There are numerous issues with the game in its current state, in both Reboot and Interactive. Interactive has always been the server with the largest amount of monetization options available to Nexon as Reboot was originally designed with a heavy reduction on these monetization methods so that it could be a server where progression was independent of money spent. As time has gone on, Reboot has demonstrated itself to have a far easier time with general progression than Interactive ever has, which has resulted in a massive amount of the playerbase relocating or defaulting to Reboot. The impact of this is that there are now less and less players for Nexon to earn revenue from due to the lowered amount of monetization methods within Reboot. Because Nexon has refused to re-evaluate their stance on Cash Shop prices or item pools, revenue from Interactive servers has presumably plummeted. This has resulted in Nexon heavily increasing their monetization strategy against Reboot, which can be seen in the numerous battlepasses and lowered rates on event pets and NX. Because Nexon has never addressed their pricing schema for Interactive, they are now forced to further monetize Reboot against its original dogma. This will only continue to increase if the problems facing Interactive continue to be left unaddressed.
How can Nexon Shift Back Towards Proper Monetization
The first step that Nexon needs to take in order to properly address this problem, is to understand and improve on the experience for Interactive players in their progression. The largest encompassing issue for Interactive is that the time and money you spend on the game just isn't worth it. As an endgame player who can clear Destiny Limbo, the amount of weekly mesos I earn from bosses and Eternals amounts to around 8b. If I were to convert this into just Cash Shop cubes at the current meso rate, I would only have 20 Glowing Cubes, 11 Bright Cubes or 10 Bonus Glowing Cubes. 8b mesos in Reboot would be able to buy 650+ Glowing cubes or 350+ Bright cubes. Relative to Reboot, the cost of cubes in Interactive server is 33x more expensive, and this is without taking into consideration the 6x boss crystal Reboot also gets.
One of the most prevalent issues within Interactive servers that has plagued it for decades are bots. A great recent example of how bots can destroy an economy can be seen occurring right now in Classic world, where Chinese bot farms have caused an insane amount of inflation within their market. This has been occurring throughout Interactives life and has been a huge part in the deflation in the value of mesos, further contributing to the devaluation of time spent playing. Because GMS does not have an identity authentication system in place, bots are still able to repeatedly abuse low entry situations within the game (such as free account wide gifts and Burning gear) to immediately begin farming mesos. One of the most difficult issues with dealing with bots is how to target only illegitimate players and allow legitimate players free reign. So what can be done to best combat bots without heavily impacting players?
Introduce a Meso Cap from Farming that Scales with Legion Level
Enforcing a meso cap on players with non-established accounts is by far the best possible solution to address the issue of botters. This cap can be further lessened as a player continues to progress and can be fully removed once a certain Legion Rank is obtained (such as 8000 or 8500 legion). Any legitimate player will continue to progress their legion roster and easily reach the point where the cap no longer applies, whereas a bot will not and will eventually be caught and banned. While this will not address macroers, it will decrease the supply of mesos generated in the economy from Frenzy farming, which would allow for the next needed change.
Boss Crystal Price Revamp
The last time Boss Crystal prices were touched was over 2 years ago. The amount of value I earn from Boss Crystals as an end game player is pitifully low. If I were to compare my main to a simple CTene mule, my main is likely 10x stronger in terms of CP and required a massive amount of resources to get it to this point. I could have just as easily invested a fraction of those resources into 4 CTene mules and earn just as much each week. Currently in Interactive Server, achieving endgame is hollow and worthless. If you were to compare current GMS Crystal prices to that of KMS, an endgame player is making 3x LESS in terms of raw mesos each week (which is further compounded by the different meso exchange rates between GMS and KMS). KMS implemented a reduction in the amount of account wide Boss Crystals that could be sold due to both inflation and outcry from players. GMS is facing the exact same issues and should follow suit. However, if you play Interactive Servers, you would know that even with a reduction in Boss Crystal sales, that Interactive players would still continue to farm low level bosses for Hard and Solids cubes due to the insane prices of Cash Shop cubes, which brings up the next needed change.
Removal of Boss Cube Drops in Exchange for Magic Wand
While Magic Wand was created in response to the KMS cube rate scandal, it is a system that GMS in theory already has in Reboot through their meso cube shops. Not only would the implementation of Magic Wand solve one of the largest sources of Interactive progression issues by providing players with an actual legitimate way to obtain potentials, it would also seriously address meso inflation by introducing an enormous meso sink into the economy. Currently, the only feasible way to obtain 3L bpot gears is to purchase one from an illicit botter abusing free event cubes across numerous accounts and the only feasible way to create 3l main pot gear is to risk having an item stolen by purchasing Solid cube service. Removal of Boss Cubes will allow players to focus solely on continuous progression and Magic Wand will push the economy back towards a playable state. Currently, the cost of Cash Shop cubes make them a complete and utter joke, but this also extends to nearly all other Cash Shop offerings, which brings up the next change.
Re-Evaluating the Costs and Item Pools of P2W Gachas
If you look at the history of certain "Jackpot" items from Philosopher Books and Marvel Machine, you'll find a staggering large amount of deprecated items.
