Stephen Hopkins

Dota 2 Steam Workshop Mod

About the Mod / Custom Map

This is a mod of the multiplayer real time strategy game, Dota 2, developed by Valve Software. I created this mod to help practice last hitting under a tower in Dota 2.

About Dota 2

In Dota 2, you need to land the killing blow on creeps (enemy soldier/footman-like units) in order to get gold. This gold is used to buy items for your hero to make him/her more powerful. My mod recreates different last hitting scenarios for practice. It is a very important skill to have, distinguishing experienced from average players.

Video of how the mod map plays:

Screenshot

How I Made It

Following some guides and examples, I made a simple map containing a tower and a lane where waves of allies / enemies will spawn. After learning a little bit of lua, I then used my Dota 2 knowledge to procedurally generate different scenarios of last hitting situations under the tower. The logic of creep spawning the mod is controlled by a finite state machine. Each time a wave is spawned, I vary the relative position of the creeps in the lane, the creeps position relative to each other, the number of creeps, the current health of each creep, and also the general 'type' of the creep wave. Everything combined gives you an accurate representation of last hitting under the tower and also a lot of replayability so that you simply aren't recognizing one pattern for last hitting.

The mod was originally created with unofficial tools created by the modding community. After Valve released the Dota 2 workshop tools, I ported my code and added many new features.