I have been thinking about ways to improve the current familiar system, and I believe that there is a serious issue with the familiar mob levels that should be addressed.
The current system ignores the level of mobs familiars are obtained from. That is, Rare familiar cards from level 1 mobs drop at the same rate as Rare familiar cards from level 250 mobs (if they exist, but you get the idea). This is a huge issue, especially for the Unique familiars; the community will simply find the lowest-level Unique familiar, and then farm them as much as possible. This will cause a huge amount of players in a single map, not to mention that botters and hackers will be drawn to this map as well. This will eventually cause many players to fight over these maps, and even get kicked out of them forcibly by hackers.
This also makes all other familiar cards obsolete. Why try getting familiar cards from all but the lowest-leveled mobs, if the potential from the card and EXP/Points from fusing/extracting the card is exactly the same? Almost no one would end up hunting for other cards, which means all of the work put into the system would be nearly worthless.
What is the solution? There are two parts: make Familiar Potential and EXP/Point gain based on the level of the mob, just like the current Equipment potentials, and then change the drop rate of the cards to be based on both the level and the rank.
As many of us know, Equipment has four different potential tiers based on their level: 0-30, 31-70, 71-150, and 151+. Each of these tiers gets different potential possibilities; lower levels have worse potential possibilities, while higher levels have better. So, why not have Familiars have a similar or even duplicate system? This would eliminate the issue of people farming a single familiar, and instead make it worthwhile for higher-leveled familiars with better potential. More potential tiers (such as every 30 levels, or even every 20) would add further challenges and rewards.
Then, because the level of the familiar changes its potential, we could have familiar cards drop based on both level and rank, making lower-level familiars easier to get. There have been many complaints about familiar cards dropping far too rarely, and this would alleviate this issue, while also making higher-level familiars more valuable.
Here are my suggested changes to the Potential and drop rates:
1) Make Potential tiers for every 30 levels (1-30, 31-60, 61-90, etc.), so a level (N) familiar would have better potential lines than a same-ranked level (N-30) familiar.
2) Make the EXP and Rank-Up Points gained in the Familiar UI for fused and extracted cards based on the level and rank (rank being 1 for Common, 2 for Rare, etc.) based on the following formula: EXP or Rank-Up Points = Rank*(Level/30)
3) Make drop rate factor these three things: Level, Rank, and Initial Mobs in Map; I add "initial mobs in map" because mobs that only have one of them in a map (such as boss mobs) should drop a familiar card far more frequently than mobs that have 15-30 per map. My recommended formula is 1/(((Level^1.2)*(2^Rank))*(Initial Mobs in Map/2)).
I think all of these changes would be beneficial to both casual Maplers and Familiar collectors.
