Yes, and I've had a concept for a map like this for a few years now. I put it on hold for certain, personal reasons, and found out that you picked it up in the end. Coincidence or not, I knew it would come back eventually; now that it is back, I want to make sure it will be the best game it can be possible.
I'm glad you picked up well on the melee attacks; I tried to do this with triggers back in WC3, and was unsuccessful (I was so inexperienced back then).
Just tried it out on b.net, and I have to say the game is awesome. The production values are what most impress me and it's highly responsive with no noticeable lag, however it's definitely far from perfect.
First off, FIX THE HOTKEYS. There are too many skills to make them completely horizontal and the standard non-phonetic keys for skills are QWER or ZXCV, the former I find myself constantly pressing instead of ASDF. I would recommend placing the skills currently on ASDFG onto QWESD and enabling attack-move.
Secondly, it's nearly impossible to hit with certain abilities. I understand it's a highly skill-based game, but you have some characters like the ice and fire psionics that are very easy to play because of their heavy aoe and some like the sniper and DT that are nearly impossible because their attacks hit in such narrow lines and tiny arcs. I would recommend lowering movement speeds a bit, otherwise enlarge the hitboxes of both the attacks and the characters. The fact all skills need to be aimed is enough, the speed and precision required simply to get a hit with some characters is going to turn a lot of players off.
Thirdly, add a time limit to rounds. Many rounds end with one character running from the other three prolonging the fight as long as possible and trying to snipe off little bits of damage at a time. This is boring for EVERYONE but that person and stressful for the one. At the current pace I'd say 60 seconds would be just right. When the time is up, the team with the most health remaining as the sum of their percentages wins.
Finally, this is simply a suggestion and not a complaint or fix, but I think having fog of war (or the option for it) would greatly enhance the gameplay. The maps are big enough to justify it and it would add a lot of tactics. It would also be nice to be able to vote on what map we want to play. I noticed there was an industrial map but it only appeared about once every 5 games, completely at random.
Thirdly, add a time limit to rounds. Many rounds end with one character running from the other three prolonging the fight as long as possible and trying to snipe off little bits of damage at a time. This is boring for EVERYONE but that person and stressful for the one. At the current pace I'd say 60 seconds would be just right. When the time is up, the team with the most health remaining as the sum of their percentages wins.
Seems interesting, I'd love to test/play a few games on this map... Although as someone stated before me, I'm pretty sure you'll have issues because of the use of Blazblue content. Aksys is a trademark and Blazblue/GGXX are their games (they're not even abandonwares, so you technically can't share them for free)... The best way for you to use both sounds and musics from Blazblue would be to add a disclaimer or something like that at the beginning and/or end of a game. I'm pretty sure as soon as you give credits to their respective owners, you will avoid most copyright issues. Is your map available on BNet yet? Which server(s)?
Dex is the new OP sarina, two healy bots heals so much so fast.
Edit: pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssssseeeeeeeeeee add an option for "no support" mode :S
Its at the point where you HAVE to have a support on your team, which very much so limits team composition.
I'm also stickin with my Hawk is Bad vote. she's too situational to be based on skill, if no one is paying attention to you, you get the snare off and they happen to be one of the characters who cant remove snare and you happen to be far enough away to not get counter stunned by them and if it happens to have a proper beam registration from your casting point to the target point then you can deal some decent damage once.
perhaps kill them if you have fury, but most likely not.
Just tried it out on b.net, and I have to say the game is awesome. The production values are what most impress me and it's highly responsive with no noticeable lag, however it's definitely far from perfect.
First off, FIX THE HOTKEYS. There's too many skills to make them completely horizontal and the standard non-phonetic keys for skills that are QWER or ZXCV, the former I find myself constantly pressing instead of ASDF. I would recommend placing the skills currently on ASDFG onto QWESD and enabling attack-move.
Secondly, it's nearly impossible to hit with certain abilities. I understand it's a highly skill-based game, but you have some characters like the ice and fire psionics that are very easily to play because of their heavy aoe and some like the sniper and DT that are nearly impossible because their attacks hit in such narrow lines and tiny arcs. I would recommend slowing down the pace of the game a bit, otherwise enlarge the hitboxes of both the attacks and the characters. The fact all skills need to be aimed is enough, the speed and precision required simply to get a hit with some characters is going to turn a lot of players off.
Thirdly, add a time limit to rounds. Many rounds end with one character running from the other three prolonging the fight as long as possible and trying to snipe off little bits of damage at a time. This is boring for EVERYONE but that person and stressful for the one. At the current pace I'd say 60 seconds would be just right. When the time is up, the team with the most health remaining as the sum of their percentages wins.
Finally, this is simply a suggestion and not a complaint or fix, but I think having fog of war (or the option for it) would greatly enhance the gameplay. The maps are big enough to justify it and it would add a lot of tactics. It would also be nice to be able to vote on what map we want to play. I noticed there was an industrial map but it only appeared about once every 5 games, and the randomness should be an option, not forced.
+1 to all this, especially the 'some spells hard to cast' and 'speed is too high', like the game in general though.
Dex is the new OP sarina, two healy bots heals so much so fast.
If he's getting the full benefit of 2 nanomeds then he isn't moving very far. Take advantage of that.
Also, not gonna deny that hawk is hard to use. It took even me like 25 games of playing her nonstop to really get the hang of her, now I'm beasting the shit out of people with her. There is definitely differing learning curves to each hero.
The problem with hawk isn't just the difficulty curve, it's the little things, like not being able to shoot up hill properly, not knowing how long her range is (well I guess that ties into the difficulty curve as well cause once you use her enough you'll know those things) but still, I would appreciate one of those spell circles, or the ability to "shift right click" to quick order her illusions. Or even if it told me how the cd of her stealth worked so I'm not always raging on why it's never activating. (not being able to shoot up hill is my major gripe, especially in that metropolis map, followed by the shit poor hit registration. Although her ult seems to be enemy homing :O that thing will hit a guy as long as I'm pointed in their general direction, even if I clicked no where near them. also, there have been several times where I asked someone to stand perfectly still, selected them with my snipe, and had it not register a hit.)
I also believe that a lot of doodads get in the way of abilities, there was one time in the hades level, I believe right after revolver used his ult, and the remaining spell effects blocked all the skill shots. Like, there was now a crater there that wasnt there before and no one could shoot past it. I'm guessing perhaps there is a dummy unit or something that is being registered as a spell target? it was weird. I'll give more details if I can get it to happen again.
