So I played this quite a bit last night, here is my 2 cents. BTW I liked this better than Dawngate....
-Graphics: I personally liked them quite a bit, I know this can be a subjective area so I won't dwell on it. It's got that cartoony look, somewhat like LoL and so far the characters and pets and all that have a nice style to them.
-Tutorial: Nothing spectacular, not too long and while it does teach some of the basic controls and what to do, it almost seemed like a better tutorial for a game like Diablo. I've seen all MOBAs struggle with this though...how the hell do you prepare people for the assraping that is about to come when they join a real 5v5 game? There is an AI mode you play against bots so that helps too. Overall it's helpful and a bit engaging while not being too invasive.
-Resources/Rewards: This game has 3 resources you earn as you play. Ore for crafting, food for pets, and elixirs for crafting/enchanting. After each game, win or loss you get to pick between one of three chests, it seems to be random or maybe there is some strategy when you pick the chest to know which one is better that I have no figured out yet. I *think* winning gives you better chests or better chances to get the best chest but I can't confirm that yet. Overall I am ok with this though, I've always believed that losing a game should still yield 70%ish of the reward as winning. Unless you are making a small focused hardcore esport MOBA you need to make people want to play and someone has to lose every game, all the way from the uber 2200's down to the crapp 1300 players. Making people play games that can last an hour then giving them crap cause they lost is terrible design.
-Pets Mechanic: Pets in this game are like a simplified LoL runepage or the extra spell abilities. Each one has a basic action command for you, things like dash, retaliate, remove stuns/snares, etc. You can use the food you've earned through playing to buy new pets or upgrade existing ones. Upgrading with typically make the one action ability better in some way and open up more passives from which you can chose 2 out of the 3 for that pet at any given time. I've only played one day so it's hard to get a true feel for it but at first glance it seems like the game rewards allow you make reasonable progress. Much like it takes a bit of time to hit 30 in LoL, in that same time I imagine you could have your favorite pet max level or buy a few different ones for different situations.
-Ore/Crafting: This is where you need a tutorial. While the basic premise made sense to me I had to go online to figure out what the hell was going on. The short story is that you can take any EXISTING recipe and change the components. Each recipe has a "level", by default, so for example a recipe for something expensive like sheep stick has a higher level than a beginning item. If you go too far above the level of the item you run the chance of getting less benefit(hard to explain). So ideally you want your new version of the recipe to be equal in "level" to the current one. Any changes you make ARE reflected in the cost. Forgive the made up items names because I am not intimately familiar with Strife yet but here is an example: In HoN a Abyssal Skull needs: Hungry Spirit, Ring of the Teacher(pretend this is not a combined item but something you just buy), Trinket of Restoration and the recipe. So to craft I would select the recipe and it would then show me all of the components and claim the item level is 5, So now I remove the trinket of restoration and put a lifetube in instead. The cost of the new recipe goes up accordingly and it moves to level 7. Which the system does not classify as optimal but still ok(optimal would be removing trinket of restoration and putting in Iron Buckler, you can put ANY item in there you want, does not have to have the same effect). I pay some ore, hit craft. Now my "Rangoths Abyssal Skull" has +15% lifesteal(not 12%), .8 mana regen, 5 armor, and 1.5 health regen. Depending on your luck crafting you can make a rare or legendary item which may add more(random?) stats. So let's say I get lucky and now it also has +2magic armor. Again this explanation probably sucks, but it is the general idea. So if you had a character with a specific item build you like you can make new versions of those items that all add a bit of something you want, like regen or armor, or health without changing the core of the item design. Items you've crafted have a limited lifespan, 15 days or some such/
-Elixir: You can use these to enchant items youve crafted(make them stronger) or make the item you've crafted permanent. Elixirs seem to be the hardest to earn. So save them to make your uber item perm. once you know what you like and how to craft better.
-Matchmaking: Hard to judge right now but even in beta games start fairly quick. I don't see any player rating or anything so not sure if it's hidden or they just don't show it or I simply don't know where to look. The game seemed mostly balanced but plagued by the same thing every moba is plagued by. One terrible pug feeds and can ruin a game or someone with an attitude throwing the game. Can't blame S2 there.
-Chat: You are not allowed to chat with the other team during the game. I actually like this and fully support it. The only time chat with the other team happens is the 2 seconds of civility at the start with a "glhf" and then shit talk and nonsense the entire rest of the game. Most of the time you don't even get the civility at the start. Not sure what it is about MOBA that draws this out in people. I played some SC2 and I royally suck ass at SC2, like facepalm bad and I rarely encounter the same level of shit talk I see in MOBA and I'm actually decent in MOBA.(Some minor background: I always pug, never been part of a guild/clan and hold about 1750 in the games I play LoL/HoN, so I'm not great but not terrible. Honestly an avg. player).
-Personal Courier: Everyone has their own courier that cannot be killed which will allow you to shop from anywhere in the map and he'll bring items to you. I love this. I've always thought MOBAs should be like FPS with the level of action, intensity and fun involved but without the 3D view and strafe jumping perfect aim headshots that drive me crazy in FPSs(I suck at those too, just not that coordinated with mouse/keyboard combo when it comes to moving/shooting in different directions). The courier generally moves to you quickly but walks back to base kinda slow, so you can't just spam him but he's up enough that it helps a ton and I think I only went back to base ONE time in all of my games. I honestly believe this is a good thing.
