Let's do things the hardest and most amount of effort possible to create the best possible system and product in return for the players!
Current Familiar System sucks and the Familiars concept has so much potential to it, like having your favourite monsters follow you around and remaking the system to better utilize this aspect.
The other thing that would be fun is introduce proper customization to make the game and system more engaging for players with experimentation to see what works best for their class and personal playstyle.
To emphasize, this should be a full on remake rebuilding the system from scratch and be creative with the system. No more holding on to anything the current system is doing!
To begin the ideas:
~ Familiars have an infinite summon duration.
~ Up to 3 Familiars can be summoned and active immediately as soon as you have 3 different familiars to summon.
This new idea will make it where each monster is unique and only 1 can be summoned of that monster.
~ Familiar Cards will be adjusted and changed how they work completely.
Regular monster card drop rate is decreased significantly, you only need to find 1 per character for this new system.
Rare monster card drop rate is increased significantly (so things along the lines of Mano the snail).
Boss monster card drop rate is increased massively (so things like Princess No, Lotus, and Black Mage familiar cards can be obtained, realistically, by anyone).
~ Familiar Index is a book and will look like a book with the pages to turn over.
All monsters are listed in this book.
When you don't have the familiar active yet because you have not found and consumed its card, then it will be greyed out.
When you do have the familiar card active, then it will be in colour and you can set it to one of your preset loadouts to summon it with the familiar summoning skill.
~ Familiar leveling is overhauled.
While that familiar is summoned and you acquire EXP from ANY source, the summoned familiars will gain the same amount of EXP for themselves.
Familiars level cap matches the character's level cap, so right now the max level familiars can be is 300 and when the level cap is raised to 350, then familiars will also have their level cap raised to 350.
The EXP of each level required for a familiar to level is only 20% of what a character needs to level at that same level.
~ Familiar lines and line rolling overhauled.
Familiar lines are changed completely. Each familiar can have 3 potential lines, 1 line is free and can have anything on it, 1 line is dedicated to utility and movement lines only, and 1 line is dedicated to defensive and movement lines only. The free line can be offense, defense, utility, or movement lines.
Line rolling is simplified, spend mesos on Glowing Cards or Bright Cards, Glowing Cards work like Glowing Cubes and Bright Cards work like Bright Cubes, but only for familiars.
These cubes are used to tier up that familiar at a chance up to Legendary Rank and for rolling for the line outcomes that you want at a random chance.
Each level the familiar has will boost the potency of the potential lines for it by 1%. Example: A level 246 familiar will boost its familiar lines by 246%, so if a line reads gain +5% Boss Damage, then the line would give almost 17.5% Boss Damage in total.
If another familiar in a set of familiars has an identical line, i.e. two boss damage lines, then every familiar line beyond the highest level familiar will have its potency cut in half for that duplicate line (if familiars are the same level, then 1 familiar is full potency and the others are halved).
Example: One familiar has 10% Boss Damage and the other has 8% Boss Damage, the first familiar still provides 10% Boss Damage and the second familiar only provides 4% Boss Damage. All other lines that are not duplicated for that preset group are still giving full potency.
Examples of Offensive, Defensive, Utility, and Movement options to roll for:
NOTE: Everything here would be for Legendary Rank values and some lines would only be acquired at certain potential rank tiers.
Offensive:
~ Boss Damage, base at 6%
~ Normal Monster Damage, base at 6%
~ Damage %, base at 5%
~ Final Damage %, base at 1%
~ Weapon/Magic Attack, base at 7
~ Weapon/Magic Attack %, base at 3%
~ Ignore Enemy Defense, base at 10%
~ All Stat, base at 35
~ All Stat %, base at 10%
~ Ignore Elemental Resistance, base at 1.5%
Defensive:
~ Gain Damage Reduction, base at 15% (max 99%)
~ Gain Damage Reduction Against All Sources of Damage, base at 2.5%
~ Heal Self every 3 seconds ignoring all anti-healing effects, base at 5% HP
~ Heal Party Members every 3 seconds ignoring all anti-healing effects, base at 5% HP
~ Heal Self and Party Members every 5 seconds ignoring all anti-healing effects, base at 5% HP
~ Recover HP and MP every 5 seconds for Self and Party Members ignoring all anti-healing effects, base at 5% HP and 1% MP
~ Gain Defense, base at 2,000
~ Gain HP, base at 1,500
~ Gain HP %, base at 13%
~ Extend Invincibility Time, base at 10% (this includes proper invincibility skills that makes you invincible against all attacks)
~ Gain Status Resistance, base at 100
~ Upon Taking Lethal Damage Prevent Death from Occurring once every 1,800 seconds, base cooldown reduction at -100 seconds (more familiars in the preset group reduces the time further at 50% efficiency beyond the first familiar)
Utility:
~ Gain Chance to Skip Cooldown, base at 3%
~ Gain Cooldown Reduction, base at 0.75 second
~ Gain Cooldown Reduction %, base at 1.5%
~ Reduce Skill Cost, base at 12%
~ Gain MP, base at 3,000
~ Gain MP %, base at 25%
~ Increase Healing from Skills and Potions for Self, base at 10%
~ Increases Healing from your own Skills for Party Members, base at 10%
~ Increases Healing from your own Skills for Self and Party Members, base at 8%
~ Recover MP every 3 seconds for Self, base at 1% MP
~ Recover MP every 3 seconds for Party Members, base at 1% MP
~ Recover MP every 5 seconds for Self and Party Members, base at 1% MP
~ Recover HP and MP every 5 seconds for Self and Party Members ignoring all anti-healing effects, base at 5% HP and 1% MP
~ Gain increased Item Drop Chance, base at 15%
~ Gain increased Mesos Obtain Amount, base at 5%
~ Gain Chance to Auto-Steal, base at 5%
Movement:
~ Increase Your Total Speed Exceeding the Limit, base at 5%
~ Increase Your Total Jump Height Exceeding the Limit, base at 5%
~ Increase Your Total Speed and Jump Height Exceeding the Limit, base at 4%
~ Enter Dark Sight for X seconds for Not Taking Damage every 3 seconds, base at 5 seconds
~ Your "Flash Jump", "Dash", and "Teleport" Skills Travel Further, base at 4% increase
~ The Effects of Gravity is Lessened on Self, base at 7% reduction