The point isnt that he isnt moving very far, it's that even when he stands perfectly still, gets ulted by rush while being dpsed by the frigid winter guy, he comes out with more hp then when he started. He's also a great counter to hawk considering his G removes her snare. I heard tell that you nerfed Sarina a little but left Dex alone, I strongly STRONGLY urge you to consider the possibility of him being OP at this time, play test him a lot and you might see what I mean.
Currently support characters are such a huge game changer, you can at least pretend it's balanced when there's no support on either team, but when one has a support and the other doesn't, it's already GG.
Sarina is more balanced than she was, but I still feel she's a little higher on the rig scale, perhaps make chained heals less? i.e. if she uses her D then follows it right after with her G, her G does 50% less healing than it normally would, like a little healing debuff that persists 2 seconds after casting?
If you give her the time to heal up that's your own fault, but if she tanks three ults and comes out perfectly healthy cause she quick heals with D, G, perhaps throw an F in there and it gets pretty annoying. Especially because she's moves at the same speed as everyone else so she can just kite till the CDs are done and do it again.
I cant help but think that some sort of "healing cap" would be good too, like each support has a "mana pool" of "healing energy" that only replenishes after each round. Basically like, sarina can only dish out 2000 health worth of heals in one round, anything after that pool grants something different instead. I only think of it cause I remember one round where we would unleash everything we had on them, they would run back and heal up during our cds, then we would do it over again, caught in a semi-endless stalemate. Just a thought.
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Zergling Blood : starcraft://map/1/35684
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Tacticraft : starcraft://map/1/223625
The hotkeys take a short while to get used to; though if you're playing many other games, and not smashcraft all day (like you should be doing :3), you could easily be mixed up often, reverting to the former games you've played.
NEVER make a game more easier than it should be. The fact that the a class/hero is so difficult to use is its selling point for many; people will try to master this hero, deem it as their own, and build a competitive connection to those with equally difficult heroes. On the other side of the spectrum, people will deem it pointless that their innate abilities don't match up to those around, while others will be crushed just as soon as they get the hand on things, causing them to /ragequit. Simply, a hero that takes a whole lot of skill to use, but causes massive amounts of damage, is badass; some will try, some will fail, and some will succeed. Making it easier for one portion of the players isn't going to satisfy the whole of the playerbase. It's very possible to make everyone happy, though it requires either a lot of intuition, or a lot of knowledge to create that effect. ;3
A time limit is a viable option; as earlier stated, 5 minutes would be perfect for matches with a kiting healer, Sarina vs. Sarina, or Ezzerat vs. Ezzerat . Having the outcome based on remaining health will take out many of the mechanics and connotative ties to what makes a fighting game enjoyable in the end.
Agreed about fog of war; It would definitely enhance gameplay and require more tactics to function. Randomness is a charm for players. Allowing them to choose will make them see how many maps there really are, increasing the need for more maps; there needs to be a sense of mystery, background, and certain aspects uncontrollable to stimulate the feel for the game. Allowing choice will have people wanting to choose what their abilities are as well ;3.
About Sarina. One way to balance her is to allow a healing cap; however, that would cause disappointment for many people who seek to rely on healing (pretty much a foot to the face). Another way is to have many more abilities that work in different ways that require you to time them accordingly, pulling off chain heals; this would be a bit too complex and would require a lot of planning, however. Another way to balance her is to adjust her current heals to be more based on skill, than on healing output.
Here's what I have in mind:
Channeled Healing: Channeling is a horrible burden, in general, but to a healer who has nothing else to do but heal, channeling isn't a burden at all. To fix this, you could either make using other abilities more worth it, or you could make the ability work only out-of-combat. Instead of a channeling heal, you could have it be a bandage-type spell that is only maintainable on one ally at a time (not self).
AoE Heal: Good, as long as there is a spell-cast time.
Emergency Self-heal: Most medics use this as a self-heal in general, even when there is no control effect on them at all. Allowing it to heal only when a buff is canceled would balance it a lot more.
Ultimate: Considering how each ability is, or is about to be, this ability pretty much is the most balanced ultimate for this hero.
The problem with hawk isn't just the difficulty curve, it's the little things, like not being able to shoot up hill properly, not knowing how long her range is (well I guess that ties into the difficulty curve as well cause once you use her enough you'll know those things) but still, I would appreciate one of those spell circles, or the ability to "shift right click" to quick order her illusions. Or even if it told me how the cd of her stealth worked so I'm not always raging on why it's never activating. (not being able to shoot up hill is my major gripe, especially in that metropolis map, followed by the shit poor hit registration. Although her ult seems to be enemy homing :O that thing will hit a guy as long as I'm pointed in their general direction, even if I clicked no where near them. also, there have been several times where I asked someone to stand perfectly still, selected them with my snipe, and had it not register a hit.)
Perhaps you might not understand the aiming system then. I should probably clarify this. If you draw a line from the barrel of your weapon in 3d space to the target unit, and it collides with terrain, it cannot hit them. This goes for ANY TERRAIN, ramps, walls, LOS objects. If you're shooting at the bottom of the ramp on Metropolis, and trying to hit a target in the middle of the high ground at the very top of the ramp (the starting area) you do NOT HAVE LINE OF SIGHT. No character can fire in that same arc. All the traceline based abilities in the game work exactly the same. So if Hawk can't hit it, Ace can't hit it, and Revolver cannot hit it either.
I also believe that a lot of doodads get in the way of abilities, there was one time in the hades level, I believe right after revolver used his ult, and the remaining spell effects blocked all the skill shots. Like, there was now a crater there that wasnt there before and no one could shoot past it. I'm guessing perhaps there is a dummy unit or something that is being registered as a spell target? it was weird. I'll give more details if I can get it to happen again.
Hawk is a very positional character, in fact, there is a very good reason the maps are so full of objects that block fire. Its to create that need for knowledge of the terrain and positioning requirements to hit with certain abilities. As said above by hihi, Hawk is definitely not a weak character, but she is potentially a higher learning curve to master than Ezzerat. I have only seen one other Hawk that's really "getting" the playstyle and dominating people with her pretty hard. Me included. In fact I'd almost ask if he had an aim bot he's so good at hitting shit with stealthed lethal shots. her obvious weakness being her reliance on stealth, immobile targets, and positioning, but because of her intense burst capability, i'm a bit worried about how her metagame will be when more people catch on to how to master her, just because of how strong her attacks are. But at the same time, she's pretty balanced in that without that burst, she would be truly useless as a hero.