-OOC Regen: I've heard others complain about this but I like this feature as well. It's not so powerful that it makes harassing pointless, which I've read mentioned above, but not so weak as to be irrelevant. It just makes you choose what you do a little more in the lane. It kicks in after 5 or so seconds, maybe more of no action and seems to maybe double your regen, it's by no means an insta-fill but it's noticeable. If YOU attack or take any action it goes away. So you can't regen to full while last hitting or whatever. You can still harass people but you need to be smarter about it. The best way I can describe this feature is that I barely noticed it was there and it never ruined or made my game. EXACTLY what it should be. It kept me out there fighting and not back at the base. If I needed to fill I would just hover around the xp zone trying to stay out of combat. But a smart opponent would hit me, if possible, with anything they have to prevent ooc regen.
-Last hitting: No denying which i've always hated. I won't stir up the waters as that debate always turns into a skill/metagame argument but I don't like it. In Strife though ANY last hit in your lane shares the gold. So at the bare minimum you are not fighting with your teammates over who gets the money and you can even help one another by working together. While I still saw general MOBA shit-talk during the games there was very little, only one game I think, of "GET OUT OF MY LANE NUB" type of stuff. It did feel much more coordinated and cooperative.
-General Combat/Pace: The pace is about the same as any 5v5 MOBA. Nothing revolutionary there. Combat is similar as well, gank moves, chasing down with snares, tanks, support, dps. They've got a few creative heroes and neat moves, probably tons of time for balancing so I won't judge that but it's nothing revolutionary. I mean after 3+ years of playing DotA/HoN I've seen about every possible move the engines will allow so not sure I expected anything different. The combat and systems all did seem responsive and accurate. I think it certainly fits in with the current pack of MOBA games, no better no worse.
-Heroes: They need more, but hard to complain since it's beta and I'm sure they are trying to not just port from their HoN game but come up with new stuff. I remember not liking LoL selection at first too so I'll let this play it's course.
-UI/Stats: Everyone is complaining about this. I loved it! Absolutely loved it. Stats are basic. Power, attack speed, move speed, health, mana, armor, magic armor(maybe I'm missing one but that just proves my point). The UI is simple because the stats and systems are simple. Everyone wants power, it scales your casting abilities and your auto attack dmg. Health and mana are obvious and if you are physical dmg toss in some attack speed. Sure there is lifesteal and stuff but I don't need that and my armor displayed all over the map. They don't change often and if you really want to see just hit tab(at which point you can pin most things to stay on screen). The simplicity of the system means you can just enjoy and focus on the screen and the game, NOT the UI. The only one I did was pin health bars, that should be on by default. Good time to mention that since "power" is the only real dmg stats, everyone can scale towards the end game. I never liked in DotA/HoN the idea of game phases.
I've made a few references so I guess I might just give my perspective on MOBA and what my problem is with them. I understand it's a big time epeen-esport-eleague thing and I can respect that. People are really fucking good at these games, some make money and it's highly competitive, I get it. But it is completely stale and the "main mode"(5v5 on the same fucking map since DotA released what? 8 years ago, is fucking old and tired. I'm not a super star player and I don't even care to try to be. I play MMO's some WII and MOBAs, and as I mentioned above I am average, maybe slightly above average skill if you consider my rating in the various games I've played. But I quit awhile back because of 2 reasons, 1.) The games started lasting 1 hour+, and 2.) so fucking sick of the same 5v5 fucking map.
Maybe this genre isn't for me or whatever but I really do look at moba like an alternate playstyle version of FPS, which I was never good at. I would kick ass in Age of Empires all day and join a FPS only to have someone curb stomp me from a million miles away while i felt I unloaded an entire magazine on them while they hop around like fucking kermit. Whatever, I know my skill level. I like when MOBA games are fast, action packed, constant combat. I just don't care for the "laning phase, farming phase, gank phase, group phase, push phase". Maybe that shit works for you guys in elite teams with 1 hour+ games of perfect coordination and strategy but in MOBA pugs it means one dude won't leave the jungle until he has every top item he can farm, another guy won't leave his lane ever because 4 other people bitch at him to go back in his corner and shut the fuck up and stop stealing xp...it's supposed to be a team game but there is often little or NO incentive to be part of the team(unless you literally are a team). Maybe all of us pugs need to go die? I dunno, I'd wager there as many people that log on and play without groups nightly as there are that team play. Maybe LoL/HoN could release those numbers for us, that would be very interesting to me.
The few modes that I INTENSELY enjoy in MOBA's: LoL's 5v5 all mid with that single skinny bridge. No bitching about xp, about creep kills, or whatever. Just non-stop combat, short games, teamplay, relative coordination, very little going back to base since you cannot shop and base won't heal you. The mechanics are designed to promote fighting, dying is ok...shit even required in this mode to shop.
HoN: same thing, the 5v5 all mid map and rift wars, I love rift wars. HoN's 5v5 is similar to LoLs for the most part but again it's faster paced and more action. Rift wars is just awesome chaos, non-stop fighting, randomness of abilities means terribly shitty builds and terribly OP builds, chances to come back from almost anything. I understand the esports guys think this is lame mode for those that suck, and thats fine but apparently there are many of us because I never have a queue time to join any of these modes. People like them.
I have a real beef with this genre's desire to focus on the same shitty 5v5 map with minor variations. Shit even FPS games have like 50 levels and capture flag modes and shit. Where is my capture the flag moba? I think LoL made a dominion one where you need to hold points on the map for points but I never played it. Is it popular?
That being said this is a fun game but it is by no means revolutionary to me. I really want to see someone deviate from the fucking plan here with MOBAs. Why isn't your first map a 16vs16? Please someone take this genre into something new. Why not have a mode where 10 people defend a castle with 15 storm it but the castle has stronger defenses and you only have 15 minutes to break in? Where are the new and interesting ideas for this shit?
/rant off
