Strife Closed Beta Review

I recently had the opportunity to join the Strife closed beta, and I have to say I’m quite impressed. Strife is a MOBA that kept the basic structure of games like League of Legends, but also mixed it up a little. I really enjoy this game despite disliking most MOBAs outside of League.

Beginner Friendly

MOBAs generally have a high learning curve, and Strife is no exception. However…

… the difference between Strife and other more recent MOBAs is the beginner friendly play-style. Before you can even play your first game, Strife takes you through a tutorial that explains all the major elements of the game. This tutorial is similar to the one DOTA 2 offers, and is much more relevant than the League of Legends tutorial.

As part of this beginner-friendly system, there isn’t a creep score. Instead of focusing on last hitting, you have more time to figure out how beat your opponents, assuming you’re in one of the two duo-lanes. In Strife as long as one player kills the enemy Brawler (minion) every player within range gets the gold. This allows for AoE heavy characters to utilize their abilities more effectively since they’ll share Brawler gold if their skills manage to hit them.

Strife also brings in a new approach to item sets, and allows for auto-leveling. In the pre-game menus there is a section called Hero Builds. This section allows you to edit your Item Bookmarks and Ability Order. Turning on the Auto-Buy option pops up the next piece of your item based on your bookmarks after you have enough gold for it. Auto Leveling uses your preset ability order to place points in that sequence, instead of selecting to do it yourself.

This is my actual Claudessa build, it only varies slightly from the recommended build to suit my play style.

Playability

Ignoring the low population within the Strife closed beta, game functionality is really smooth.

Responsiveness within the game is at launch-level standards, which is impressive to say the least. Skills and movement commands go off when they’re supposed to. Not to mention icons display correctly, which League has had issues with recently. Finally, the shop and game menus are legible, which is a big issue in Infinite Crisis.

New Strategies

With a new setup comes a new strategy…

Strife offers a unique map layout placing the objectives evenly between both teams, setting up a unique Meta to best take advantage of these objectives. The current strategies place a lot of importance on player-skill and Hero familiarity. Knowing what your allies and your enemies are capable of is important in Strife.

Here is the current layout of the Strife map. The orange dot is Baldir, the red is Cyndara.

The current Meta is duo-top, duo-mid, and solo-bot. The reason for this is the placements of Baldir and Cyndara. Baldir is easily duoable at level five or six, thus centering duo lanes around his position on the top side of the map. Cyndara is equivalent to League’s Baron Nashor in difficulty. She requires at least three players to kill, and three is pushing the limits. You generally don’t attempt Cyndara until like 25-30 minutes in when your team has a numbers advantage after a team-fight. That’s why the solo-lane is the bottom lane.

Due to the spacing and respawn timers of neutral monsters, their isn’t a dedicated jungle position. Instead players pick off the jungle camps as they have time for them, like if they’ve pushed up a wave too fast. It’s about knowing when to press your advantages or play safe.

Heroes and Pets:

The most important part of any MOBA, the characters…

The complete selection of characters and pets.

Currently, Strife has only 19 characters, this means you’ll likely see the same characters on both sides of the map, in any given game. Luckily, with the addition of the Pet system, there are many ways to play the same character. For example, I play Claudessa with the Mystik pet, though many play her with Tortus. So all though selection is limited, you still get a diverse feel to the games you play.

Crafting

For the hardcore players…

Crafting is designed to take the items you already use and adjust them to fit your style. This is a completely optional system that you aren’t required to use. It’s worth looking into if you decide you want to play seriously. This system allows you to adjust the components of the completed items, or add a bonus effect to it. The only downside is it requires a lot of Elixir to make and there is no try before you buy option.

Overall, in its current closed beta build I’d say Strife is an 8 out of 10. There’s a few functions that haven’t been activated yet, and I’d like to see more characters released. The game is fun, and different from other MOBAs, which is definitely a plus. I’ll re-evaluate the game after full launch to compare the official launch build to its current state.