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2k sounds excessive but I do agree that a major reason behind why I don't feel interested in playing any more is that the returns I'd get from upgrading are abysmally minimal in comparison to what I'd actually have to spend.

It actually isn't, if they cube rates stay the same to even get legendary gear you'd have to pq at least 100 times just to get that tier. Of course with harder difficulties you get bigger rewards. I recall a server actually have up to 15k rewards and you still struggled to be able to do their hardest mode which is just a line up of chaos variants. But there are a lot of different variables to consider. Nexon is kind of getting the idea with the cubes dropping from the bosses, but they are essentially exaggerating the generosity but giving such a kick back of the tier possibly getting worse :|.

In general I'm a fan of the 'More cash means you upgrade faster, but with patience and smarts you could do decently' idea as I mainly spend cash currently for a bit of support and mostly on permanent cash equips because I enjoy slowly farming the things I need and crafting for potential rather than to blow a huge sum of money on equips. I don't know about others but I can tell you that I need that kind of commitment to actually stick to a class instead of pulling the usual 'Level up to some arbitrary level and quit it lolol' card, which I'd imagine doesn't give any cash returns to Nexon anyway.

That's what made maplestory good in the first place. Yes at first nx was only used for clothes and pets, but when the actual company took over that eventually led to them losing all their freedom, and things like pet loot and gachapon arised, it wasn't a necessity. It sped things up, pet loot made it less tedious, but still bearable, gacha just gave you quirky items that you could sell or add more personality to your character. Pink capes added 1-3 weapon attack, it wasn't that dramatic. We've lost that luxury since like 2009. Hell I thought the idea of 2x cards was a great addition.

Personally the one thing that I think people don't realize, that I believe killed maplestory, is NPC merchants in the FM. Seriously, you had two things you could do, a permit, or train. With these NPC merchants, it became money story because you could make money while training, led to monopolies, and took any challenge of time management. It's different for auction systems because it's not a struggle to compete with players who frankly have more time on their hands.

Hmm that is a good point. The nx reward for doing things in game if they set the price right to still get people into buying NX. And that would help with making endgame content. But somehow I dont think that is enough. I know one of the big things has to be PQs. When I think of old maple(Mardia release to potenial) vs new maple (after that) The Biggest difference is interaction with other people. It was really easy back then to meet people during Ludi PQ and Maze PQ because:

1) you had to have people to do them
2) There was reason to do them
3) And it was Quantity over Quality.

So yes @KhainiWest; I guess that does work. Just getting into specifics, they would have to change how the PQ's scale their level because the way it does now isn't good for what you mentioned. And totem's as a meso Sink is also good.

It's not enough to keep you entertained by yourself, but it does give everyone the opportunity to experience the current end game content we have now. By making a tier system you also see progression, have a system kind of like how dojo is, but with the ability to use potions and once you upgrade enough you can do medium or etc. Great meso sinks would honestly be white scrolls, it be nice to have quests of not collecting but exploring certain maps, finding secret letters or something in the background to get decent meso amounts (10-15m or something). Of course implementing of quests like that would have to wait until we got our own meso situation sorted.

To be honest a great additions' for end game stuff would simply to hold the same quests we do now but with a higher difficulty that gives us a higher reward in a scaled way of course. Maybe being able to fight all your job instructors once a day to get NX or some level 200 item, where after you beat them you have to go kill some boss, and kind of like manon and griffey have a mini dungeon variant, kind of like how the mystic gate is set up now. In the end that's what maplers want, progression of strength of their character.