All The Tropes

Absurdly High Level Cap: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Absurdly High Level Cap (view source)

Revision as of 00:50, 23 February 2015

99 bytes removed ,  9 years ago
m
clean up
VisualWikitext
m (update links)
m (clean up)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:9999_73549999 7354.png|link=Disgaea|frame|Why level 9999? Because we can.]]
 
In many games with [[Character Level|Character Levels]]s, you'll probably never reach the highest level possible. Maybe this is just because of scaling and pacing of experience, and the game simply isn't long enough for you to naturally reach the maximum level. Can [[Fridge Logic|make a player wonder]] why the developers bothered to make such a pointlessly out-of-reach level cap.
 
The common "endgame level" tends to be around the "halfway mark", usually. In some games, this is actually where your stats begin to max out anyway.
Line 13:
{{examples}}
 
* The original MMORPG example was ''[[Asheron's Call]]'' -- the—the level cap was logarithmic, with the hard cap on experience being 4 ''billion'' at level 127. Given that the game was launched at the same time as ''[[EverQuest]]'', which had a level 50 cap, this was rather jarring for the time. It took most of a ''decade'' for any character to actually reach the cap, although MMORPG inflation made it easier a few years after that. A later update changed the cap again -- toagain—to 4 billion experience points ''per skill'', putting the actual level cap near 300.
* [[Hyperdimension Neptunia]] gives you the option of this. The default level cap is 99 and you'll have opened up every purchasable item and be strong enough to pound all the foes if you hit it. DLC gives you the option of bumping it up to 999, so you can max out every stat for every character and improve your odds at the DLC dungeons.
* ''[[Last Scenario]]''. You end the main storyline around level 70, though you'll likely have a hard time defeating the final boss at that point. However, there are ''tons'' of endgame [[Bonus Dungeon|Bonus Dungeons]]s, and you'll always be at the proper level to do them linearly. For example, there's one that you're at the perfect level for by the endgame, and after that buffs you up to level 75 or so, you'll be ready to do another one, etc. If you do all of them, you'll have no trouble getting to level 95.
* ''[[Exit Fate]]''. You'll end the main storyline around level 80, and though the [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]es will require you to grind a bit, you won't have to do a lot of it.
* Most of the [[Metroidvania]] iterations of the ''[[Castlevania]]'' series end with the main character around level 50 (and the max being 99).
** In ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'', the hardest respawning enemies in the game, the Guardians, only give 1 exp when you get to about level 70. After that, there's no point in grinding anymore. You take out the last boss in a few hits way before you reach 70.
Line 35:
** In [[Fallout: New Vegas]], the starting level cap is 30, which can be reached fairly easily. Then came the DLC (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road), each of which raises the level cap by 5 levels, setting the level cap at ''50''. To put that in terms of experience points, it takes 66,700 XP total to reach Level 30, while it'll take ''186,200'' XP total to reach Level 50. About the easiest way to get them is to use the console command to advance your levels, or download a mod that alters EXP gain<ref>Or [[Good Bad Bug|pick up and drop a mantis leg]] a few thousand times</ref>...and even then, it doesn't make the game any easier since the enemies will just get tougher. However, with proper planning, it ''is'' possible to max all 13 skills, thanks to the increased level cap.
*** The DLC quests give XP based on your level; if you're above the initial cap of 30, you can gain over 1,000 XP from completing one. On top of that, most (if not all) enemies you encounter are worth 50 XP per kill (the maximum any creature will give), and it'll quickly add up if you seek out groups of enemies.
*** As well, the normal course of gameplay for each DLC will usually grant at least five levels, so when combined with the main game, it's very, very common and easy to build a Level 50 character within 50-6050–60 hours of play.
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind|Morrowind]]'' and ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion|Oblivion]]'' are something of an odd case, as you only level up if you improve your main skills, which you pick. Thus, it is perfectly possible to acquire ludicrously high combat skills while remaining at level one. This has the added advantage that, upon leveling up, you'll get very healthy multipliers for your stat increases. However, it is worth pointing out that any non-main skills are likely to start out pretty low, so if you use this trick, you'll have trouble beating up rats at the beginning of the game. This also means that the level cap doesn't need to be hard-coded. Eventually, all of your primary skills will be at 100 (and thus, incapable of increasing), meaning that you will never level up again. In theory, at least; there are a number of methods which lend themselves to unlimited leveling.
