History Main / Cap

Games are sometimes not even programmed to cap such counters when they should. They will dutifully add one to a value that can't properly go any higher, resulting in a kind of malfunction known as an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_overflow Integer Overflow]]. This is especially common with old games, because putting in a test for a maximum value would use memory and CPU cycles they didn't have to spare. An overflow might manifest as:

* The DS ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games have hard modes that will let you set a cap on how high your max level will reach. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' is the only one that actually lets you increase it up to 255...but only after you [[BraggingRightsReward beat the game on Hard with a level cap of 1]] or [[OldSaveBonus link the game with]] ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' .

** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee'': Normally, the Super Scope can only shoot a total of 13 projectiles, but it can be abused to generate [[http://www.ssbwiki.com/Infinite_Super_Scope_Glitch an infinite amount of ammo]], which is most likely due to an overflow.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'' multiplayer mode caps individual scoring [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urmpGPN_ldA at 30,000 points]].

** The games cap the number of coins a character (or team later) can hold at 999. It's easy to reach this in ''VideoGame/MarioParty3'' with [[BettingMiniGame Game Guy mini-games]] which can give you up to 64 times what you wagered, but even if you win thousands of coins you can only keep 999.

* ''VideoGame/ZooKeeper'' only displays a 6-digit score counter. This is in a game where it is possible to get up to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkaxSS_twMI 30,000,000 points in a single jump]]. The game internally keeps track of up to 99,999,990 points though.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyMysticQuest'' had a bug where the main character can cast Cure a few times on [[spoiler:the endboss, Dark King]] to increase its HP over the maximum allowable value. The enemy's HP overflows back around to -65,535, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HXVQhHnih8 killing it instantly]]. Ironically, entering the battle at a low level makes this overflow easier.

** There's a mix of this and OverflowError in the minigame about tennis returns. The on-screen counter will stop at 999 points, but internally this number wraps around to 0 each time it goes over [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 255]]. For example, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-sK6Pyjfcg if you returned 1002 balls, the game will write it as 231 points when the minigame is over]].
** Baseball runs cap at 99. Even if you score more, it will still display 99. Because of the 5-run mercy rule, you'll never see this unless you purposefully grind the visiting team score with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_klSTPX5Y4 two remotes]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnkE1a1QP0o TAS]].

* [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness World of Darkness]] live-action games, put damage caps on [=PCs=] in sanctioned {{LARP}}s. This was one of many fixes attempted to make the tabletop rules work in live-action, although in practice mid-powered characters hit cap very easily and high-powered characters were basically unaffected by any penalties.

* ''Webcomic/KidRadd'' plays with this trope, making sloppy programming of damage cap calculation a [[http://www.bgreco.net/kidradd/comic335.htm major plot point]].

* Damage caps usually come into play in ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' whenever characters enter into a world with a JRPG system, mainly because Alex is obsessive enough to have leveled his characters as far as they will go. In one particularly interesting example; a [[spoiler:Sorrow-possessed]] [[VideoGame/ChronoTrigger Lucca]] manages to break both her usual health cap (going from 999/999 to 0000/0000), and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'''s damage cap. However, she doesn't go past 9,999 by going into five digits, she does it by using four digits... in ''[[http://www.captainsnes.com/2004/07/22/532/ base sixteen]]''! [[note]] For those who don't want to work out the hexadecimal notation, "[=D6DB=]" comes out to 55003 points of damage.[[/note]] Lucca {{Lampshades}} this in a few comics: "But I did more damage to you than is even ''possible!''"

* Baseball stadium scoreboards have frequently been subject to caps, depending on the type of scoreboard used. Manually operated scoreboards usually only hold ten innings' worth of information, and are often limited to showing up to nine runs per inning; if ten runs or more score in an inning, it's usually displayed only with the last digit. Digital (non high-definition) scoreboards also tend to have caps that can only count up to nineteen runs and/or innings per team per game. An modern example of a capped digital scoreboard can be seen in [[https://youtu.be/N5oqi9zruyQ Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona]], where the New York Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves 20-6, but it looks like "0-6" due to the lack of that first "2".
* WebVideo/MittenSquad has a video about ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' DownloadableContent that increases the level cap: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuBzWfC_GE "Borderlands 2: Level 72 - Level Cap Increase | +11 Levels"]].