The point isnt that he isnt moving very far, it's that even when he stands perfectly still, gets ulted by rush while being dpsed by the frigid winter guy, he comes out with more hp then when he started. He's also a great counter to hawk considering his G removes her snare. I heard tell that you nerfed Sarina a little but left Dex alone, I strongly STRONGLY urge you to consider the possibility of him being OP at this time, play test him a lot and you might see what I mean.
That's impossible. In any case, Dex doesn't have any burst heal, his ONLY heals are periodic, and requires a 5s cooldown that only lasts 10 seconds maximum, and his heal doesn't move. To bolster this I gave him a shield he can use on a semi-long cd. If you can't kill Dex with Rush & Alseir, thats really not that Dex is OP, thats you're doing something wrong. Alseir puts out WAY MORE dps than nanomeds can heal if he's constantly landing hits on him. Which, if he's slowed (as he should be if you land a glacial strike) he's toast. And if he isn't moving, that's even more questionable on your part. I play Dex pretty often and can definitely say he's tankier than Sarina, and has slightly higher dps capability because of how his shotgun works, but Sarina destroys Dex in the healing department, where Dex can tank better, but his heals are severely lacking in comparison.
Currently support characters are such a huge game changer, you can at least pretend it's balanced when there's no support on either team, but when one has a support and the other doesn't, it's already GG.
Its really not as big as you think. A 3 DPS team is fully capable of beating a 2 DPS team. Teh question is, are you keeping the pressure on constantly? Are you applying the RIGHT KIND of pressure? My friends and I ran a premade tonight, in fact. Our comp was Rush, Alseir, Ace, or Rush/Revolver/Alseir, and no team with Dex OR Sarina could hold their ground for very long. You put pressure on a target, and you switch targets constantly, forcing the healer to have to make critical decisions. You can't play defensively as a 3 DPS team. If one runs, and you spend all your time chasing, you're leaving yourself open to get dominated by how healers work in this game. If the healer runs? Fuck 'em, turn around and kill somethnig that's not near their healer now. Because the healer then has to either sacrifice healing themselves and risk losing a DPS teammate, or they have to put themselves in danger again. Positioning yourself to cut off the healer from the team and force them to fight on your grounds is how you win.
This is how WoW arena worked too. It felt like you HAD TO HAVE A HEALER to do arena, but this was far from the truth. And healing in WoW was much worse than this comes close to.
Sarina is more balanced than she was, but I still feel she's a little higher on the rig scale, perhaps make chained heals less? i.e. if she uses her D then follows it right after with her G, her G does 50% less healing than it normally would, like a little healing debuff that persists 2 seconds after casting?
She needs one way to "uh oh" heal, and her G is it. She has no survivability without emergency heals, but keep in mind these are on longer cooldowns, so you have to time your burst around them. Don't blow all your cooldowns when she has all of her emergency heals up and wonder why you get lol'd on.
If you give her the time to heal up that's your own fault, but if she tanks three ults and comes out perfectly healthy cause she quick heals with D, G, perhaps throw an F in there and it gets pretty annoying. Especially because she's moves at the same speed as everyone else so she can just kite till the CDs are done and do it again.
I dare you to tank through 3 ults with Sarina and live to tell about it.
That said, Sarina right now I think is barely mediocre after I gave her AOE a cast time. I'm still keeping an eye on the support side, and I have never really felt like the Support heroes were ever overwhelmingly strong. I usually start laughing when people run from Dex or Sarina in a 1v1 fight. If you're stuck in such a situation where you have to 1v1 either or, the worst thing you can do is give them any time where you aren't putting pressure on them. The moment you let up on them, is where you get dominated. And the players, skilled players who know this fact are who are going to make them seem OP.
Also with Dex, sure he can kite like a mofo, but he also has to sacrifice the ability to heal to do so, because of his immobile nanomed, and the fact he has to keep Magdrones up in order to kite, wich means he can't drop Nanomeds. ALL of his drones are on the same cooldown activator, so if he uses one drone, he can't use another for 5 sec. This means if you see him dropping turrets and magdrones, his nanomeds are on cooldown as well but there are no nanomeds healing him.
That being said, even doing premade in-house games with friends who play the game a lot, and know the ropes it still never feels like Sarina/Dex are that game breaking, it may or may not be the skill level of your teammates contributing to the fact you're having a hard time against a decent Support player. Skill really is the game breaker more than just the character alone.
okay ive played about over 50 games and hawk IS great, she is beast, but her risk is just way too high
someone gets close to you, you miss your shadowshot, your dead. especially with ezzeret or rush.
because they have right click attack. you pop illusions (but you stay in the same spot, and the illusions come BEHIND you, so they don't block, they don't confuse, they still know your in front of them, and its very hard to select illusions without stopping.). plus even when you illusions the same attack order is still queued. if nobody comes to help you, missing an important shot will be the end of you. i agree with echoed, a shift right click for her illusions would be useful, or even switching hawk around randomly.
one more thing about sarina:
i find that dex does a better support job. burst heavily counters her. in team fights its always 2 vs 3, and your healing beam cannot take that dps. your burst of life will make you lose valuable time and you will lose overall more hp.
however she is still the best 1v1er
even against rush and revolver, all i had to do is run around, heal myself, dodge, spam w and salvation everytime i got triple stunned. then i popped ult, when they were low i engaged. i think the bandage type spell is a good idea, to patch up a lone dps getting pounded on, for more utility.
though she is good when both teams are not fighting, where she has time for burst of life
@thebaron87: Go Simply, a hero that takes a whole lot of skill to use, but causes massive amounts of damage, is badass; some will try, some will fail, and some will succeed. Making it easier for one portion of the players isn't going to satisfy the whole of the playerbase. It's very possible to make everyone happy, though it requires either a lot of intuition, or a lot of knowledge to create that effect. ;3
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Having characters with incredibly different playstyles but also different levels of skill to play well is a great thing to have in a game. This leaves more dynamics and more options to the player. If someone really enjoys a specific character's style enough that they want to put the effort in to master them, it creates this subculture around the game. See for instance, Litchi or Carl in Blazblue. When you go up against either of them, you can't help but respect someone who put the time and effort in to master those characters. They are EXTREMELY hard to be good at, but they are extremely good characters when played well, and its always impressive to lower level players to see someone play a character they can't get a grasp on. This makes more challenging characters more rewarding for players who want to feel unique in their option choices, and also to make a bit more of a mysterious playstyle that much more awe-inspiring.