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' continues this tradition. While there's an achievement for reaching level 50, you can go beyond that if you keep increasing your skills. However, all your stats max out at 100, meaning that while there's no level cap ''in theory'', in practice, you're not getting past level 81. And even the cap of 81 is absurdly high; you can finish most of the game's quests long before that, after level 40 or so that level-up bar moves at a snail's pace, and the enemies' levels usually cap somewhere between 40 and 50 (the Volikhar Master Vampire has the highest possible cap at 53).
* In ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'', the [[Final Boss]] is beatable before level 80, but levels cap at 255. There are ''three'' [[Bonus Dungeon|Bonus Dungeons]]s containing numerous enemies and bosses that can help you get to 255. There are even battle trophies for doing this.
** 255 is the typical level cap in the ''[[Star Ocean]]'' series. ''[[Star Ocean: The Last Hope|The Last Hope]]'' breaks this tradition by dropping it down to 200; however, earning half of the Battle Trophies of a character bumps it right back up to 255. Then again, when you're trying to defeat [[Bonus Boss|bonus bosses]] with millions of HP, and earn Battle Trophies that require inflicting max damage, you'll want every last stat point you can get.
* ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'' and the ''[[Mario & Luigi]]'' series play this straight. In both cases, the cap is 99, but it's not needed to achieve [[100% Completion]].
** ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story|Bowser's Inside Story]]'' also about halves the effect of each level up after 50, making it even more pointless. Doesn't help that you need to keep resetting the final dungeon to even find enemies worth fighting for more experience. However, once you get to "rainbow rank" you can kill most bosses in one hit.
* In the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series, you'll likely reach the end of the storyline around level 50, while the level cap is 99. There are usually a few [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]es that require you to level grind a bit, however.
** ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep|Birth by Sleep]]'' takes this even further. The game is split into three storylines, in which each protagonist has to [[Restart At Level One]] whenever you start their story, regardless of how many playthroughs you've already finished. In order to avoid having to grind back up whenever you start with a new character, the storyline is meant to be finished by the time you're in your low 30's, even though the maximum is still 99 like the previous games. Even then, one of the game's bonus bosses can be beaten quite comfortably at level 50. [[That One Boss|The other, not so much.]]
** ''[[Kingdom Hearts coded|Kingdom Hearts Re:coded]]'' has a level cap of 99. While that's not unusual, the amount of EXP required for higher levels is. In total, about ''10,000,000 EXP'' is required to get all the Level Up chips.
Line 64:
* Gauntlet Dark Legacy had a level cap of 99, even though the game could be beaten by level 60 or so.
* "Planescape Torment" seems to have NO level cap, though it's pretty much impossible to get an insanely high level without exploiting glitches. You're only supposed to beat the game at the high 20s (and if you don't use glitches you won't get much higher). With an hour of glitch exploitation, one can go as high as level 200. The experience for one level up caps at 250000, and very late level ups won't give much more than increased health.
* If there's a level cap in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]],'' no one's found it yet. At around level 130 even the [[Hopeless Boss Fight|Hopeless Boss Fights]]s are doable. Of course, generally players with levels that high have automated level-grinding.
** For those who think 130 is on the low end? The game was originally designed to be beaten at level ''eleven'', with a major overhaul in 2007 increasing that by a whopping ''two''. As for actual ability, let's just say a properly-prepared player could beat Her Naughtiness well before level 13 if the game let them try.
*** They have actually been nerfing the naughty sorceress' actions and priorities and such since, but players keep plugging away and finding ways to 'beat the system' so they don't need to use the wand. One of the more interesting discoveries was that bleed damage carried over from the second battle. One person ended form 2 with heavy amounts of bleed. At the time only two bosses had multiple forms, and so this wasn't ever really looked at. By using bleeds up til round 28, and keeping the NS from removing the buffs with a potato, then attacking to beat the form before the 30 round limit, one player managed to 'roll over' the damage into the 'first round' of combat vs the sausage, the round you typically automatically lose before you can make a move. Bleed damage was applied first. And cumulativity was a bug. These are no longer the case.
Line 82:
