Well, Strife has christened itself
"The MOBA for people scared of MOBAs".
Does it really measure up to those standards?
I played a game with my best friend a couple days ago. I'll tell you a little about my friend first. He's classically horrible at these kinds of games. He does not like confrontation or heavily competitive environments. He also isn't the kind of person to put thousands of hours into a competitive game, but would be more likely to do so with a single player TBS or RPG. What will typically happen when I talk him into playing one of these kinds of games, which has happened many times in our 10+ year friendship, is that he will become angry, frustrated, and there have ever been times where he's basically thrown the keyboard across the room because he gets so tired of dealing with the stress and environment of this genre.
Some things I've noticed that bother him the most.
1. The critical nature of the game, he doesn't like being criticized. He handles it very badly.
2. He is often horribly under leveled because he has no concept of sustainability or map positioning, which means he's often missing important opportunities for experience.
3. He can't last hit very well.
4. He doesn't stick with the game long enough to know all the heroes, their abilities, and what they do, so he gets frustrated when someone kills him and he has no idea why.
5. He hates going back to town over and over after being badly harassed or ganked often by the enemy team.
6. He doesn't like/understand the support role which is often relegated to him because of his lack of experience with the game. He doesn't like or understand how to place wards effectively etc.
Did Strife address any of these things? Rather well actually.
1. Talking to the other team is impossible until the game ends, so no trash talk from that angle. In addition, your own team can't see each individual member's deaths (or even kills), so it's much more difficult to say nasty things or blame a specific person for the loss.
2. Since, with the personal courier system and the out-of-combat regen mechanic, one never has to go back to town, there was little opportunity to miss experience.
3. Last hits weren't a problem, I did all of that for him.
4. The Strife team has kept the heroes low, around 15-20, and they don't plan on increasing it that much over time. In addition, the heroes themselves seem pretty simple and easy to understand. Compare this to basically every other MOBA where 50 heroes is the least you'll see, and over 100 is normal, with new ones coming weekly.
5. See point 2.
6. Wards don't exist and there's no need for the classical support because "hard roles" have been removed from the game.
Even Smite doesn't address most of these issues. Just got done playing the second game with my friend of Smite and now he's underleveled, underfarmed, and fuming again (we have no chance). So despite the perceived similarity between Strife and some of the other MOBAs, the differences it does have are actually extremely meaningful where it counts.
