The second half of each tier pays much better crowns that the first half. Even om the first half of Tier 3, the monsters drop about the same number of crowns as in the first half of Tier 1!

The reward for the first half of each tier is a visit to Basil. The reward for the second half is mad crowns.

I think it's backwards, to be honest.

I think the first 5 levels should give you mad crowns, the second to last level gives you mad Heat, and the last level gives very little but is very hard, a final push to the next Tier.

The way they have it makes it VERY difficult to get any coinage in the beginning, and meeting Basil is pretty useless when you first start off, well, compared to getting mad crown.

"I think it's backwards, to be honest.

I think the first 5 levels should give you mad crowns, the second to last level gives you mad Heat, and the last level gives very little but is very hard, a final push to the next Tier."

If it was that way, people would easily farm crowns by just quitting halfway. There will be little to no motivation to complete the second half, since you can skip right over it for 200 Crowns. Which you would have easily earned in the first half.

You'd only want to complete the second half ONCE, EVER, on ANY gate, to get clearance from the Spiral Warden. Once you've got the clearance, you'd get bigger benefits just running the first half twice in a row and then skipping to the next tier. At which point, why is there a second half to begin with?

You get 100 Mist a day. You can full-clear any tier on that alone: 60 Mist for Tier 1, 80 Mist for Tier 2, 90 Mist for Tier 3. Clearing the first, low-yield half of a tier is an investment which sees return in the massive crowns in the second half. Plus, reducing the necessary Energy investment for Crowns would result in Crowns being devalued in comparison, raising the Market price.

It's set up to give you incentives for sticking through a whole run, rather than giving fewer and fewer rewards as you continue. You want to reward commitment, not quitting.

If you want instant gratification, you can buy Energy for real money and then sell that for Crowns on the Energy Market.

"Most games let you rush in head first and THEN realize you need more experience."

They straight-up tell you that you need to run 15 Tier 1 stages before they'll let you into Tier 2. There's a running counter right on your character progress page, too. And why would anyone run just the first 3 stages and then skip out on the second 3?

Mist is limited to 100 a day, plus one Mist Tank per Tier per account. This is not up for debate-- they want players to think hard about how to make the most of their limited energy.

Plus if he half-filled your Mist Tank, people would jump in, half-fill it, and then just leave and join a guild Vanaduke run instead, or claim the 50 and then craft a 2* item, claim another 50 and craft another 2* item over and over.

You can't get something for nothing.