** ''VideoGame/MarioKartWii'': The game loops the timer after a while, allowing you to get insane times by waiting a few days with your Wii on and crossing the line finish ''just'' as it passes 0.

** The original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' has a maximum of 127 lives, due to the fact that the life counter is a signed byte. Going over 127 lives results in having ''negative'' lives, and thus getting game over the next time you die. Making matters worse is the fact that the life counter is only designed to display up to 20 lives, and getting any more than that causes your life count to be represented by random letters, punctuation symbols, and/or graphical tiles. Normally this isn't such a problem, considering you'd never get so many lives through normal gameplay, except through abusing glitches. However, collecting as many lives as possible becomes pretty much mandatory in ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels The Lost Levels]]'', because you're going to need every single one, and the first level in the game has a great opportunity for abusing the extra life trick.

** Much like the ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' life counter, the display for bucks for the original ''VideoGame/ToejamAndEarl'' game is also a signed byte. Going over 127 means you will have ''negative'' bucks.

* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'': The maximum amount of [[UniversalCurrency units]] a player can carry is 4,294,967,295.[[note]]This is stored as a 32 bit intiger value, which in hexidecimal is FFFF FFFF. In theory it's possible for Hello Games to make the cap higher by making it a 64 bit value instead, but really, [[MoneyForNothing what are you going to do with more than 4 billion units anyway]]?[[/note]]

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', all skills are capped at 100, although they can be fortified with equipment or potions above this.

** A couple of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'''s ultimate weapons can overflow the damage calculations. The game will compensate by inflicting insta-death on the target enemy (even the {{bonus boss}}es), which means that the Death Penalty Glitch is one of the more common ways of dealing with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ovxL1wdjtI Emerald WEAPON]].

*** The BonusBoss Neslug goes beyond the second damage limit with the Regen-like status it gains while it's in its shell, healing a ''six-digit amount of HP'' on some turns. [[ThatOneBoss AAAAAARGH!!]]

*** The [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2 sequel]] generally has 99,999 cap on all forms of damage, with DLC-only Valkyrie Lightning being the only one with the skill to increase it to 999,999: thus, the max damage achievement is lowered to 99,999 points of damage and the last form of the final boss only has slightly over 1 million HP, with the {{Bonus Boss}}es maxing out at 15.5 million.

* ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'': The Egg Dragon, a BonusBoss, has the largest amount of HP the game allows for. However, the developers obviously thought nobody would be silly enough to use a healing item on it, so they did not ensure that its HP could not exceed that number. As a result, you can easily defeat this boss by using a low-level healing item on it, thereby causing its HP to wrap around, then attacking it once. A pretty spectacular blunder in a game where killing bosses within a certain number of rounds would yield a nice item reward...

** In ''VideoGame/TouhouKoumakyouTheEmbodimentOfScarletDevil'', there is a limit of 640 bullets onscreen at once. Even when facing BonusBoss Flandre Scarlet, this isn't a problem (though ''"And Then Will There Be None?"'' can hit the cap during the late part of the first phase), but if you install one of certain fanpatches that make the game a lot harder, it can cause some of her attacks to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3zZZmap8Y exceed that limit and look rather odd]].

* Most Creator/NipponIchi games are notable for having nigh-unreachable damage caps (if you grind hard enough, you can eventually inflict millions, if not billions of points in damage. Eventually they can get so high that the game has to list them by K's rather than numerical digits), and rather high level caps, easily going into three and four digits. in fact, most {{Bonus Boss}}es in the ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series are at least at level two thousand, and it's very possible to bring playable characters' to 9,999. The true BonusBoss from Hell, Baal, originated as a level 4,000 badass. [[LensmanArmsRace Nowadays he's a level 9,999 badass with hitpoints in the billions]], and the game gets around its caps by making you fight '''5 of them at once.'''

