I was going to post this yesterday, but my internet didn't want to work. So here is my idea for a map for League of Legends. It is a three team map with three champions per team. Feedback is welcome.
Map Design by Signal Warden
Originally developed during the Trinary Wars when the forces of Demacia, Noxus and rebellious guerrilla warriors named the Nim fought for control of a small island off the main continent. Demacia and Noxus fought each other to a stand still while the Nim struck crushing blows against either side. Eventually the Nim began to weaken as their flow of recruits sank into a slow trickle. In one last fight the Nim met the forces of Damacia and Noxus head on in brutal combat. As the forces fought the leaders of each force moved toward the front lines hoping to strike down their enemies once and for all. As the battle raged these leaders called upon their most devastating of spells and attack their enemies. The amount of mana unleashed by the powerful champions was shocking. The air glimmered with magical energy, the sounds of battle were drowned in the humming and whistling of the deadly projectiles the champions of Damacia, Noxus and the Nim had cast. As the spells impacted the mana hanging in the air was released in a devastating explosion. Slowly a large crack spread across the island. Then, seconds later, another and another. The three cracks met in the center of the island splitting it into three shards. Then, slowly at first but speeding up as gravity took hold, the island began to sink into the depths of the ocean. Only a few lucky survivors remained to tell the tale of that fateful battle and the Nim have not been heard from for a hundred years.
This battlefield attempts to duplicate the deadly battles fought between the champions of each of the factions and replicate the devastating last battle of the Trinary Wars.
Each team contains a group of three champions. With three lanes to cover, teams are left without a jungler. Additional ganking leaves lanes open providing an easy push to the enemies tower, or, in late game, past it.
The outer edges are basic team on team combat with a river perpendicular to the lane bisecting it. The outer lanes are simple 1v1 combat similar to that of the bottom lane of Twisted Treeline. The edge lanes are protected on one side by the map border. On the other side however a lethal combination of brush and twisting jungle paths provide plenty of areas for jukes and ambushes.
The rivers are deadly open areas that provide highways from lane to lane. However, their open area makes them deadly places for ambush and they should be used with caution. A ward on your bases neighboring two rivers could provide the opportunity for a multitude of ganks early to mid game.
Due to the maps unique design a single powerful ward would make the map unbalanced. Instead two buffs inhabit all three jungle triangles (Buffs have not been decided yet). Additional lesser jungle creatures have been added to the jungle to allow a jungler should you choose to employ one.
The middle lane is the most susceptible to a gank and the most unique component of the map. Two lines of creep are sent down the mid lane. At the center point the two waves split and move down their seperate paths, one wave toward either enemy camp. This additional army of minions causes the center lane to be the lane for all carry champions due to the increased experience gain. However, a weak or squishy carry will be torn to pieces in the deadly center of the map. A champion that pushes too far down a path may find that their enemy has pushed behind them as well. This effectively flanks the pushing champion and a deadly two team gank can be executed. Alternatively an enemy may use two opponents battles near a tower to push and destroy the pushing opponents tower. A creative and deceptive strategy can swing the tide in the middle lane.
Each lane has two towers before the inhibitor. Guarding the nexus two additional towers stand giving protection to the nexus. Both towers in the lane must be destroyed for a player to advance to the inhibitor. Destroying an inhibitor opens the two inner towers for attack and destroying both of these makes an attack on the Nexus possible.
When an enemy is defeated the creep that would attack the destroyed Nexus continue to spawn. They move as they normally would along the same line. However, when they reach the destroyed Nexus the minions would turn to attack the remaining enemy nexus. Additional towers remaining alive when a nexus is destroyed explode immediately. No gold rewards are given for towers that explode this way. Destroying a Nexus however, provides a significant bonus amount of gold. The enemies spawn guard tower is also destroyed. The shop will either disappear or be open to both remaining teams allowing either team to resupply (but NOT heal) when they are near the shop. When a team loses they may either remain as observers or exit and start a new game. IP rewards based on game time are based on the time that your team remained alive so the first team eliminated will receive less IP then the remaining two teams.
Map Strategies:
Obviously since the map is not made yet and will likely not be made for some time (if ever) these strategies are simple hypothesis. The strategies listed below may or may not work in the actual map.
- River Gank. Requiring some planning a gank in a river is not as hard to pull off as you might suspect. A ward placed in the center of the river can show the movements of an enemy in the river. The two champions can use this to close from either side and easily ambush the lone champion. This requires some amount of stealth so neither champion in the mid and edge of the champion performing the gank knows or has time to call an MIA.
- Flank Attack. When an enemy is fighting a losing battle help them out by marching your army of minions down onto the backs of their minions and onto the champions himself. If executed properly a two champion gank can result with the ganked champion left with no choice but to flee into the jungle.
- Joint Attack. A powerful two team attack against the weaker enemy. This can be used to turn the battle into a more generic team vs team battle instead of the chaos a three way battle provides. Unfortunately this form of attack can result in the attacked team gaining a much, much larger amount of experience. Additionally you can't be sure that one of your “allies” champions won't sneak a dagger into your back when the tide turns or that he won't backdoor into your base.
Changes Required for this to work:
- Changed Champion selection screen. The current version supports two teams only. A three team brawl would be difficult to set up in the current setup.
- Changed Loading screen. The current one shows two teams top and bottom. A three column version for this type of map might look better.
- Whisper Chat. A form of chat that allows you to send a message to one team and allies but not the other team. Something along the lines of “/w 'Champion' Attack Now” where Champion is the name of a champion on the team you want to send the message to.
- A Third team color. Six red enemies could get confusing and another color or symbol on the champions HUD health bar would make this easier to understand.
