Hi!
Taking a break from RPG-making-ness, I'm making a small DOTA-like map. The terain is already completely done.
This game is Squad Support meets DOTA.
P1, P5 are "bases" and are "required". They build as terran, protoss, or zerg as normal melee. If they die, that team loses.
P2-4 and P6-8 are "Squads". You select squads very similar to Squad Support, if your squad dies, you respawn after a timer.

That's the basic jist. The problem lies where P1 and P5 (the meleers) carry the main respawning forces (repawning their 4 repective lanes, and order forced movement through their lane, to the enemy player's base).
These are "hero" units so that they don't jack with P1/P5's supply.

There are checkpoints and "levels of accomplishment" and other such goodies...

I've heard having "required players" screws up the game because if P1 or P5 leave, the game ends (which is true).

I'm looking to hear a few yay or nays or ideas to add or things to change.
Let me know! I'll check tomorrow morning and start nearing it's finish.
Thanks!

EDIT: PS: What's the best way to force P1/P5 'hero' units in their lanes (not linear, but curved paths)?

I still maintain that this is a bad idea because no one will want to be P1/P5.

I agree with that same sentiment of TZ, just like in Squad Support, almost every time people have to force another person to be the main building race, while everyone can just go rambo with their squads for epic lulz. Also, there is no way you can properly order all of their units without messing up their attack AI, because if they really wanted to, P1/P5 would just constantly keep moving their units into another lane to stack it. AoS will not work with human tug-o-war battles usually.

Having certain slots required really brings down a game. You should try to avoid this if at all possible.

Since you can easily order units out, may I suggest having 2 heros a team, and 1 computer a team. The computer will control all the [men] units once they've left a main base, so that you can still plan large army strikes, but after you send them there's no calling them back?

Computers in AoS games are meant to be played by the computer so that they follow instructions. If you put a player there, he will simply keep ordering the units to his base, to deny opponents kills, and to mass. If you use ht to order the units to attack, they will be order to attack so much that they end up not attacking unless the unit has a very fast attack speed (ie: ling).
If you want to force the units into the lanes, you can create the spawn at an area that is already in the lane, and if the unit goes out of the lane, move it back to the spawn point. Keep in mind, the base player is gonna be really bored if he cant micro/macro the support units, but if he can, he will probably deny kills. This conflicts with any type of individual kill for money system. Only a "create unit & give foes $$" system would work.

I tried something similar to this in a map I made years ago called Shogun (with 2 required "Shoguns" running bases, and 2 "Samurai" on each team). It didn't work out too well because as mentioned before, people rarely want to pick up the responsibility of the forced player.

I can see why you'd want to try it, as computers in AoS games are usually just fodder. I have a feeling that unless you make them extremely awesome (like in those really old God versus Satan maps), no one will want to be those players.

don't listen to them, it's a great idea. I wanted to make the same map a while ago, but never really got motivated enough. It would be great to see heros fighting a human base, rather than a computer. you must complete this map.

Look. It doesn't matter how great the map is, no one will play it. They'll be "no i dun wanna be baes" and leave.

I'll be base.