Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey, is anyone here playing Strife? It is a new MobA from S2, the devellopers that brought us Savage, Savage2 and Heroes of Newerth. Which principally means that the game is available on Linux (Hurray!!!).
It is the first game from the studio that is not set within the Newerth world, as far as I know.
One of the main objective of the game, it seems, is to bypass anything that makes the MOBA community toxic. The result is that, for instance, if your teammate last hit a creep, both you and him get the gold. Similarly, killing an enemy hero or just assisting in the kill gets you the same reward. There is also no chat possible with the opposite team until the end of the match.
While still in beta, the game is imho quite nice and polished. There are still only a few champions to choose from (20), which is an advantage for a beginner like me.
It also has some easier to grasp item shop than most moba, I guess, because it works that way:
- There are a bunch of items called components. They are very, very straightforward: they boost one, and only one, characteristic. They can increase you max health, max mana, health regeneration, mana regeneration, power or attack speed. For each characteristic, there are two or three different level of components. For instance, if you want to increase your max health, you can buy a Health Shard for 450 gold, that will increase your health by 85, a Health Crystal for 1,215 gold that bring 230 Health, or a Health Relic for 2,010 gold that brings 380 Health.
- There are also recipes. A recipe will turn a certain list of components into an item that has all the combined properties of the component used, plus some extra properties that come from the recipe. For instance, if you own an Agility Stone (that gives 15 Attack Speed) and a Power Crystal ( that gives 16 Power), you can buy for 1150 gold a Frost Prism recipe that will use those two components, and create a Frost Prism that gives you 15 Attack Speed, 16 Power (because of the component used) and “+10 Attack Damage. Attacks apply 20% movement slow to target. Lasts 2.5 seconds.” The interesting part is that there is a crafting system out of games that allow you to change the component needed for a recipe. Suppose that you do not care for Power, but you really want that “attacks apply 20% movement slow to target” thing: you can create a custom version of the recipe where the components needed are giving you health instead.
- Finally, there are boots and consumable. You can own only one boot item at a time. The basic boots gives you +35 Movement Speed, and they can be upgrade into one of the 6 “advanced boots”, each having a different effects. The consumable include the obvious “Health elixir” and “Mana elixir” to regain health or mana outside of combat (they are not really necessary because if you do not attack or get attacked for a short duration, you also regain health and mana faster, but they can help sometime), and tomes. The tree types of tome will increase your health, mana or power respectively, and will not take any room in your inventory, so they are useful at the end of the game when your 6-item inventory is full. But buying a tome of one type will make subsequent buy of tomes of this type more expensive, so they cannot be spammed too much.

There are also a few more mechanisms like pets, but they do not make a huge difference imho.

The page for heroes, items and pets are here.


I am currently playing as Claudessa, a female knight that has a stump instead of her left hand, has the biggest armor in the whole cast (well, she do have boobplate, but the lest offending uniboob category), and uses a giant claw on a stick to hit people with.

If you want to try it and do not have a key yet, I have no beta keys to give away yet, but I registered for a key on the website last Friday and got my key on Monday, so it is quite fast!

I played and then stopped. I mainly play solo queue and it's unplayable right now. S2 purposefully (!) made matchmaking work terribly because they wanted to increase the amount of games played. This, however, leads to solo players at a higher MMR to be forced to play with against 3-5 men premades, resulting in terribly balanced matches that either end up being a stomp or an unwinnable match.

I really, really like the game. The pets add a cool level, shared lasthits is an awesome idea and overall, the game has a lot of very promising ideas that could really turn out to work. Pets make a giant difference btw

I mainly played Bo and Claudessa.

I do hope that S2 decides to fix the matchmaking someday and will gladly return, because the game is pretty darn good so far, S2's policy, however, takes all fun out of it.

And yeah, I really like the fact that the game has female protagonists that aren't blatant "LOLOL I HAVE BIG BOOBZ BUY MY NEW SKIN WITH MORE BOOBS" whores as in LoL.

I see a possible, though I agree quite restrictive, solution to your problem. Get a team, you will be facing 3-5 players premade teams with your own 3-5 players team!

Pets maybe make a big difference (mostly at higher levels, when you are level one they barely add one ability with a huge cooldown…), but the mechanic itself does not add much to the game from what I have seen. It is just one bonus you choose at the beginning of the match, and then you can completely forget it except for the activated ability when playing. Seems like those runes things from LoL, but with way less customization.


LoL female characters are tame compared to Smite. Seriously, in that game, you are greeted with a tutorial playing that :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGLmjBGuJc
Yeah. It is that bad. The only female character that I find bearable in this game is Artemis. It is too bad, because the game is quite nice… but even with Wine, I could not make it work on Linux anyway.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I see a possible, though I agree quite restrictive, solution to your problem. Get a team, you will be facing 3-5 players premade teams with your own 3-5 players team!

Pets maybe make a big difference (mostly at higher levels, when you are level one they barely add one ability with a huge cooldown…), but the mechanic itself does not add much to the game from what I have seen. It is just one bonus you choose at the beginning of the match, and then you can completely forget it except for the activated ability when playing. Seems like those runes things from LoL, but with way less customization.