Its like any game you played, you see characters heralded as "weak" and "terrible" and then you see players dominating with them at high levels of competitive play. Like even in WoW...you never could disrespect a Hunter that was top 10 in his bracket...because Hunters (at least when I played in arena) were really REALLY hard to perform well with in high level arena play (Vengeful Gladiator #1 on Rampage BG in season 3 talking here for 3v3). You'll see a lot of people play the "easy" characters naturally because they're easier to pick up and easier to master.
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A time limit is a viable option; as earlier stated, 5 minutes would be perfect for matches with a kiting healer, Sarina vs. Sarina, or Ezzerat vs. Ezzerat . Having the outcome based on remaining health will take out many of the mechanics and connotative ties to what makes a fighting game enjoyable in the end.
Outcome based on remaining health though, there is no other way to really do it. This is, of course, assuming a round goes longer than 5 minutes. It really won't, most of the time. The addition of the First Aid ability for all heroes may change the metagame slightly.
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Agreed about fog of war; It would definitely enhance gameplay and require more tactics to function. Randomness is a charm for players. Allowing them to choose will make them see how many maps there really are, increasing the need for more maps; there needs to be a sense of mystery, background, and certain aspects uncontrollable to stimulate the feel for the game. Allowing choice will have people wanting to choose what their abilities are as well ;3.
Random factors are NOT good for a competitive game. Randomness shifts the metagame more to luck more than skill. The more random elements you add to a game, the less skill-based it becomes. I aim to completely avoid "random" at all costs when I design heroes. This includes the fog of war idea. Its not good, because you need to know what your opponents are doing, and see them on the map at all times, or it becomes too much of a guessing game and not enough of a predictive game.
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@EchoedRequiem: Go
About Sarina. One way to balance her is to allow a healing cap; however, that would cause disappointment for many people who seek to rely on healing (pretty much a foot to the face). Another way is to have many more abilities that work in different ways that require you to time them accordingly, pulling off chain heals; this would be a bit too complex and would require a lot of planning, however. Another way to balance her is to adjust her current heals to be more based on skill, than on healing output.
Which, the casted AOE heal is becoming. I noticed you really do have to sort of aim it (unless you're targetting yourself, obviously) to hit moving allies.
Channeling heal is fine too, since theres no ponit to make it aimed. Its a strategic decision and also just as positional, because allies can run out of range of it, and it also makes Sarina immobile, and an easy target. Decision making is just as much of a skill as aim, and I really aimed to make playing Support heroes more along the lines of decision-making skill than aiming skill, while keeping their overall healing power relatively "mediocre". Sarina does not have the capability to heal through direct constant damage on a target ally, the ally needs to assist her by avoiding getting hit, using CDs intelligently, blocking, mitigating some of the damage themselves to make her heals effective. This is what the Support archetype is based on. So in an element, for low skilled players healers will just destroy noobs. Its simple as that. In even skilled games, healers only soften the blow, and well timed bursts easily end a match before the healer can do anything about it. It comes down to who does "more".
Here's a better way of putting how I conceptualized the very concentric theme of every archetype:
Guardians: Almost support-like in that their abilities directly aid teammates. Rush's stun abilities keep pressure off their teammates by peeling, disabling, and being an overall nuisance to the enemy. Revolver's Sunder cuts teammates off from one another, and castling saves a teammate from death if used or timed properly. Neither Rush nor Revolver have very "high" DPS output relatively. They have mediocre DPS, but nothing that's considerably overpowering. Outside of their ULTS, they are not that dangerous other in the fact that they can cause you to be put into dangerous situations if their teammates are playing smart.
Assaults: Meant to do fast, high dps, with "okay" surviability. For instance, Ace's primary attack does pretty good sustained dps in comparison to Revolver or Rush. He will drop a target very quickly if you are good at aiming, and keep pressure on constantly. His range also gives him the ability to do this from a semi-safe distance. Ezzerat just rips his target apart, but he's also melee range, so if his target gets free and can move without much interruption, he's not doing much damage. He's also vulnerable to abilities that cut him off, such as Sunder or Psionic Grip. Because of this, his DPS output HAS to be high, because of the positional requirements to play him. He doesn't use ammo, either, so there's no need to reload ever.
Psions: Meant to do slow, bursty but extremely high burst damage. Alseir and Hawk are perfect examples. They both need to manage their energy but they can land burst combos that can decimate a target. The penalty for such abusive power is the fact that they drop like rocks to any focused attacks so positioning is always a requirement. Onyx is unique in that he's more mobile but his damage isn't up front. He can get a quick Lava Surge off, and run, and his damage comes over time. As a result, his burst is low, but he keeps pressure on by keeping DOTs rolling on several targets, making it hard to manage his damage.
Support: Meant to be more decisive and decision-based than aiming and predictive. I've specifically designed their abilities to coincide in this manner so that they have to constantly make good decisions, or be punished for it. Sarina can do some really solid healing, but if she's focused on, she has to focus on healing herself, and this means using 25 ammo for an AOE heal, using her escape ability to keep herself alive (she only breaks stuns, not roots or snares), and using her ult, which has been nerfed a bit. Once these are on cooldown though, her ONLY CHOICE LEFT is her AOE heal. Dex, on the other hand, has to decide between using his drones to control/pressure, or to heal. And the healing bot makes him immobile, if he is on the run, a nanomed will not get many ticks of heals off on him, maybe 3 or 4, tops. That's 66-88hp, at most. One of Onyx's DOTS does more DPS than his nanomeds do HPS on him even standing still. 2 Nanomeds will not heal through being constantly hit, but he also won't be dropping mags, which slow you so you can keep up with him if you keep him snared or controlled. His only heals are not that powerful, and to make them "okay" heals he needs to dedicate all of his drone cooldowns to Nanomed alone, which means he's not dropping Magdrones, which means you're free to keep pressure on him.
okay ive played about over 50 games and hawk IS great, she is beast, but her risk is just way too high someone gets close to you, you miss your shadowshot, your dead. especially with ezzeret or rush.
Then she is working exactly as intended! Psions are generally high risk high reward characters in general. If you make a critical mistake as Onyx or Alseir, you're just as dead as you are as Hawk.
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one more thing about sarina: i find that dex does a better support job. burst heavily counters her. in team fights its always 2 vs 3, and your healing beam cannot take that dps. your burst of life will make you lose valuable time and you will lose overall more hp. however she is still the best 1v1er even against rush and revolver, all i had to do is run around, heal myself, dodge, spam w and salvation everytime i got triple stunned. then i popped ult, when they were low i engaged. i think the bandage type spell is a good idea, to patch up a lone dps getting pounded on, for more utility. though she is good when both teams are not fighting, where she has time for burst of life
1v1 is a Support should be able to handle a Guardian, simply because guardian dps isn't that high. I can beat Sarina as Ace though, pretty nastily I would add. And I can take a Dex very easily with Ezzerat, just because if he stops to throw nanomeds down, I'm beating on him pretty hard because of his immobility. I think the fact that Supports are working as I intend them to be, is a fact :p
I can only imagine the trolling people will do with Aegis (Sentry hero)...
