If I thought I was an experienced and skilled programmer, I would not have used "jumping into a pool needing floaties to swim" as an analogy.

Obviously I will need to learn more than just typing the actual code to be able to make a good custom game. I am simply asking for help to ease my experience in expanding my knowledge to other relevant areas aside from the actual coding, such as the organization and editing of the many files and documents needed for an addon to function properly.

At the present time, when I load up my current addon (aptly named 'Test1' since I am just using it to try to learn), the 'gamemode' that loads has a screen that says 'Barebones' on it, and when the game is started, Ancient Apparition only has the ability 'Detonate' (which is the 'example_ability' in the original barebones files), an odd purple item ('Shield Blast'?) is always in the inventory, but everything else appears normal. I have tried to edit the "example_ability" (Detonate) by creating a new ability file copied from a different example and then following the instructions of the scripting tutorial to add it to the game, but nothing I do seems to change the outcome: Ancient Appariion has Detonate. So, all I have really accomplished is loading the original dota 2 map, but clearly I am missing something crucial in order to actually edit the 'barebones' addon.

All I want is to override one or two heroes in vanilla DotA, keeping everything else (the map, items, other heroes, etc.) the same. Do you think you can help me?