** Before ''Disgaea 3'', enemy stats were never calculated with a level more than 9999, making most everything that isn't a BonusBoss easy for player characters who are level 9999. This changed so that the enemy stats could be based off levels higher than 9999, if enemy level multipliers pushed their level beyond that; even if the enemy's actual level is capped at 9999, the stats can be based off of a hypothetical level far beyond that.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' had most items stack at a maximum of 99. If you gained more of the same item, it would start a new stack, thus taking up more space in your inventory. Patch 4.2 changed the item stacking cap to 999, with the exception of ShopFodder which remains at 99. Damage caps out at 99,990, but that's only achieved by boss characters whenever you fail a mechanic or let the boss hit its enrage.

* All of From Software's "Soulsborne" games, including ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', and ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' use multiple stat caps. In each game, each stat will initially provide a relatively high return on investment. Then there will be a "soft cap," around 30 points, after which gains become smaller, then a second soft cap around 60. The final, hard cap for any given stat is usually 99. Since each stat increase represents one level, this leads to all of these games having an AbsurdlyHighLevelCap equal to 99x the number of stars, minus the stats a level 1 character starts with.

* The ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' series sets the damage cap at 999%. If you haven't already gone flying offscreen by ''that'' point, you certainly will now.
** That said, the game calculates the knockback caused by an attack before it sets your damage back to 999%. So you can have more than 999% damage, if only for a sixtieth of a second.
** The Super Scope in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee Melee]]'' can be abused to generate [[http://www.ssbwiki.com/Infinite_Super_Scope_Glitch an infinite amount of ammo]], which is most likely due to an overflow.
** In the [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU 3DS and Wii U games]] you can only make up to 89 Mii Fighters.

# '''Stat caps'''. The point at which a character's statistics can go no higher. In some games, characters' stats cap only at unfeasibly high levels, but in others (notably the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series) the caps are reachable at normal levels and thus are a big deal. Levels themselves often have a cap as well, which may or may not come before reaching other stat caps.

* The DS ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games have hard modes that will let you set a cap on how high your max level will reach. ''Videogame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' is the only one that actually lets you increase it up to 255...but only after you [[BraggingRightsReward beat the game on Hard with a level cap of 1]] or [[OldSaveBonus link the game with]] ''Videogame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' .

** The Super Scope in ''Melee'' can be abused to generate [[http://www.ssbwiki.com/Infinite_Super_Scope_Glitch an infinite amount of ammo]], which is most likely due to an overflow.
** In the 3DS and Wii U games you can only make up to 89 Mii Fighters.

** In the first ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', you were allowed an unlimited number of summons. In the sequel this was [[{{Nerf}} nerfed]] to a maximum of 5. That doesn't stop you from [[CharmPerson mind controlling]] an infinite number of monsters however.

** [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0001_6757.png Ditto with its]] SpiritualSuccessor VideoGame/ArmedPoliceBatrider

* Statistic caps in ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' are low enough that it's common to reach them by mid to lategame although enemies never come near them (unless you're playing Genealogy, Binding Blade/Radiant Dawn Hard mode or NMOTE/Conquest Lunatic mode). Later games in the series even allow the 2nd generation characters to have adjusted caps unnormal from their class.

* The world of ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'' works pretty much like an RPG game, complete with a stat window protagonist Naofumi can access to view his own stats as well as those of his allies and the monsters he faces. Naturally, this includes a couple of level caps:

* In ''LightNovel/AWildLastBossAppeared'', the highest CharacterLevel possible is level 1000. [[spoiler:This is an artificial limitation set by the goddess Alovenus, to ensure no one becomes powerful enough to break the world. Lufas and Benetnash were able to break through the goddess's restrictions and surpass that limit.]]

* The UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 pinball game ''Videogame/AlienCrush'' has a score cap of 999,999,900 points. If you manage to max it out, the entire table explodes and you are given the message [[AWinnerIsYou "Congratulations !! You are the greatest player"]]. After that, the game immediately takes you to the high score list for you to enter your initials.
** The SpiritualSuccessor, ''Videogame/DevilsCrush'', has a cap of 999,999,990 points. Reaching it will treat you to a very brief ending with a woman and a pinball.

* ''WebComic/KidRadd'' plays with this trope, making sloppy programming of damage cap calculation a [[http://www.bgreco.net/kidradd/comic335.htm major plot point]].