* The earlier ''[[Rune Factory]]'' games had a maximum level of 99, far beyond what you needed to complete the game. ''[[Rune Factory 3]]'' bumps this up to ''10,000''.
* ''[[Zoids]] Legacy'' has a level cap of 99 despite the game being easily finishable ''in the low 20s''.
* Present in the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series as a whole. In fact, it may be one of the more extreme examples. You see, in the series, each new level requires 1000 EXP to reach--thereach—the catch is that the amount of EXP awarded to a character after any battle is calculated based on the character's strength/level vis-a-vis that of the defeated opponents. Fairly soon, monsters that gave a good chunk of EXP required to reach a level will give out a mere pittance, and even the hardest encounters in the game will eventually yield a mere 5 EXP per encounter (the average minimum possible EXP). When, precisely, this happens depends on the individual game in the series, but it's usually somewhere in the 60s or 70s, for a game where the level caps at 99. Only the most determined Suikoden players will see characters that have reached level 99, and probably no one has done it legitly with the large number of playable characters (since not all of the [[108]] are playable) ...
* The level cap in ''[[Legend of Legaia]]'' is 99. Even with extreme grinding, the levels granted are stingy, and you'll probably beat the game somewhere between levels 35 and 40. If you want to beat the obnoxiously difficult [[Bonus Boss]], you'll want another ten or twenty levels on that. If you want to complete [[That One Sidequest]] and actually get usable Juggernaut magic, you are ''required'' to be at level 99. Even grinding every single day for a few hours, that can take years.
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', the level cap of 99 is impossible to reach without serious grinding, especially if you want to do it in a single playthrough. It's possible to reach about 50 to 60 if you complete every single sidequest in the game and exploit time travel to run through the Dark Omen several times. Lavos can be beaten at this point without too much trouble. Grind your way up to 99, however, and you'll be basically unkillable. [[New Game+]] is the most fun way to grind, but Crono will probably max out far before everyone else.
Line 92:
** And in Dragon Quest IX, the level cap is 99; you'll be needing over 65535 XP ''per level'' when you get much past 50! Oh, and did I mention that XP is not shared between vocations (classes), so you could be a level 99 warrior but only a level 1 mage? And you can reset back to level 1 if you want, in order to get more skill points and a "special" item related to the vocation...
* In ''[[Heartache 101 Sour Into Sweet]]'', the player's stats can be raised up to a cap of 100. The three uses of stats are to pass storyline checkpoints (which use a simple "Is the stat higher than this value" pass-or-fail check), to give correct advice to [[Harem Genre|girls]] when asked (where points in the relevant stat increase the chance of Ferdinand's advice being correct), and to determine how many [[Relationship Values|relationship points]] are gained when spending time with girls. Storyline checkpoints never require any value higher than 50, advice will reach 100% chance of being correct somewhere between 50 and 60, and it is possible to max out relationship values for girls without any stats ever even reaching 50.
* The power level stat in [[Exalted]], Essence, has an absolute cap of 10. Most magical beings (including the majority of player characters) begin their existence with Essence of 2 and have relative caps. The most common way to increase Essence is through age and extensive meditation -- untilmeditation—until a character is 100 years old, they may reach up to Essence 5 with each increase taking months equal to the new rating. To reach Essence 10, the character must be ''several thousands'' of years old and devote a ''year'' of nothing but meditation for the final enlightenment. Characters can go on world-saving (or destroying) adventures even at Essence 5.
* Both ''[[Cursed Treasure]]'' flash games have a ''very high'' level cap, but the highest level you'd ever want is Level 41, as that's the minimum level needed to max out all the skills. However, the most EXP gained from a single map is nearly 1,700 (at least, that's the case for the Level Pack), and since EXP needed for the next level is current level x 100 ,<ref>for example, EXP needed for Level 18 is 17 x 100 = 1,700</ref>, that means repeating that map many, many times. Worse, you'll likely get a Brilliant rating on all the maps way before maxing out all your skills!
* Cheaters in [[Progress Quest]] [http://progressquest.com/knoram.php?cheaters=1 indicate] a memory-allocation-based level cap of 2^31, possibly [http://progressquest.com/oobag.php?cheaters=1 amended] to 2^15; a lower one for non-cheaters might exist, but reaching level 99 [http://forum.progressquest.com/viewtopic.php?t=9472 requires] over 20 real-life years of continuous "play" (in a game launched in 2001), so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
