Hackers have always and will always be around. Nexon will never do anything serious to stop them from doing what they do. Since you're from EU and don't really know how things work here on GMS, I'll help you understand a few things real quick.
Believe it or not, hackers actually generate great economy but only for those who are already somewhat wealthy in game. Even though there isn't a huge amount of wealthy players, those that are wealthy generate a lot of circulation in the free market. Hackers sell cheap crafting materials, elite boss drops, and sometimes average cubed equips. Without them, the market would be very different in terms of having much more expensive items and funded players would hoard and raise the prices even higher. It would reach a point where Nexon will be forced to increase the drop rate of certain things since nobody will be willing to grind for x hours to sell something at a low price. And no one will spend a high amount of money for something that will give a low reward.
For people who don't train, they tend to not care too much about hackers since they don't often interact with them. For everyone else, it's a nightmare just as you described. That being said, Nexon could probably do something that would drastically reduce the amount of hackers we have. But that would mean that the market will also drastically change and they won't know if the $ they make from NX will go up or down. Also, people buy mesos with real life $ in order to buy things from the FM. So even though those people don't give money directly to Nexon, the money they end up using inevitably becomes in-game currency being used to buy things in the FM, which keeps the maple economy circulating.
That's all just speculation though. I don't know the true facts behind all that but as a player who has been dealing with the free market avidly for quite some time, it's the best explaining I can give as to why hackers are still around in such massive quantities.
I share the same opinion as you do, I don't think this game has a bright future unless they make big changes and soon. This patch has been anticipated for quite some time and sadly it has been a bit disappointment, despite their "continued efforts to ensure blahblahblah".
I'm having a hard time believing that you guys were actually getting all crappy lines when you used Violet cubes. Assuming you even used Violet cube. When I used them, although I did get a lot crappy lines, I also got many more good lines. Also, I used less Violet cubes than I would have used red or black cubes in order to obtain 2 good lines on equips. Are you guys trolling? How can a cube that give you SIX lines to choose from be worse than a cube that gives you 3 fixed lines? Seriously makes 0 sense to me.
As much as I want more people to start playing maple again, it is not worth coming back. Nexon has great new events, 5th job will be amazing, and the new content is breathtaking BUT! Nexon simply cannot properly manage all of that. Their communication with the community is garbage and it's only a matter of time before you, and many others, will get sick of it and stop playing again.
The solo grind you mentioned will be greater than it was before, as it will be much easier to solo literally every boss except one(the new Lucid boss which is only available to the top 0.05% of the population). Training to 200 will be much easier, meaning more solo training since training in a party will slow you down. And if you plan to train after that, you will need more funding which of course requires you to buy nx and fund your character.
Nexon has promised to reduce the p2w(pay 2 win) aspect of the game but has fallen short of reaching their actual goal. They still have way too many shady marketing schemes, they do not take into consideration user-submitted ideas to help improve the economy, and hackers still dominate the free market.
As for the top dps list, I do not know where I can find a reliable one but it won't matter since almost all of them use classes that are fully funded. Which will probably cost you more than $5,000. I hope my reply helped.
