Hello there. My name is AxeChris. You might know me from the Familiarization guide. If you do, thank you. If not, some things in this thread post might be a bit lost, as I’m going to be touching on flaws I’ve seen in the new Familiar system.
I realize this thread might have people respond in such a way that implies Nexon won’t read this or heed any changes because of how all decisions must be approved by Wonky and the 141s over in the KMS team, but I’m still going to press on with this, mainly because I want to vent.
So, let me briefly explain the system we’ve got now.
In order to obtain good potentials on familiars, one might have two options.
One could fuse together cards or Fauxmiliars in order to rank up from common, to rare, to epic, and to unique. All of which taking about 300 rank-up points and most likely around 3-4 hours.
Alternatively, one could get a familiar they’d like and rank up via the usage of Red Familiar Cards, a cube type item that allows for the re-roll of familiars, along with the small* chance of ranking up.
When it comes to ranking up, the user in question would have at most 3 rolls on a familiar; If the unique roll sucks, they’d have no other choice than to buy a red card(RC) in order to re-roll it or attempt for a Legendary familiar, as RCs are the only way to get them to that point. Or, just fuse or extract the unique that has no use.
In regular servers, these are the two options. In Reboot, it’s just the one, outside of some interesting things that have happened as of late. Reboot does not have the ability to purchase RCs, nor do they have the ability to purchase other objects, such as Expansion Slots, Breakthrough Cards, Level Up cards, or even have normal Fauxmiliars.
I’d like to bring your attention to that asterisk up there after the “Small” in “Small Chance”. Looking at some reports of a few whales, the tier-up rate is absolutely abysmal. Some say the average cost to tier up from Unique to Legendary is $150 to even $350. Content creator Zeyben made a video of him using 168 ($235 USD) RCs and got nowhere. Further calculations made by the community suggests that the Unique to Legendary tier rate is 0.14% with an average of 705 cards being needed. Not to even imagine the cost needed to fine-tune the lines.
The video in question, along with the chart:
I understand that this system is very much like a Japanese gacha system in which the whalest of whales suceed the most, but If even the whales who spend 1.1 million maple points can’t even get something to flaunt, then how do they expect to entice anyone to try?
RNG aside, I’d like to tone it back a bit and go into the mechanics themselves. The introduction of being able to buy as many essences as you’d like per day leaves the entire summon gauge system kind of pointless. It may have been something to work around in Version 2 (JMS 2015-2020), but we have no reason to worry if we’re all stocking up on those gas canisters like we’re prepping for a fallout shelter. Granted, I might be seeing this from an end-game perspective and newer players might be a bit more prone to the gauge, but I still believe the point stands.
The ATT function, as it always has, fails to really do anything. Perhaps if the attacks were actually hitting lines similar to the user, then perhaps they could be considered to be useful as DPS additions, changing how some classes perform. God knows Bishops would benefit from three fast-hitting familiars. Unfortunately, they’re mostly hitting lines that would have MAYBE been considered decent back before Big Bang.
Now, the drop rate. You knew this was coming.
The drop rate of familiars has always been the beating heart of the system, in my view. As long as it’d be relatively easy for one to obtain a familiar, then they could feasibly utilize it to their advantage. However, I’ve found a few kinks.
As I’ve said before, You’d need 300 Rank-Up Points (RUPs) total in order to one-try a familiar from common to unique with no fails at all. But, if it DOES fail, you’d have to get even more, making that 3-hour romp into a 4 hour, 5 hour, or even more. I could tell the average player all about how simple the system might be when it comes to fusion and ranking, but if they realize the drop rate for their favorite monster is low enough where it takes that long to have a chance at something decent as a potential, do you think they’d really want to wade through it all?
This also brings me to the Roro shop. I’ve been hesitant to talk about this because I recall days where I desperately wished for the chance for Reboot to get booster packs, but I feel it necessary to point this out; Getting 2,000 points a day is an absurd task based on the current drop rate and is not a daily I’m not about to consider. Some of us have mountains of Jr. Boogie epics to sit on and purchase these with no problem. At some point, though, they’re gonna run out and considering the pulls that I’ve had on most days, it’s almost not even worth the effort.
At this point in the thread, it's been about a month since I've written anything in this post. A lot has happened over those last weeks, and I have lost the original momentum, but I'd like to be consistent in my message.
Let's be clear about this: Tier-up rates need to be adjusted so that people won't feel too discouraged by buying hundreds of these things and only ending up with a unique. A roughly 0.14% chance to go from Unique to Legendary is quite frankly not worth the effort and I'd imagine people would be deterred from even trying. I would propose changing the rates to the standard Unique to Legendary on equips. It definitely takes some time, but at the very least people know they'll get it eventually. At the rate it is now, it seems almost to be a herculean task which requires the stars to align just right.
Originally, I was going to follow this up with saying "Higher-level fams should drop, too.". However, as of the Sengoku 3 update in JMS / V216 in GMS, Tenebris mobs drop, allowing higher-leveled players to farm for extraction and fusion points. I would like to use this space to encourage the same for other areas, like the Arcane River, and all other planets in Grandis, including the Tyrant's Castle.