LoL female characters are tame compared to Smite. Seriously, in that game, you are greeted with a tutorial playing that :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGLmjBGuJc
Yeah. It is that bad. The only female character that I find bearable in this game is Artemis. It is too bad, because the game is quite nice… but even with Wine, I could not make it work on Linux anyway.

On the subject of Smite gods.....
You do know that Neith goes topless in ancient Egyptian mythology, correct? That Aphrodite is butt nekid in almost every painting of her? That Freya was pretty much Norse Aphrodite, keeping plenty of the warriors "Entertained" during their stay (Her Passive, or at least the necklace that it is based off of, she got from sleeping with four dwarves four different nights, one immediately after the other). Bastet, the Egyptian Cat Goddess, was also the Goddess of "Female Pleasure"?

Also, be sure to look at Nemesis, Greek Goddess of Vengeance, Chang'e, Chinese Goddess of the Moon, and Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, all of whom are fully clothed (As their mythology states.)




As for Strife.... It was ok, but it didn't feel like anything too special. It was honestly kind of frustrating trying to get a kill when they could back off and in five seconds have full health/mana again. Krotas was pretty cool, and everyone having a courier was nice, but as far as pushing the genre forward, I think Dawngate does a better job.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I see a possible, though I agree quite restrictive, solution to your problem. Get a team, you will be facing 3-5 players premade teams with your own 3-5 players team!

That's not a solution to poor queues ;D

Pets maybe make a big difference (mostly at higher levels, when you are level one they barely add one ability with a huge cooldown…), but the mechanic itself does not add much to the game from what I have seen. It is just one bonus you choose at the beginning of the match, and then you can completely forget it except for the activated ability when playing. Seems like those runes things from LoL, but with way less customization.

 Slarg232 wrote:
You do know that Neith goes topless in ancient Egyptian mythology, correct?

That would be a good justification for her, you know, going topless. That is NOT a good justification for her wearing freaking high heels. Or her shooting a kiss at the camera for her teleport animation. Or really any of the ridiculous sexualization going on.
Honestly, I would be rather happy to see her topless but not sexualized in such a way.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Also, be sure to look at Nemesis, Greek Goddess of Vengeance, Chang'e, Chinese Goddess of the Moon, and Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, all of whom are fully clothed (As their mythology states.)

How the hell is bared midriff, pantyhose, a belt, a thong and a loincloth “fully clothed”? Or evoking Greece, for that matter?
And it is not only the clothing, the whole animation is hyper-sexualized. I dare you to try to move your ass that much when running.
For those not familiar with this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYvPMA6tGbc

But yeah, let us use actual mythology as an excuse, even when this game with hindu, egyptian and mayan gods have tons of blue skins but no actual dark skins, and for some reason chinese gods do not get Asian eyes for some reason. Where is Kali's tongue, for instance? She is basically sticking it out on about any traditional representation, but not anywhere in the game. Why is she not looking like an angry, ugly hag (and yes, a topless one), and more like a supermodel? Why doe she not carry any severed head?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:
You do know that Neith goes topless in ancient Egyptian mythology, correct?

That would be a good justification for her, you know, going topless. That is NOT a good justification for her wearing freaking high heels. Or her shooting a kiss at the camera for her teleport animation. Or really any of the ridiculous sexualization going on.
Honestly, I would be rather happy to see her topless but not sexualized in such a way.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Also, be sure to look at Nemesis, Greek Goddess of Vengeance, Chang'e, Chinese Goddess of the Moon, and Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, all of whom are fully clothed (As their mythology states.)

How the hell is bared midriff, pantyhose, a belt, a thong and a loincloth “fully clothed”? Or evoking Greece, for that matter?
And it is not only the clothing, the whole animation is hyper-sexualized. I dare you to try to move your ass that much when running.
For those not familiar with this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYvPMA6tGbc

But yeah, let us use actual mythology as an excuse, even when this game with hindu, egyptian and mayan gods have tons of blue skins but no actual dark skins, and for some reason chinese gods do not get Asian eyes for some reason. Where is Kali's tongue, for instance? She is basically sticking it out on about any traditional representation, but not anywhere in the game. Why is she not looking like an angry, ugly hag (and yes, a topless one), and more like a supermodel? Why doe she not carry any severed head?

Clearly the Mayan/Egyptian Gods aren't dark skinned (Both Chaac and Xbalanque are OP mother lovers, btw....) and Chang'e doesn't look like someone you would see on Final Fantasy at all.

Also, some of the Females:

 Slarg232 wrote:

You know what? I know this video. And it is full of stupidity. I basically already addressed everything.

The game is NOT representing the gods in way that are fair to their traditional representation. Just look at all the traditional representation of Kali that guy is showing, for instance. Notice what they all have in common? Kali is depicted as having a collar of severed head, a belt of severed limbs, and is sticking her tongue out. Also, she never looks like a supermodel. In the game, even before the redesign, she has no collar of severed head, no belt of severed limbs, is not sticking her tongue out, but looks like a supermodel. How surprising!

