FutureChris

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.

Hello! I'm AxeChris, a Rebooter. For the last few years, I've been pushing for an updated familiar system, mainly aiming towards a translated JMS system, mainly because of all the features they've added to it from 2011 to 2015. When Anna announced that we in GMS would be receiving a revamp, I was ecstatic. So much that I had dedicated much of my time to writing down explanations of both JMS and TMS's systems on a discord to help players better understand the major jump to the new system.



Flash forward to yesterday's video/guide being released. It quickly dawned on me as well as my other familiar-loving compatriots that this would not be either JMS or TMS's system merely translated, but a completely new system altogether. A fusion of both systems, even. Being able to summon three at once and utilize potentials along with multiple badges would be absolutely fantastic for Reboot! As I read aloud the post, my optimism slowly started to crumble.

"Non-Reboot worlds only: The [Red Familiar Card], purchased from the Cash Shop, also has a small chance to immediately Rank-Up the chosen Familiar while resetting its Potentials". It had dawned on me that Reboot would not be obtaining the Red Familiar Card, along with the opportunity to buy [Familiar Slot Expansion Coupons] or [Familiar Breakthrough Cards]. My mind started racing. With those restrictions, Reboot's experience with this new system will be but a mere fraction of what normal servers would get. New players would only be limited to 100 slots overall, capped at level 5, and would be forced to start over from scratch if the familiar they worked so tirelessly on turned out to have a bad potential when they finally get it to Unique.

I fear that with these restrictions, the entire concept of collecting and utilizing familiars will immediately fall flat on it's face and the meta will be to merely farm snail familiars for the ease of access and ability to easily start over from scratch if their unique potential is, essentially, crap. Familiar hunting would also be severely limited due to the fact that Reboot can't buy expansion slots either. If we're expecting to possibly have a maximum of 2,000 familiars, how could we cope with just 100 slots on average? I'm thankful that I'll have 20 slots to go with the 345 I have, but I feel this is terribly unfair to everyone else.

I would like to request that [Red Familiar Cards] be sold in either the Cash Shop for meso, much like Red and Black cubes, or in the Roro shop, along with [Familiar Slot Expansion Coupons] and [Familiar Breakthrough Cards]. Doing so will allow reboot to be able to work on hunting new familiars, level them up, and ensure they have options for bossing, healing, IED, whatever the situation calls for. I'd like to see maplers show off their "Familiar Teams", each providing a role, as well as flexing whatever they got from hunting or booster packs. Likewise, with expansion slots, players could choose if they want to go deeper into the familiar system at their own pace, rather than just limiting themselves to only 100.

Breakthrough Cards would also be a fine addition to Reboot. Allowing the level cap to reach 7 on our most treasured familiars would help us have longer farming sessions with them, have easier boss runs (if their scaled attacks are truly as strong as they claim to be), and again, to be able to show the world that yes, this player put forth the love and effort to get their familiar to a Level 7 Unique or Legendary rank. Something to aspire other players to work towards if they know the potential they have would help them immensely on their own goals.

As of right now, there's a community of familiar hunters out there who feel the same way about these restrictions and I hope that they'll see this post and respond with their own concerns - It's a larger community than you'd think; There are currently 70 members in the Familiar discord, with more hunters joining the fun every day. We feel that this new revamp is a fantastic way to get people energized about familiars, but with the current restrictions in Reboot, it simply won't be as great. Adding the Red Card, Slot Expansions, and Breakthough Cards to Reboot would change the way things work way more positively. Complaints aside, I'm excited to see GMS receiving a new system, but I would be much more excited about using said new system if some or all of these changes were made for Reboot players.

Thank you.

Bug type: Visual
Brief bug summary: Invisible laser that still hits.

More details: When fighting Gloom in normal mode in Moonbridge, the notification regarding Gloom charging energy will appear, along with the animation of it charging up, but does not actually display the laser after that animation, making it invisible, but still hitting players.

Steps to reproduce: Gloom will automatically perform the attack during the fight eventually.

Character name: AxeChris

Character level: 250

Character job: Kaiser

World name: Reboot

Date and time of the incident: January ‎23, ‎2019, ‏‎10:15 PM EST


Video:

Hi. I'm a 241 Kaiser in [Reboot] who's trying to work towards an Arcane sword (regardless of the new starforce meta). In Reboot, you have to earn all 240 droplets yourself just for the weapon. As for all the other equips, I'm not certain I am certain, however, that it's a bit asinine that I only net about 1 to 3 droplet stones in two hours of farming with full drop equipment and a 2x drop coupon. Truth be told, I've only got 38 droplets in storage. At this rate, I wouldn't be able to get the remaining 202 for at least 7 years. I don't have the time to farm for 8 hours straight like some people would for these things and I think that nobody should have to. So perhaps the system could be changed a bit, hm?

I have three ideas that would definitely quicken the process and get a whole lot more people ready for Tenebris:

1. Introduce daily quests for droplet stones, much like scrapyard dailies.
Easier said than done, of course. These would act in the same vein of the scrapyard dailies, offering players a set amount of droplets per day, allowing them to get a general idea on when they'd be able to hit the big 240, rather than relying on them to drop.

Or...
2. Increase the drop rate for droplet stones.
Supposedly, hunting down all 240 was an easier task before the big drop rate nerf last year, much like nodestones. Because of this, 240 became less of a tedious task, and more of a daunting, intimidating number that everyone knows today. If the rate was boosted to, say, the rate of nodestones, it would be reasonable to the people that put in the time.

Or...
3. Lower the coin requirement in the Lachelein, Morass, and Esfera stores
I'm going to be blunt on this one. To get the whole set of the hat, shoulder, weapon, boots, gloves, and cape, you'll need to obtain:
720 Lach droplets/ 72 Lucid Droplets - Around 36 Runs
320 Esfera droplets / 32 Will Droplets - Around 32 Runs

To me, that just looks like an insane amount of time and effort. For normal servers, this doesn't seem to be much of an issue because of the trading systems. However, because Reboot doesn't have trading, we'd have to get everything ourselves. Which is why I'm suggesting for this third option that the coin requirement be reduced from 24/16 to something reasonably less.

Big things are coming soon, just ask anyone who keeps up with KMS's updates. Those bosses and areas are gonna require people to be MUCH stronger than they already are now, and I think easing up on the requirements for Umbra stuff would be a big step in that direction.