- Permanent Pendant Slots, which were QOLed out and never replaced
- Outlaw Hearts, which were powercrept by Total Control
- Battleroids, which were QOLed out but are still in the item pool
- Permanent Hyper Teleport Rock, which was QOLed out by Maple Guide and currently only utilized by Frenzy Sellers
- Frenzy Totem, which were removed and never replaced
Across the past decade of Maplestory, there have only been 5 new inclusions of "Jackpot" items across all of Nexon's gachas (excluding Wonderberry):
- Legendary Familiar cards
- Chains of Resentment Coupons
- +1 Starforce Scrolls
- V Scrolls
- Pitched Boss Equips
As it currently stands, the amount of items actually worth the money you put in are insanely low:
- Ring of Torment
- Firestarter Ring
- Breath of Divinity
- Lucid's Earrings
- Legendary Familiar cards
- Chains of Resentment
- +1 Starforce Scrolls
- V Scrolls
- Onyx Apples
- Premium Cubes (Violets)
- Pitched Boss
Almost every other item within the available pool is next to worthless. A single Marvel Machine spin costs 1.6b and a single Philosopher book costs 900mil. Some of the worthless items from these gachas are:
- CRA weapons worth 600k mesos
- Absolab Weapons worth 2 million mesos
- Absolab armors worth 5 million mesos
- Arcane Armors worth 25 million mesos
- Tyrant capes worth 200 million mesos
- Superior Gollux are max 250 million mesos, with Belts and Earrings being worth <20 million mesos
- ICOGs are 200k mesos
- Pets are 10 million mesos
- Unique pot scrolls are 200 million mesos
- Terminus and Sweetwater Weapons are either worthless or unsellable
Why are any of these items still included in the pool? Why would any Interactive player continue to spend money on a junk gacha that has a 5% chance of giving worthwhile? According to the rates on the March 2026 Marvel Machine, the cumulative chance of hitting one of these worthless items is 34.1% and the cumulative chance to make money is ~4.2%. The variance in value from these gachas is far too large.
With the current state of these gachas, Nexon is hindering themselves in their effort to make money and because of this, they are pivoting towards monetization strategies that are seemingly working (i.e. battlepasses, heavier Reboot monetization). It's inherently obvious to any Interactive player with any amount of exposure to these gacha systems that they are not worth your time or money. It seems as though Nexon doesn't understand the distinction in why battlepasses are selling while other existing systems are not, as in the most recent cases, the battlepasses were actually worth the money.
How can Nexon improve these gachas to incentivize players to spend on them again? A player that spends their money on these gachas should come away from it having some form of value and utility from their purchase. They shouldn't walk away having absolutely nothing to show for it, which is effectively what is happening right now. The vast majority of players who spend on these systems end up dropping the majority of the items they obtain because they are useless to them and worthless to others.
New items should be developed and added, both Jackpot* and mediocre ones:
- Epic Dungeon Express Coupons
- Epic Dungeon 4x Reward Coupons (Exp or Frags)
- Epic Dungeon 8x Reward Coupons (Exp or Frags)
- Epic Dungeon Reset Ticket
- Sol Erda in varying quantities
- Luxe Sauna tickets in varying quantities
- Weekly Boss Reset Tickets
- Mechaberry Farm Tickets
- Hyper Growth Potion (instant level 200)
- Legendary Familiar Card
- Turn any familiar into Legendary
- Permanant CoR*
- Vac Pet Selection Box*
- Includes any vac pet and their respective equipment from any iteration, including event collabs
- New Interactable Maple Home Items
- Onyx Apple Tree*: Dispenses 7 Untradeable Onyx Apples per week
- Bossing Supply Cart*: Once per day dispenses all potions obtainable from the Collector
- New NX Items with Usable Skills
- Bahamat's Jewel*: Enables the use of Heaven's Door
Coming up with updated rewards like this took me 10 minutes to think of, but we have been left with nearly the same pool of worthless items for countless iterations of these gachas.
Tradeability of Items
One of the primary hindrances within Interactive servers, is that despite it being the version of Maplestory with trading enabled, there are countless times when items are intentionally made untradeable. The flexibility in progressing is one of the core tenets of Interactive and being able to offload excess items aligns with that tenet. Items obtained from any Cash Shop source should also be tradeable. Despite them currently being untradeable, players are still circumventing this by keeping items tradeable and then selling service for those same Cash Shop items. This barrier goes against the very principle of Interactive and isn't even able to perform its function as a barrier since players are still offload these items, albeit with a great hassle.
Other notable mentions for changes:
Remove Expiration Dates from Boss Drops in Reboot
The sole purpose of expiration dates on boss drops are to ensure that players cannot hoard these items and are forced to sell them. This was based around a version of the game with Auction House in mind. In Reboot, there is no market to be impacted from this. Trading carries is not a sign of a healthy game and players should be able to better prepare for new classes and mules.
Allow Pitched and Dawn Boss Drops to be Converted into Pity Crystals
A relatively glaring issue with Reboot progression is inventory space. This is a result of being forced to utilize the transfer hammer system to effectively have a chance to progress, which requires an ungodly amount of spares. Equipment is the one inventory type that does not have the ability for items to be stacked and condensed, resulting in consistent inventory issues among more established players. In addition to this, certain boss drops are fully useless after one is already obtained (i.e. Spellbook, Genesis Badge, Mitra's Rage). Allowing players to convert these equipments into their respective value in pity crystals would alleviate both inventory issues, and allow Reboot players to easily reallocate their progression into what is currently best for them.
Ending Off
I can understand wanting to develop new content to prove that you are a different standout IP, but the game itself needs to be put into a healthy and rewarding state before Nexon should be considering investing time and resources into developing that content. These problems have existed long before Inkwell took his role and have continued to worsen since then. There's no point in long term planning when your game continues to bleed out and die in the short term. As the game currently stands, Reboot will continue to grow in popularity due to Interactive's issues, forcing Nexon to implement harsher monetization onto a server that was never meant to have it.