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' games cap the number of coins a character (or team later) can hold at 999. It's easy to reach this in ''Mario Party 3'' with [[BettingMiniGame Game Guy mini-games]] which can give you up to 64 times what you wagered, but even if you win thousands of coins you can only keep 999.

*** Kimahri becomes a TierInducedScrappy in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. While all characters are ultimately limited by the damage cap, they can overcome the 99,999 limit by attacking more than once through overdrives. Khimari is the only one who, even with his overdrive, cannot hit more than once.

* Wesbite/{{FanfictionDotNet}} stores the wordcount as a 24-bit integer. Fanfic/TheLoudHouseRevamped was the first fanfic to hit this cap, and as a result, nobody knows how long this {{Doorstopper}} is.

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': A few items in the game are sometimes listed for sale at an absurdly expensive 9,999 each, though there is no actual gold cap. Also, damage dealt in guaranteed {{One Hit Kill}}s is often quantified as some power of ten minus one; this is PlayedForLaughs in the True Pacifist ending (where it is used to exaggerate the effect of a kiss), but is used for increasingly excessive [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overkill]] in a [[KillEmAll Genocide Run]], culminating in an attack which fills the entire screen up with nines and is inflicted upon [[spoiler:the player]].

** In [[VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns the sequel]], instead of having the maximum HP at 65,535, the Egg Dragon's HP is a mere 60,000. [[AscendedGlitch The trick works anyway]].

* '''Designer Imposed Cap:''' A cap deliberately set by the designers, usually to keep play balanced or as an AntiHoarding measure. For example, you might be limited to carrying 15 bombs so you can't plow through the entire game throwing bombs at everything.

* In ''VideoGame/GranTurismo 3'', there's a glitch where if you do a wheelie with a tuned-up Escudo, the speedometer jumps to 2147483647 and locks up the game.

** More a BraggingRightsReward than anything, since you only needed 900,000 points for full tune. And of course, since the requisite is beating the first 10 levels of Bunta Challenge, it's safe to say that a lot of players ended up spending ''more'' money than they would've reaching full tune honestly.
* ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'': It might seem counterintuitive for a racing game, but going slowly in a TimeTrial will result in you hitting the time cap. The game's engine will not count any higher than ninety-nine minutes, fifty-nine-point-ninety-nine seconds (although subsequent lap times are still counted).
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart'' capped your time at 10 minutes and stopped moving after that.
*** ''VideoGame/MarioKart Wii'' loops the timer after a while, allowing you to get insane times by waiting a few days with your Wii on and crossing the line finish ''just'' as it passes 0.

* ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' originally put the cap on mesos (the game's currency) at 2,147,483,647; the cap has since been raised to 9,999,999,999. Many player-sold items cost [[UpToEleven even more than that]], necessitating real-money trades. Meanwhile, the original damage cap was 199,999; the current cap is 50,000,000, and with certain modifiers, it's possible to reach 110,000,000 damage as a certain class. This causes an interesting shift in utilities for classes, as some classes that are generally considered to be weak will turn out to out perform "strong classes" in a setting where both have achieved capped damage.

** ''VideoGame/Disgaea6DefianceOfDestiny'' goes UpToEleven, even for this series. Some of the highest damage recorded in-game has been somewhere within the ''sextillions'', with septillions being possible in a combo. Mana count for a character can be somewhere in the hundred trillions, HP and SP have been in the hundred Quintillions, and stats themselves can go into the trillions, if not quadrillions.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' had a money cap at 255, with no opportunity to increase it. Likewise, Link can only hold 8 bombs. He can later upgrade his bomb capacity to 12 and then 16 if he finds certain old men in dungeons and pays the 100 rupee fee to upgrade. Later games in the series had [[WalletOfHolding Wallet Upgrades]].

** Somewhat controversially, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' had a feature where if you open a treasure chest that contains more rupees than you can currently carry, you will simply put the rupees back into the chest to come back for later. Sounds good on paper, but it can hamper dungeon exploration as the player searches for which unopened chest contain a missing key, and rupee chests obstinately remain "unopened".