Lastly, I'm going to say this as one of the most important things I could put in here.
Allow Reboot to purchase Red Familiar Cards and Slot Expansions for Meso, or have them stocked in the Roro shop for a point fee.
When I made the video guide, I was hoping that Rebooters could get a hold of the fusion system and not have much of an issue when it comes to making their familiars strong with good lines. After a month or two, I see now that assuming that was a bit of a bad move on my part. I've already explained my thoughts on the fusion numbers. I feel that the longevity of this system is dependent on player interest. If players see that it's mostly skewed towards whales with a 0.14% chance to get to legendary and Reboot players getting nothing but the base system, I worry they just won't bother, or just look for a rare familiar with 15% IED and maybe one with bossing and call it a day, completely deterred from whatever else the system has to offer.
I’m hoping that the Maple community can come together and push for this. Otherwise, I fear that interest in the Familiar system will go right back to what it was for the last 9 years: A boring meta calling to get IED on a few commons, get a badge, maybe 10 if you’re willing, and leave it there. Knowing there could be better, but not going for it on account of the terrible tier rates or the lack of being able to reset your lines if your unique ends up being worthless.
and 1 other.
and 1 other.
Comments
The badges with red names are the ones that cannot be completed without booster packs:
https://maplestory.fandom.com/wiki/Familiars
Point is, the system is incredibly flawed as is when it has a lot of potential to be better.
Another issue I have is that Epic tier familiar cards do not drop anymore. It would be nice if Epics were still obtainable, even if they had an abysmal drop rate, because it would be a lot easier than farming hundreds of Rare familiars.
Maybe make the monster collection have an impact at the familiars drop rate, or the Roro chop selling a drop booster thing, like the Kritias one for antimagic, or adding a minidungeon with increased familiar drop rate, limited dunno to 1-3 entries per day like ursus, or 1 per character.
Icreasing the drop chance as thread says would be a better answer, not every character has drop rate gear and withou it the drops seems abysmal, like getting 10 cards in a hour of training, definetely for reboot I would love to see red cards, expansion and breaktrhoug ones for mesos.
Another area that could be adjusted is Tynerum's Crimsonheart Castle, the Level 130 theme dungeon. Before the Masteria revamp in late 2019 / early 2020, Masteria's Crimsonwood Keep had a different set of monsters such as Windraiders, Stormbreakers, Nightshadows, Firebrands, and others. These monsters still have familiar cards, yet the monsters are normally inaccessible. Since Tynerum's Crimsonheart Castle reuses some of these monster sprites, Crimsonheart Castle monsters could drop the familiars instead; for example, Stormbreaker Familiar (old Crimsonwood Keep) could be changed to Elite Stormbreaker Familiar (Crimsonheart Castle). Side note: we could also rename Crimsonheart Castle mobs since the area has no involvement with Masteria, especially with the removal of Tynerum's Shadow Veil Forest.
The mobs / areas that come to mind are as follows:
- Korean Folk Town: closed in Rising Heroes and reopened in the Reboot update with new versions of the same mobs)
- Crimsonheart Castle: since Crimsonwood Keep's monsters were replaced with new monsters, reuse the old familiars for Crimsonheart Castle)
- Kerning Tower: Kerning Square was closed in Rising Heroes and reopened as Kerning Tower a few months after the V update, with 2 monsters from the original Kerning Square: the CD / Album mobs)
- Omega Sector: closed in Rising Heroes and reopened in the Override update with new mob IDs, with a few old mobs not having new versions)
- Silent Crusade bosses: in 2011, we received the Silent Crusade update from JapanMS, with new bosses such as Lord Skeleton, King Centipede, Master Hoblin, Master Birk, Kentaurus King, Coco, and Corrupted Bastille. In 2012, it was replaced with the KMS version which was tied to Arkarium, and the old versions of these mobs were replaced with new versions of the same mobs.
- Shanghai Yu Garden: The farm animal familiars are based off the old Shanghai Wai-Tan, which was closed in other versions and replaced with Shanghai Yu Garden. New versions of the farm animal mobs were added (White Rooster -> Raving Chicken, Rooster -> Cuckoo Chicken, Duck -> Deranged Duck, etc).
TL;DR: Nexon could repurpose familiars for certain duplicated inaccessible monsters to drop from identically looking monsters, such as Crimsonheart Castle mobs dropping familiars based on former Crimsonwood Keep / Phantom Forest monsters, or new Korean Folk Town mobs dropping familiars formerly based off old Korean Folk Town mobs.
QoL is so badly needed,
and the red familiar card tier rate was not addressed by nexon at all,
the power is offered but its completly unrealiable to attain in a reasonable time, game relies too much on basically gacha level luck. ugh
The system feels incredibly dysfunctional with the current drop rates. It's clear that it was made with higher drop rates in mind.
Then on top of that, you have the joke that is red card tier rates.
Clearly changes need to be made, and hopefully nexon sees that.