It is possible to set abilities to have multiple hotkeys.... This may be something you want to look into so you can support multiple button layouts.
Now for my opinion. For starters Ive played dota for over 5 years and I have now been playing league of legends for over 1.
Dota's hot keys were hard to learn because of the standard WC3 hot keys were all over the place. And every hero's abilities had different hotkeys depending on the Name/spelling of the abilities on the hero.
In League of Legends they have changed all that and set
the ability hotkeys to always be "Q W E R"
with specials as "F G"
and items as "1 2 3 4 5 6"
simple attack and movement commands use "A S D"
I favor this button layout greatly over the dota layout. Not sure what your currently using for hotkey layouts. Havent had a chance to play it yet. Been extremely busy myself.
Just seen people posting in this thread and some of the hot key layouts I have seen requested are pretty terrible IMHO
Sounds like this is getting quite a bit of play though, good to hear.
Fog of war is more of a stratagy thing in my book. But then again this is an arena type system where you rush into combat right away. FOW would just prolong the battle, but it might be something you want to look at in the future.
Personally Im a fan of FOW I like to be a ninja when I play MOBA's
The hotkeys should be pretty intuitive. They all line up as your main attacks: ASDFG
If you put your fingers on the home keys as though you were typing, they're right there, in perfect line. The secondary abilities, QWR are the same for every character and they're right near where your main keys are.
They really don't have an easy way to adapt hotkeys in the editor, so unfortunately its kind of an "adapt or GTFO" thing. I'm not changing the hotkeys, and I think they're a relatively silly thing to gripe about.
The hotkeys should be pretty intuitive. They all line up as your main attacks: ASDFG
The secondary abilities, QWR are the same for every character and they're right near where your main keys are.
Yeah those hotkeys dont really seem worth complaining about.... pretty standard for the most part.
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I really think you're corrupting your own opinion with the "I made the game so its far more *blank* than it truly is" this case balanced.
Even just running in circles as dex is kiting enough, kiting enough to dodge a lot of skill shots and get uber healed by two med kits.
I'm concerned that your opinion on your characters balance is more about your own knowledge of them, and their performance under your command against commonly lesser skilled opponents. the "I can rape face as someone you says sucks so therefore said person is good" argument.
It's like Evelynn in League of Legends when it first came out. Worst char in the game, yet the "Pros" continuously said she was so amazing untill Riot finally admitted she needed a huge reworking and did it.
Dex is currently OP, on the fence about Sarina. The thing about teams with supports being more likely to win is definitely true. Hawk's damage is fine, her hit registration needs to be fixed, or in your opinion "buffed" to actually be useful. She's also far too situational as is, playing her well is more about getting lucky than actually doing good.
I kind of agree with a change of hotkeys. My ult being F is my big gripe with them, as I constantly use G a lot more, I would appreciate not having to make that extra motion as often.
I think one of the hotkeys is Q as well. Just sits awkwardly there, I think those abilities would be better served as w, e, r, t.
The lesser used hotkeys should be the furthest away ones is all I'm sayin.
Oh, neat idea, with Hawks illusions, perhaps "alt" could control one illusion while "shift" could control the other, or any other button that works for ya. So you can still control them and such while controlling your main hero. where if you press Shift A her left illusion will A the target location instead of the actual hero.
Can anybody say "Exploding cars flying through the air"?
@Mephs: Go
Yes, and I've had a concept for a map like this for a few years now. I put it on hold for certain, personal reasons, and found out that you picked it up in the end. Coincidence or not, I knew it would come back eventually; now that it is back, I want to make sure it will be the best game it can be possible.
I'm glad you picked up well on the melee attacks; I tried to do this with triggers back in WC3, and was unsuccessful (I was so inexperienced back then).
Just tried it out on b.net, and I have to say the game is awesome. The production values are what most impress me and it's highly responsive with no noticeable lag, however it's definitely far from perfect.
First off, FIX THE HOTKEYS. There are too many skills to make them completely horizontal and the standard non-phonetic keys for skills are QWER or ZXCV, the former I find myself constantly pressing instead of ASDF. I would recommend placing the skills currently on ASDFG onto QWESD and enabling attack-move.
Secondly, it's nearly impossible to hit with certain abilities. I understand it's a highly skill-based game, but you have some characters like the ice and fire psionics that are very easy to play because of their heavy aoe and some like the sniper and DT that are nearly impossible because their attacks hit in such narrow lines and tiny arcs. I would recommend lowering movement speeds a bit, otherwise enlarge the hitboxes of both the attacks and the characters. The fact all skills need to be aimed is enough, the speed and precision required simply to get a hit with some characters is going to turn a lot of players off.
Thirdly, add a time limit to rounds. Many rounds end with one character running from the other three prolonging the fight as long as possible and trying to snipe off little bits of damage at a time. This is boring for EVERYONE but that person and stressful for the one. At the current pace I'd say 60 seconds would be just right. When the time is up, the team with the most health remaining as the sum of their percentages wins.
Finally, this is simply a suggestion and not a complaint or fix, but I think having fog of war (or the option for it) would greatly enhance the gameplay. The maps are big enough to justify it and it would add a lot of tactics. It would also be nice to be able to vote on what map we want to play. I noticed there was an industrial map but it only appeared about once every 5 games, completely at random.
This was just added in the latest update.
Map voting is coming soon.
Seems interesting, I'd love to test/play a few games on this map... Although as someone stated before me, I'm pretty sure you'll have issues because of the use of Blazblue content. Aksys is a trademark and Blazblue/GGXX are their games (they're not even abandonwares, so you technically can't share them for free)... The best way for you to use both sounds and musics from Blazblue would be to add a disclaimer or something like that at the beginning and/or end of a game. I'm pretty sure as soon as you give credits to their respective owners, you will avoid most copyright issues. Is your map available on BNet yet? Which server(s)?
@ZealNaga: Go
Once I get a loading screen done I'll put it in there, legal mumbojumbo and whatnot.
Its currently on US Battle.NET and available for play to the public with updates coming whenever I can.
Dex is the new OP sarina, two healy bots heals so much so fast.
