all, even you sometimes make me ragequit 
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