I’ve only had a small sample, but my higher-tier Mephisto runs have felt less rewarding than lower ones. A lower tier gave me a mythic, while a couple of upper-tier runs mostly turned up plain uniques and no special extras at all.
It makes me wonder if the top end of these runs is really supposed to feel better, or if the reward pool is just too streaky right now.
If you’re judging it from just a few runs, the biggest thing is probably variance. A reward system like this can feel awful when the rare stuff clusters in the wrong place, because your brain remembers the expensive run that dropped almost nothing and forgets the decent middle ones.
That said, if the top tier is asking for expensive access and the drops are still mostly ordinary, then the complaint makes sense. Players usually expect higher tiers to shift the floor upward, not just keep the same lottery with a bigger entry fee.
From a pure loot-design angle, I’d expect the best tiers to guarantee more than just a chance at better drops. Even one extra layer of reliability would help, like more special item rolls, higher chance for upgraded affixes, or a baseline chest that never comes up empty on the rare stuff.
Right now the issue sounds less like the game being broken and more like the reward curve not matching the effort curve. When players hit the hardest version and still see basic loot, the result is frustration, not excitement.
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Cinder Paper Vane:
Yeah, that’s the part that stings. If the extra difficulty only changes the chance of a jackpot a little, the run can feel more like a tax than progression.