[Defense / Survival] RTS/TD map idea

[SnowYell]

Picture a mixup of castle defense/legion TD/Custom Hero Survival.

Main idea:
You make an army of units (kinda like in Legion TD), which you may alter by various sorts of upgrades (like in Custom Hero Survival). Every round you restore your army to full strength and count to defend the castle from enemy undead/demon waves, which increase in difficultly and rewards with gold and lumber for upgrades every round.
You create an army and alter it according to your playstyle and cooperate with allied players to arrange a strategy to defend the castle together.

Each player has 4 major army types based on the Warlord leading them to choose from:

• Warrior: Frontline melee, tanky, durable or dps
• Paladin: Frontline melee/close ranged, support/heal, debuff enemies
• Mage: Mid ranged, AoE damage
• Ranger: Long ranged, AoE/single target damage

Upgrades:
Players may either spend gold on Common Upgrades that affects ALL players units or on Specialized Upgrades, which only affects the specific player and are determined by the army type. Every upgrade may be upgraded multiple times and will enhance even further every 5th upgrade.

Common Upgrades:

• Attack Damage
• Attack Speed
• Armor
• Life
• Mana
• Life regeneration
• Mana regeneration
• CDR
• Quantity (number of units)

Specialized Upgrades:
Warrior

• Critical Strike
• Bash
• Evasion
• Block
• Cleave
• Pulverize

Paladin

• Curse
• Heal
• Inner Fire
• Slow
• Bloodlust
• Spirit Link
• Resurrection

Mage

• Incinerate
• Summon Skeletons
• Chain Lightning
• Fireball
• Breath of Fire
• Water Elemental

Ranger

• Barrage
• Range
• Envenomed Arrows
• Searing Arrows

The idea is to stray away from a single Hero concept and rely on a small army you may still control and coordinate with your allied players to defend together. There will be plenty more upgrades to really make your units unique.

My main issue:
How would I make a system, which would not require the player to spend time casting Fireball for every mage unit, but instead do some kind of autocast proc chance on attack or something?
Any other thoughts and feedback ideas are welcome as well.

 

[Uncle]

Regarding your main issue, it's not that difficult to trigger spell usage. In this thread I showcase a system for basic caster AI:

Default AI's skilll usage data?

Hi, are there any data for the default AI's skill usage? Ex1. AI uses 'Silence' based skill immediately when a unit with ability comes in their sight; but not when the unit entering is a Hero. Ex2. AI uses 'Mana Shield' based skill when their HP falls very low. If their HP is not very low, even...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Regarding feedback, the map doesn't sound too original, I think it's missing some unique twist that would draw people in. What that is, I don't know, that's the challenging part

 

[SnowYell]

Regarding your main issue, it's not that difficult to trigger spell usage. In this thread I showcase a system for basic caster AI:

Default AI's skilll usage data?

Hi, are there any data for the default AI's skill usage? Ex1. AI uses 'Silence' based skill immediately when a unit with ability comes in their sight; but not when the unit entering is a Hero. Ex2. AI uses 'Mana Shield' based skill when their HP falls very low. If their HP is not very low, even...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Regarding feedback, the map doesn't sound too original, I think it's missing some unique twist that would draw people in. What that is, I don't know, that's the challenging part

I will try have a look at your map you attached to the other thread.

Of cause I understand, it's not very original, I took all my favourite games and combined them. But I don't quite seek to do something original, just something fun for friends.

It's more the feeling of controlling multiple units in a castle defense map, where you may alter them in multiple ways without having a map filled to the brim with laggy units like the old Lord of the Rings castle defend maps.