Edit: pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssssseeeeeeeeeee add an option for "no support" mode :S
Its at the point where you HAVE to have a support on your team, which very much so limits team composition.
I'm also stickin with my Hawk is Bad vote. she's too situational to be based on skill, if no one is paying attention to you, you get the snare off and they happen to be one of the characters who cant remove snare and you happen to be far enough away to not get counter stunned by them and if it happens to have a proper beam registration from your casting point to the target point then you can deal some decent damage once.
perhaps kill them if you have fury, but most likely not.
+1 to all this, especially the 'some spells hard to cast' and 'speed is too high', like the game in general though.
If he's getting the full benefit of 2 nanomeds then he isn't moving very far. Take advantage of that.
Also, not gonna deny that hawk is hard to use. It took even me like 25 games of playing her nonstop to really get the hang of her, now I'm beasting the shit out of people with her. There is definitely differing learning curves to each hero.
@Mephs: Go
The problem with hawk isn't just the difficulty curve, it's the little things, like not being able to shoot up hill properly, not knowing how long her range is (well I guess that ties into the difficulty curve as well cause once you use her enough you'll know those things) but still, I would appreciate one of those spell circles, or the ability to "shift right click" to quick order her illusions. Or even if it told me how the cd of her stealth worked so I'm not always raging on why it's never activating. (not being able to shoot up hill is my major gripe, especially in that metropolis map, followed by the shit poor hit registration. Although her ult seems to be enemy homing :O that thing will hit a guy as long as I'm pointed in their general direction, even if I clicked no where near them. also, there have been several times where I asked someone to stand perfectly still, selected them with my snipe, and had it not register a hit.)
I also believe that a lot of doodads get in the way of abilities, there was one time in the hades level, I believe right after revolver used his ult, and the remaining spell effects blocked all the skill shots. Like, there was now a crater there that wasnt there before and no one could shoot past it. I'm guessing perhaps there is a dummy unit or something that is being registered as a spell target? it was weird. I'll give more details if I can get it to happen again.
The point isnt that he isnt moving very far, it's that even when he stands perfectly still, gets ulted by rush while being dpsed by the frigid winter guy, he comes out with more hp then when he started. He's also a great counter to hawk considering his G removes her snare. I heard tell that you nerfed Sarina a little but left Dex alone, I strongly STRONGLY urge you to consider the possibility of him being OP at this time, play test him a lot and you might see what I mean.
Currently support characters are such a huge game changer, you can at least pretend it's balanced when there's no support on either team, but when one has a support and the other doesn't, it's already GG.
Sarina is more balanced than she was, but I still feel she's a little higher on the rig scale, perhaps make chained heals less? i.e. if she uses her D then follows it right after with her G, her G does 50% less healing than it normally would, like a little healing debuff that persists 2 seconds after casting?
If you give her the time to heal up that's your own fault, but if she tanks three ults and comes out perfectly healthy cause she quick heals with D, G, perhaps throw an F in there and it gets pretty annoying. Especially because she's moves at the same speed as everyone else so she can just kite till the CDs are done and do it again.
I cant help but think that some sort of "healing cap" would be good too, like each support has a "mana pool" of "healing energy" that only replenishes after each round. Basically like, sarina can only dish out 2000 health worth of heals in one round, anything after that pool grants something different instead. I only think of it cause I remember one round where we would unleash everything we had on them, they would run back and heal up during our cds, then we would do it over again, caught in a semi-endless stalemate. Just a thought.
So what region is the map in?
I HATE when people just say "OH i published the map"
post it on EU and I will test it and give feedback
@thebaron87: Go
The hotkeys take a short while to get used to; though if you're playing many other games, and not smashcraft all day (like you should be doing :3), you could easily be mixed up often, reverting to the former games you've played.
NEVER make a game more easier than it should be. The fact that the a class/hero is so difficult to use is its selling point for many; people will try to master this hero, deem it as their own, and build a competitive connection to those with equally difficult heroes. On the other side of the spectrum, people will deem it pointless that their innate abilities don't match up to those around, while others will be crushed just as soon as they get the hand on things, causing them to /ragequit. Simply, a hero that takes a whole lot of skill to use, but causes massive amounts of damage, is badass; some will try, some will fail, and some will succeed. Making it easier for one portion of the players isn't going to satisfy the whole of the playerbase. It's very possible to make everyone happy, though it requires either a lot of intuition, or a lot of knowledge to create that effect. ;3
A time limit is a viable option; as earlier stated, 5 minutes would be perfect for matches with a kiting healer, Sarina vs. Sarina, or Ezzerat vs. Ezzerat . Having the outcome based on remaining health will take out many of the mechanics and connotative ties to what makes a fighting game enjoyable in the end.
Agreed about fog of war; It would definitely enhance gameplay and require more tactics to function. Randomness is a charm for players. Allowing them to choose will make them see how many maps there really are, increasing the need for more maps; there needs to be a sense of mystery, background, and certain aspects uncontrollable to stimulate the feel for the game. Allowing choice will have people wanting to choose what their abilities are as well ;3.
@EchoedRequiem: Go
About Sarina. One way to balance her is to allow a healing cap; however, that would cause disappointment for many people who seek to rely on healing (pretty much a foot to the face). Another way is to have many more abilities that work in different ways that require you to time them accordingly, pulling off chain heals; this would be a bit too complex and would require a lot of planning, however. Another way to balance her is to adjust her current heals to be more based on skill, than on healing output.
Here's what I have in mind:
Channeled Healing: Channeling is a horrible burden, in general, but to a healer who has nothing else to do but heal, channeling isn't a burden at all. To fix this, you could either make using other abilities more worth it, or you could make the ability work only out-of-combat. Instead of a channeling heal, you could have it be a bandage-type spell that is only maintainable on one ally at a time (not self).
AoE Heal: Good, as long as there is a spell-cast time.
Emergency Self-heal: Most medics use this as a self-heal in general, even when there is no control effect on them at all. Allowing it to heal only when a buff is canceled would balance it a lot more.
Ultimate: Considering how each ability is, or is about to be, this ability pretty much is the most balanced ultimate for this hero.
Perhaps you might not understand the aiming system then. I should probably clarify this. If you draw a line from the barrel of your weapon in 3d space to the target unit, and it collides with terrain, it cannot hit them. This goes for ANY TERRAIN, ramps, walls, LOS objects. If you're shooting at the bottom of the ramp on Metropolis, and trying to hit a target in the middle of the high ground at the very top of the ramp (the starting area) you do NOT HAVE LINE OF SIGHT. No character can fire in that same arc. All the traceline based abilities in the game work exactly the same. So if Hawk can't hit it, Ace can't hit it, and Revolver cannot hit it either.
