10 things you need to know about Strife

We recently gave you our first impressions of Strife, S2’s premier second generation free-to-play MOBA. And now that the S2 team has come to the Philippines as part of their Southeast Asian tour, we’re bringing you more detailed information about Strife’s in-game mechanics, so you can be ready to jump right in when it enters beta in the fourth quarter of 2013.

1. The Karma system

Strife addresses trash talking and flaming with the Karma system. The Karma system lets players upvote or downvote their teammates at the end of the game. The more consecutive downvotes a player accumulates, the faster he moves up the ladder of penalties. On the first punishable offense, a player gets fewer post-game rewards. If he still continues being toxic, he does not get any rewards. To add insult to injury, he is also muted. If the player still manages to annoy people after being muted, the kicks and bans come into play.

While I’m quite impressed with the Karma system, I’m still not sure how that will work out in practice, since some people will just downvote you for playing poorly, not playing according to their tactics or because you’re actually a better player than the flamer.

2. You don’t have to steal last hits anymore

In other MOBA games, the one who deals the killing blow (better known as the ‘last hit’) gets the gold for the kill. That is why the last hit is often left for core heroes whenever possible, leaving the support heroes to find a way to farm for themselves. Less experienced supports will have a difficult time finding a viable source of income, and may end up being a liability because they are underleveled and underfarmed.

In Strife , both you and your teammate get the same amount of gold when either of you get a last hit, granting that you are within the range of the kill. This works with both creeps and heroes. This way, supports won’t have a difficult time farming for gold, and can focus on playing the support role better without being a liability. The toxicity within the team is also reduced since teammates no longer have to struggle or compete for resources.

3. A different warding system

Strife’s unique warding system introduces watch towers

Strife has a different concept of warding. While it does not totally utilize the fog of war concept where heroes can hide in bushes, players still don’t have complete vision over the map. In most current-gen MOBA games, this is solved by planting wards in strategic locations to give the team much-needed vision of where the enemy is.

In Strife, supports no longer have to plant wards. Instead, they activate watch towers, which give the entire team good vision over a certain area over a certain amount of time.

4. Smaller maps, more ganks

Strife screen cap from spectator video