EPTI want to make a custom Dota 2 map. Granted there are a shit ton of issues with this idea right from the get go, but right now that doesn't matter. All that matters to me is that I get the base idea out there and down on 'paper.'
The game is an RTS style game. Ideally it will be a mash up between WC3 and Dota 2 in various ways (which we'll get to later) with it being about defending your ancient while revolving around heroes as the main units of your army.
The idea would be that it would be similar to a Dota map where you're trying to take towers to break into the enemy base and then destroy their ancient. As of this moment I like the idea of doing 3v3 as the standard mode, but that hasn't been set in stone as of yet. What I do know is that each team would have a base with a main ancient and then each player would have a smaller main building somewhere close to the ancient, but slightly behind it. The idea is to kill the ancient after all, not kill the enemy main bases.
To start the game you would select a hero. This part is tricky since I'm not sure if I would keep the Dota 2 heroes as they are and balance around them, or if I would modify them to be like the WC3 heroes. I kind of like the idea of using the Dota 2 heroes and working around their limitations, but I may edit them to be based off of the 10 level system instead of the 25 we have now. I think the best way to go about it would be have each player limited to one hero, but I could see an argument for allowing a second hero to be made.
At the start of the game you would have your workers, a few creeps, and your hero. The idea is that your workers go and collect gold/wood while your hero and small group of creeps go out and try to get XP as well as additional resources. The resources that are collected would allow you to upgrade your workers, your creeps (ranged/melee/seige), your buildings, or your hero. As of now I've got a few ideas for upgrades, but that would have to be worked out more. Also I'm not sure how I would handle food supply as I feel that is a pretty tricky concept. Maybe I could make it so that the player could upgrade their ancient for additional food or something... idk.
I don't like the idea of building things for this particular game. Not sure why, but I don't want to make this something that is about managing space as well as everything else. I think doing a lot of the basic RTS functions through an upgrade system is more ideal for this vision, but again it's something that I'd have to actually play around with before I really know what I want.
As a few final notes as I'm sort of running on empty right now.
1) You'd only have the ability to build melee ranged and siege creeps at base. You would have the ability to go out to the jungle and find mercenary camps that would allow you to hire neutral creeps to supplement your army (much like WC3).
2) I'm honestly not sure what to do with items. 80% of me wants to do nothing and see what happens, but I'm not sure how viable that is. Income would certainly have to be balanced around this, and I'm not sure if it would work at all if I capped heroes at level 10.
3) I do know that I don't want expanding in the game. Granted this means you have to get infinite resources from your base, but I think with a well thought out upgrade system I could replace expanding with various upgrades that would do a similar job without actually needing a second base.
Anyways, that's just a series of rough ideas I wanted to get down on paper for now. I doubt that anything will ever come of it, but I think it would be a fun little casual thing to work on. I don't think I could ever turn it into a reality as I have 0 coding experience, but sometimes an idea is nice to have.
Who knows though. Maybe eventually people will come up with tools to help even a serious pleb like me with it.