Hawk is a very positional character, in fact, there is a very good reason the maps are so full of objects that block fire. Its to create that need for knowledge of the terrain and positioning requirements to hit with certain abilities. As said above by hihi, Hawk is definitely not a weak character, but she is potentially a higher learning curve to master than Ezzerat. I have only seen one other Hawk that's really "getting" the playstyle and dominating people with her pretty hard. Me included. In fact I'd almost ask if he had an aim bot he's so good at hitting shit with stealthed lethal shots. her obvious weakness being her reliance on stealth, immobile targets, and positioning, but because of her intense burst capability, i'm a bit worried about how her metagame will be when more people catch on to how to master her, just because of how strong her attacks are. But at the same time, she's pretty balanced in that without that burst, she would be truly useless as a hero.
That's impossible. In any case, Dex doesn't have any burst heal, his ONLY heals are periodic, and requires a 5s cooldown that only lasts 10 seconds maximum, and his heal doesn't move. To bolster this I gave him a shield he can use on a semi-long cd. If you can't kill Dex with Rush & Alseir, thats really not that Dex is OP, thats you're doing something wrong. Alseir puts out WAY MORE dps than nanomeds can heal if he's constantly landing hits on him. Which, if he's slowed (as he should be if you land a glacial strike) he's toast. And if he isn't moving, that's even more questionable on your part. I play Dex pretty often and can definitely say he's tankier than Sarina, and has slightly higher dps capability because of how his shotgun works, but Sarina destroys Dex in the healing department, where Dex can tank better, but his heals are severely lacking in comparison.
Its really not as big as you think. A 3 DPS team is fully capable of beating a 2 DPS team. Teh question is, are you keeping the pressure on constantly? Are you applying the RIGHT KIND of pressure? My friends and I ran a premade tonight, in fact. Our comp was Rush, Alseir, Ace, or Rush/Revolver/Alseir, and no team with Dex OR Sarina could hold their ground for very long. You put pressure on a target, and you switch targets constantly, forcing the healer to have to make critical decisions. You can't play defensively as a 3 DPS team. If one runs, and you spend all your time chasing, you're leaving yourself open to get dominated by how healers work in this game. If the healer runs? Fuck 'em, turn around and kill somethnig that's not near their healer now. Because the healer then has to either sacrifice healing themselves and risk losing a DPS teammate, or they have to put themselves in danger again. Positioning yourself to cut off the healer from the team and force them to fight on your grounds is how you win.
This is how WoW arena worked too. It felt like you HAD TO HAVE A HEALER to do arena, but this was far from the truth. And healing in WoW was much worse than this comes close to.
She needs one way to "uh oh" heal, and her G is it. She has no survivability without emergency heals, but keep in mind these are on longer cooldowns, so you have to time your burst around them. Don't blow all your cooldowns when she has all of her emergency heals up and wonder why you get lol'd on.
I dare you to tank through 3 ults with Sarina and live to tell about it.
That said, Sarina right now I think is barely mediocre after I gave her AOE a cast time. I'm still keeping an eye on the support side, and I have never really felt like the Support heroes were ever overwhelmingly strong. I usually start laughing when people run from Dex or Sarina in a 1v1 fight. If you're stuck in such a situation where you have to 1v1 either or, the worst thing you can do is give them any time where you aren't putting pressure on them. The moment you let up on them, is where you get dominated. And the players, skilled players who know this fact are who are going to make them seem OP.
Also with Dex, sure he can kite like a mofo, but he also has to sacrifice the ability to heal to do so, because of his immobile nanomed, and the fact he has to keep Magdrones up in order to kite, wich means he can't drop Nanomeds. ALL of his drones are on the same cooldown activator, so if he uses one drone, he can't use another for 5 sec. This means if you see him dropping turrets and magdrones, his nanomeds are on cooldown as well but there are no nanomeds healing him.
That being said, even doing premade in-house games with friends who play the game a lot, and know the ropes it still never feels like Sarina/Dex are that game breaking, it may or may not be the skill level of your teammates contributing to the fact you're having a hard time against a decent Support player. Skill really is the game breaker more than just the character alone.
okay ive played about over 50 games and hawk IS great, she is beast, but her risk is just way too high someone gets close to you, you miss your shadowshot, your dead. especially with ezzeret or rush. because they have right click attack. you pop illusions (but you stay in the same spot, and the illusions come BEHIND you, so they don't block, they don't confuse, they still know your in front of them, and its very hard to select illusions without stopping.). plus even when you illusions the same attack order is still queued. if nobody comes to help you, missing an important shot will be the end of you. i agree with echoed, a shift right click for her illusions would be useful, or even switching hawk around randomly.
one more thing about sarina: i find that dex does a better support job. burst heavily counters her. in team fights its always 2 vs 3, and your healing beam cannot take that dps. your burst of life will make you lose valuable time and you will lose overall more hp. however she is still the best 1v1er even against rush and revolver, all i had to do is run around, heal myself, dodge, spam w and salvation everytime i got triple stunned. then i popped ult, when they were low i engaged. i think the bandage type spell is a good idea, to patch up a lone dps getting pounded on, for more utility. though she is good when both teams are not fighting, where she has time for burst of life
Random factors are NOT good for a competitive game. Randomness shifts the metagame more to luck more than skill. The more random elements you add to a game, the less skill-based it becomes. I aim to completely avoid "random" at all costs when I design heroes. This includes the fog of war idea. Its not good, because you need to know what your opponents are doing, and see them on the map at all times, or it becomes too much of a guessing game and not enough of a predictive game.
Which, the casted AOE heal is becoming. I noticed you really do have to sort of aim it (unless you're targetting yourself, obviously) to hit moving allies.
Channeling heal is fine too, since theres no ponit to make it aimed. Its a strategic decision and also just as positional, because allies can run out of range of it, and it also makes Sarina immobile, and an easy target. Decision making is just as much of a skill as aim, and I really aimed to make playing Support heroes more along the lines of decision-making skill than aiming skill, while keeping their overall healing power relatively "mediocre". Sarina does not have the capability to heal through direct constant damage on a target ally, the ally needs to assist her by avoiding getting hit, using CDs intelligently, blocking, mitigating some of the damage themselves to make her heals effective. This is what the Support archetype is based on. So in an element, for low skilled players healers will just destroy noobs. Its simple as that. In even skilled games, healers only soften the blow, and well timed bursts easily end a match before the healer can do anything about it. It comes down to who does "more".