The original depiction of most of those gods are NOT sexualized. In the case of Neith, for instance, this guys base his argumentation in the fact that topless female character means sexualized female character. It is false (warning: this the trailer of a movie destined to small children, and involves drawing of naked female breasts). And then, where was Nemesis depicted in a sexualized way, ever? What is the background for her being sexy? And let us not gloss over the fact that this guy disingenuously associate Kali with sexuality. Uh? I guess that was the one things that was not going with the other, because it is the one he made up or something. Or maybe it is just his bias that every goddess ever is about sex?

Yeah, Aphrodite being sexualized is a no-brainer. The rest of the crew should not, at least not all of them…
I mean, just compare the body types of all the gods, and of all the goddess. Does Apolo look like Hercules with different clothes? Not really… Female gods have basically all the same body build, except of course Scylla because she is a young girl. You do not get a very fat one like Bacchus or Kumbhakarna, you do not get a very buff one like Hercules, or a lean one like Apollo, or a weird one like Ah Muzen Cab, …
Kali, for instance, was a perfect occasion to propose something different. But no, let us keep the same body shape for everyone, because we want them as uniform supermodels…


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Slarg232 wrote:
Also, some of the Females:

Spoiler:

You're still wrong.

Also, can you please show me the Fat Chick in League? How about the overly muscular one? What about Weird?

Because all of the League females look like this:



Even Vi, the Boxer/Criminal turned Police Chick, is a Size 0.

Stop calling the Kettle Black, Mr. Pot.

LoL is heavily aimed at the Asian market and nothing sells there as well as blatantly whorish females.

 Slarg232 wrote:
You're still wrong.

Speak louder, I cannot hear you!

But really, when your examples of dark-skinned girls include the Norse godess over the Egyptian ones, that is pretty telling, no?

 Slarg232 wrote:
Also, can you please show me the Fat Chick in League? How about the overly muscular one? What about Weird?

Oh, I see you misunderstood my statement as “League of Legend is the nirvana of positive and equal representation for female characters, while Smite is an horrible mess of sexualized horrors”, when really, it was “League of Legend is an horrible mess of sexualized horrors but somehow Smite manage to be even worse”. Actually, after checking, I guess the RTS view over the third person view helps LoL a lot. But really, those animations from Smite…


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After checking LoL champions for fun, well, there are the three female Yordle:



(That last one is pretty cool!)
and then there is Jinx, which body you would not confuse with any other female character because…

Can you spot the difference ?
Also, this just an alternate skin, but OMFG KHADOR NEED A WARCASTER LIKE THAT I WILL START KHADOR IF THEY DO!!!


(I am not listing the bad examples because that would mean basically all of them, but if you are frustrated by that, just help yourself. Also this.)

and for some reason chinese gods do not get Asian eyes for some reason.

Do you see this look? This is what the Chinese players and Chinese Company Tencent asked for, oddly enough the Chinese Gods are being redesigned as asked by their player base.

Looks even more like Aphrodite now.

I have a question.

What's wrong with over sexualized female gods?

They are gods, female gods in general have always been symbols of sexuality, fertility and the like. Them being cast in our current societies version of that shouldn't be a problem.

Besides, I don't hear you complaining about how all men in videogames are buff stereotypical machomen.

 Soladrin wrote:
I have a question.

What's wrong with over sexualized female gods?

They are gods, female gods in general have always been symbols of sexuality, fertility and the like. Them being cast in our current societies version of that shouldn't be a problem.

Besides, I don't hear you complaining about how all men in videogames are buff stereotypical machomen.

Pretty much

I think we might be best served if we return back to the original topic and the ongoing argument about the above can be taken to Pms etc.

Thank you.

This game looks way to much like league...

I'll just stick with DOTA 2.

I made a thread about Smite goddess here.

Really disliking the art style on this one.

I dunno. Having just gotten into LOL, I can't see myself migrating to a start-up with far fewer players.

Now in open beta!
My referral (i.e. if you create your account following this link, and actually play the game, I will get bonus currency):
https://strife.com/create?raf=4377JS4O

Going to check back in.

Hopefully it's nowhere near as awful as HoN.

The matchmaking is an utter piece of trash.

Revisited, matchups so far:

>> 5 men
>> 5 men
>> 3 men + 2 men
>> 3 men
>> 5 men

It's just sad. The game has potential, but S2 keeps being lazy.

/e: Uninstalled. S2 is a bunch of lazies.

 Melissia wrote:
Hopefully it's nowhere near as awful as HoN.

Are you going to try it out? With my referral ?

Not likely, no. I barely play LoL as it is, usually my account sits there gathering dust since I'm not a huge fan of the MOBA style.

Oh :(.
If you change you mind and want to give it a try, and if you would like to play with me, my username there is Oxayotl.

Some cool thing about the game is that they started a small solo campaign that explain the lore about the game. The first episode is out and I think it is a pretty damn good one.

I had to look up what MOBA is. I'm bothered that "DOTA/League of Legends" has become a genre.

It has been the case for a while now. With a bunch of stand-alone titles based on the original Warcraft III map. Even Blizzard is making one.

Ugh. It's like the Big Bang Theory of gaming.

I do not understand what you mean.