* In Third Person Shoot MMO "[[S4 League]]" reaching level 100 and "S4" rank requires 63,703,100 EXP. The most experience you can gain from a 30 minute match is 1280 exp so it is estimated that you would need over 1036 days of continuous nonstop optimal playing. Of course, Alaplaya has included an ''[[Anti-Poopsocking]]'' that would cut off all exp and pen gains after playing 8 hours per day. Luckily levels don't matter at all obtain weapons which are given out for free or purchased at the shop for extremely cheap prices. The only things that are affected by levels are the channels players can participate in and clothes that change the appearance of the player. All clothes give the same bonuses so levels stop mattering at all after level 20.
* In ''[[Anachronox]]'', the maximum level is 99. Reaching this level, however, is nigh-impossible. Enemies don't usually respawn, so you can't kill them over and over for experience. Add on to that the fact that the game uses [[Dynamic Difficulty]], and it's basically a useless cap.
* ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'' has the usual level cap of 99, but the endgame level is around ''80'', higher than pretty much every other game with that cap. You'll also want to hit the cap for some [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]es.
* ''[[The Witcher]]'' has a level cap of 50, yet reaching this level requires far more experience than you would get from completing every quest and killing every boss. Getting anywhere above level 40 in a full playthrough is not only time-consuming, but unnecessary, since you gain [[Anti-Grinding|less experience]] from killing enemies per level and you'll have gained enough talents to comfortably finish the game well before then, anyway.
* ''[[Halo: Reach]]'', while having the average-ish 50 ranks, requires 20 ''million'' experience points to hit the level cap, the distance between rank 49 and 50 being 3 and a half million alone.
Line 104:
* The obscure [[PS 1]] JRPG ''[[Guardian's Crusade]]'' had a level cap of ''65535'', even though you'd probably be facing the end boss at around level 50. The reasons for this have been lost in the mists of time.
* Played with by the [[Call of Duty]] franchise, starting with ''Call of Duty 4: [[Modern Warfare]]'' (well, the console versions). Players are able to level up (the cap is different for each game), unlocking new weapons, support equipment, and [[RPG Elements|Perks]] as they go. At the maximum level, the player has the option to [[Self-Imposed Challenge|"Prestige"]], reverting to level 1, essentially starting again. Later games use this to unlock unique cosmetic elements and extra Custom Class slots, but the early games simply let you start climbing the ladder again, up to five times, not really gaining much of anything for your trouble.
* If there is a cap in ''[[Dungeons of Dredmor]]'' no-one has found it yet , you can comfortably beat the game in around the mid 20 range and you stop gaining stats from your levels if you don't have anywhere to spend your skill points, so even if you grind, your level ups become pointless at around the 30+ mark. At ridiculously high levels[[media:WTF_LEVEL_CAP_784WTF LEVEL CAP 784.jpg|link]], the XP bar will begin freaking out and demand more XP than a player is ever likely to gain across all their characters and then start rolling back to zero if you keep going. The jump from 98 to 99 alone takes 197828720 XP. The game just was not built with anyone reaching those kinds of levels in mind.
* ''[[Labyrinth of Touhou]]'' can be beaten with characters in the 100+ range. The post game [[Expansion Pack|Plus Disk]] content will probably require a level upwards of 500. The actual level cap is far higher than that.
* ''[[EVE Online]]'' has close to 400 skills, which while only have 5 levels each, can take upwards of a month or more to max each skill.
* In [[Sequence]] the [[Bonus Boss]] is typically beaten and the game [[100% Completion|100% completed]] around the mid to late twenties depending on your luck with item drops. The technical level cap is 34, after which it takes ''ten billion'' experience points to reach the next level and being insane enough to actually reach it would probably cause the game to crash.
* The level cap in ''[[Soul Blazer]]'' is 50. That sounds low, but the amount of experience required to get there is impractically high; you have to reach the cap of 99,999,999 (that's one less than one hundred million), when the strongest enemies give a mere 4,000. For comparison, level 25 requires a total of 150,000 experience -- andexperience—and at that point your attack and defense are the highest they can get without accessories, and your HP bar has already reached its maximum length and changes color instead to signify additional HP.
* [[Parasite Eve (video game)|Parasite Eve]] has a weird case of this. The cap is 99, but you learn your last ability in the early 30s, and the high 30s require a ridiculous amount of EXP (around ''200,000!''). However, once you reach level 38, level requirements become far, ''far'' lower (a mere 4,500 EXP).
** It's also and odd case since leveling up only increases your HP and other base stats by a few points. The majority of your stats come from tweaking your weapons and armors, which they can all be capped to 999.
Gethbot
Bots
10,856

edits

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1245938"