Here's a better way of putting how I conceptualized the very concentric theme of every archetype:
Guardians: Almost support-like in that their abilities directly aid teammates. Rush's stun abilities keep pressure off their teammates by peeling, disabling, and being an overall nuisance to the enemy. Revolver's Sunder cuts teammates off from one another, and castling saves a teammate from death if used or timed properly. Neither Rush nor Revolver have very "high" DPS output relatively. They have mediocre DPS, but nothing that's considerably overpowering. Outside of their ULTS, they are not that dangerous other in the fact that they can cause you to be put into dangerous situations if their teammates are playing smart.
Assaults: Meant to do fast, high dps, with "okay" surviability. For instance, Ace's primary attack does pretty good sustained dps in comparison to Revolver or Rush. He will drop a target very quickly if you are good at aiming, and keep pressure on constantly. His range also gives him the ability to do this from a semi-safe distance. Ezzerat just rips his target apart, but he's also melee range, so if his target gets free and can move without much interruption, he's not doing much damage. He's also vulnerable to abilities that cut him off, such as Sunder or Psionic Grip. Because of this, his DPS output HAS to be high, because of the positional requirements to play him. He doesn't use ammo, either, so there's no need to reload ever.
Psions: Meant to do slow, bursty but extremely high burst damage. Alseir and Hawk are perfect examples. They both need to manage their energy but they can land burst combos that can decimate a target. The penalty for such abusive power is the fact that they drop like rocks to any focused attacks so positioning is always a requirement. Onyx is unique in that he's more mobile but his damage isn't up front. He can get a quick Lava Surge off, and run, and his damage comes over time. As a result, his burst is low, but he keeps pressure on by keeping DOTs rolling on several targets, making it hard to manage his damage.
Support: Meant to be more decisive and decision-based than aiming and predictive. I've specifically designed their abilities to coincide in this manner so that they have to constantly make good decisions, or be punished for it. Sarina can do some really solid healing, but if she's focused on, she has to focus on healing herself, and this means using 25 ammo for an AOE heal, using her escape ability to keep herself alive (she only breaks stuns, not roots or snares), and using her ult, which has been nerfed a bit. Once these are on cooldown though, her ONLY CHOICE LEFT is her AOE heal. Dex, on the other hand, has to decide between using his drones to control/pressure, or to heal. And the healing bot makes him immobile, if he is on the run, a nanomed will not get many ticks of heals off on him, maybe 3 or 4, tops. That's 66-88hp, at most. One of Onyx's DOTS does more DPS than his nanomeds do HPS on him even standing still. 2 Nanomeds will not heal through being constantly hit, but he also won't be dropping mags, which slow you so you can keep up with him if you keep him snared or controlled. His only heals are not that powerful, and to make them "okay" heals he needs to dedicate all of his drone cooldowns to Nanomed alone, which means he's not dropping Magdrones, which means you're free to keep pressure on him.
Then she is working exactly as intended! Psions are generally high risk high reward characters in general. If you make a critical mistake as Onyx or Alseir, you're just as dead as you are as Hawk.
1v1 is a Support should be able to handle a Guardian, simply because guardian dps isn't that high. I can beat Sarina as Ace though, pretty nastily I would add. And I can take a Dex very easily with Ezzerat, just because if he stops to throw nanomeds down, I'm beating on him pretty hard because of his immobility. I think the fact that Supports are working as I intend them to be, is a fact :p
I can only imagine the trolling people will do with Aegis (Sentry hero)...
@Mephs: Go
Seeing alot of complaints about hot keys.
It is possible to set abilities to have multiple hotkeys.... This may be something you want to look into so you can support multiple button layouts.
Now for my opinion. For starters Ive played dota for over 5 years and I have now been playing league of legends for over 1.
Dota's hot keys were hard to learn because of the standard WC3 hot keys were all over the place. And every hero's abilities had different hotkeys depending on the Name/spelling of the abilities on the hero.
In League of Legends they have changed all that and set
I favor this button layout greatly over the dota layout. Not sure what your currently using for hotkey layouts. Havent had a chance to play it yet. Been extremely busy myself.
Just seen people posting in this thread and some of the hot key layouts I have seen requested are pretty terrible IMHO
Sounds like this is getting quite a bit of play though, good to hear.
Fog of war is more of a stratagy thing in my book. But then again this is an arena type system where you rush into combat right away. FOW would just prolong the battle, but it might be something you want to look at in the future.
Personally Im a fan of FOW I like to be a ninja when I play MOBA's
@SouLCarveRR: Go
The hotkeys should be pretty intuitive. They all line up as your main attacks: ASDFG
If you put your fingers on the home keys as though you were typing, they're right there, in perfect line. The secondary abilities, QWR are the same for every character and they're right near where your main keys are.
They really don't have an easy way to adapt hotkeys in the editor, so unfortunately its kind of an "adapt or GTFO" thing. I'm not changing the hotkeys, and I think they're a relatively silly thing to gripe about.
@Mephs: Go
Yeah those hotkeys dont really seem worth complaining about.... pretty standard for the most part.
I really think you're corrupting your own opinion with the "I made the game so its far more *blank* than it truly is" this case balanced.
Even just running in circles as dex is kiting enough, kiting enough to dodge a lot of skill shots and get uber healed by two med kits.
I'm concerned that your opinion on your characters balance is more about your own knowledge of them, and their performance under your command against commonly lesser skilled opponents. the "I can rape face as someone you says sucks so therefore said person is good" argument.
It's like Evelynn in League of Legends when it first came out. Worst char in the game, yet the "Pros" continuously said she was so amazing untill Riot finally admitted she needed a huge reworking and did it.
Dex is currently OP, on the fence about Sarina. The thing about teams with supports being more likely to win is definitely true. Hawk's damage is fine, her hit registration needs to be fixed, or in your opinion "buffed" to actually be useful. She's also far too situational as is, playing her well is more about getting lucky than actually doing good.
I kind of agree with a change of hotkeys. My ult being F is my big gripe with them, as I constantly use G a lot more, I would appreciate not having to make that extra motion as often. I think one of the hotkeys is Q as well. Just sits awkwardly there, I think those abilities would be better served as w, e, r, t.
The lesser used hotkeys should be the furthest away ones is all I'm sayin.
Oh, neat idea, with Hawks illusions, perhaps "alt" could control one illusion while "shift" could control the other, or any other button that works for ya. So you can still control them and such while controlling your main hero. where if you press Shift A her left illusion will A the target location instead of the actual hero.