I have created a board game~

[Juno]

As for the roles themselves:

Of the 6 released pilots, Irvine and Raika could both qualify as Strikers. They both have a short range to do it, but are capable of taking out average enemies in 2 rounds or less. However, that's in my mind...why don't you qualify them as Strikers? While I didn't use that term, it was certainly a goal when designing them.

As far as support goes, that's more intentional. Every duo needs to be able to stand alone, so, there's not much room to have powerful support skills since they'd have to be coupled with passable offense. It ended up being overpowered in every iteration (I tried it ~4 different ways; shelved for now). Instead, co-pilots fill the support role. They're still very difficult to balance between actual power and perceived power though.

Nevertheless, many pilots do have support abilities/options. Duke has a smokescreen that grants a great deal of damage reduction, Irvine has a Pandora's box of status effects, Angela has the ability to inflict moderate MP loss from range or SD loss up close, Raika has an AoE melee damage buff, Van has his shield, which can be used to play a tank/support role with proper positioning and Fiona is literally a co-pilot.

That said, it's possible to support your allies, but it has to be done via play rather than flat out design.

Some examples I saw in the tests we've run so far are:
-Angela reducing a target's MP so that Raika could get full Bodyslam damage in.
-Duke using his smokescreen to lower damage to Raika so she could rack up melee attacks to boost the potency of Analyze and maximize her Ace.
-Van staying on the same space as an ally to provide cover with his shield and healing from Jeek.
-Irvine reducing a targets A&A after coordinating an attack with allies.
-Raika using Hunter's Roar to boost allied MeP followed by several attacks on a target Fiona boosted damage against.

The idea is that you can provide support, but are never a liability on the battlefield. And usually, support abilities can aid you as well so you don't feel silly tackling a challenge alone or apart from your group. Of course, I don't know if that's what you'd consider support :x



edit: Annnd GW2. That kind of system has an impressive number of possibilities. However, due to the massively larger number of interactions, each skill has to be somewhat toned down to avoid unforeseen, gamebreaking mechanics. Though, to be fair, I initially endeavored to have a similar system.

I went with the current one because it allows greater outliers. In GW2, you have a million possibilities in a range of, say, 20-30. I decided on a system that has fewer possibilities in a range of 1-50. While a 50 would be a huge problem in GW2, it can blossom in a more controlled environment.

For example, Angela has 9 MP. This is roughly twice the average and she has the capacity to increase it up to 12, if she blows all 9 seconds on Sprint. The entirety of her set is built around making that 9 MP feel like the best thing in the world while not allowing it to become a huge issue balance-wise.

Irvine can deal 240 damage from 5 range. That's also about twice the average. He can also deal a wider variety of status effects than anyone else and in more potent forms than most others. Finally, with Quickdraw, he can save his actions to take place on the enemy's turn; something unique to him.

Van, Tavin and Fritzi (latter two aren't released yet) all have shields. The shields can, on average, take more punishment than the average zoid. They also regenerate over time.

Raika and Raven (latter not released) can do do unprecedented amounts of melee damage. Raika hits for 180 with no modifications and 300 while her Ace is active. She can alternatively reduce incoming damage under the right conditions by 80% (ranged) and 0-100% (melee). Raven, while not necessarily finalized, can hit for 400 if given a round to prepare, doing which he's doing some damage and dodging quite a bit.

Rease, (not released) has a precarious mix of SD reduction, status infliction and an extremely powerful ranged attack.

In essence, the model is closer to League of Legends than GW2

[Kueh]

I didn't realize the pilots had that much diversity, but I still touched on that bit earlier.

Switching up zoids, pilots, and co-pilots achieved that somewhat, but every unit functioned generally the same.

Like I said, it might have been a deliberate choice.

[Juno]

Not surprisingly, being an engineer means tons and tons of work. Thus, this update is a later than what I initially hoped xD. I've got my schedule down now, though, so moving more quickly should be possible.

Most of the work this time went into re-doing the manual (thanks again for the cutePDF tip~), both in terms of redesign and editing. There were a few balance changes based on playtest results, but nothing earth-shattering. All of the upcoming pilots are done, per se, but I want to test them a bit more before shipping.