History Main / DoWellButNotPerfect

* This is basically what was the accusation by some conspiracy theorist F1 fans against Ferrari in 1999, particularly after the infamous Nurburgring GP. The first driver of the team was Michael Schumacher, who came in 1996 with a big deal from the sponsors and many new talented technicians tied to his reputation. However, in 1999 he got a broken leg mid-season and the goal to win the drivers championship shifted to the second driver Eddie Irvine, who was not as talented nor sponsor-backed up, but still managed to enter the struggle for the title after Schumacher's injury - and even briefly led the championship at some point. During the Nurburgring GP, the mechanics didn't find a tyre for Eddie Irvine while pit stopping, making him lose time and the race lead (meaning precious points lost to the rival Mika Hakkinen who ultimately won the title). This was so shockingly penalizing that some people couldn't believe it was a genuine mistake and started to accuse Ferrari of deliberate self-sabotage, simply because the humble Eddie Irvine was not supposed to be the one winning the long awaited title after 20 years. Reason: the team was built around Schumacher, the entire management invested a lot to put him and only him in the conditions of winning the title, everything gravitated around his persona even after certain unsportsmanship cases such as Jerez 1997, simply because he was the best driver in F1. In case of an Irvine's victory, Schumacher himself might have left, seeing as he wasn't anymore the star around which the team revolved (unless dropping Irvine, which would have been a public relationship nightmare if a world champion). His hypothetical departure would also have meant that many excellent engineers and designers tied to him would have left as well, not counting many sponsors that hugely financed the team only because of him. This suspicion was reinforced by some photos of Schumacher partying with Mika Hakkinen and Mclaren-Mercedes personnel to celebrate their championship win, which was seen as him happy that Irvine didn't win. The accusations were far-fetched, as in the last two races Schumacher returned to racing and helped a lot Irvine, even allowing him to win the Malaysian grand prix. However, the idea that Irvine winning the drivers championship might have been proved detrimental in the long term for the team was not far-fetched. Schumacher and Ferrari later established a dominant cycle winning five championships in a row, which was possible only because of the synergy within the team, with the German driver as the undisputed leader.

* ''Literature/TheScar'': Wielders of the Maybe Sword, which simultaneously hits from every ''possible'' angle the sword could be swung, have to be good at swordfighting, else the Maybe Sword will also hit the wielder in every possible outcome where they'd accidentally hit themselves. However, if the wielder gets ''too'' good at swordfighting the sword ironically becomes less effective, as the wielder will stop using sub-optimal attack options and thus the possible outcomes of every swing are reduced.

** The first game's third case has this happen to [[spoiler: Celestia Ludenberg]]. Their plan involves getting an airtight alibi by being involved with the investigation at every stage and providing an OrgyOfEvidence against her frame-up victim. When they [[INeverSaidItWasPoison run their mouth a bit too often]], the other students start to get suspicious of how many coincidences were involved to place them at every single crime scene with some sort of evidence.]]

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'': In the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E11HowHermesRequisitionedHisGrooveBack How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back]]", Hermes is given only four minutes to [[ImpossibleTask sort through thousands of cylinders]]. He succeeds, but the head bureaucrat ''demotes'' Hermes, all because he finished with one second to spare, and states that [[ObstructiveBureaucrat a good bureaucrat]] never finishes early.

* In ''Fanfic/ValkyrieOnFire'', Glimmer explains that she relied on this philosophy when going into the Games, justifying her score of 8; as she explains to Katniss and Peeta during their alliance, 8 is good enough to show that she deserves to be with the other Careers, but it's not so good that they'll be paying particularly close attention to her before the final battle.

* In ''Fanfic/KimberlyTsGargoyles'', when Demona is invited to join the Ishimura Clan, she has to remember to give the impression that she's struggling to learn Japanese even though she learnt the language when she lived in Japan a couple of centuries ago, as she doesn't want to reveal her true history to anyone in her new potential clan.
* In ''Fanfic/TheCuttingEdge'', this is basically Laurel's philosophy when she adopts a vigilante outfit when she starts going out with Ted and Isaac after being sent back in time. She deliberately adopts a more basic costume than her familiar attire, such as a ski mask to hide her face, so that she doesn't look like an experienced fighter.
* In ''Fanfic/FromMuddyWaters'', Izuku doesn't want to stick out lest his parentage be investigated and discovered. He tries to do well enough to ensure that he won't get expelled, but not enough to make his scores exceptional during Aizawa's exam. Aizawa catches onto this and chews Izuku out, threatening to throw him out on the spot if he plans on half-assing every test given to him.

* In the UsefulNotes/AtariST version of ''[[VideoGame/{{Lemmings}} Lemmings 2: The Tribes]]'', it's possible to save too many lemmings and make the game {{unwinnable}}. Saving the extra lemming may have been a glitch - at best, it requires extreme precision across multiple screen-widths.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'', ([[VideogameRemake or at least the PSP version]]), this trope is in full effect when leveling characters. Due to the...unique nature of the game's StatGrinding system, the odds of getting a stat boost after any one battle is directly proportional to the ''length'' of the battle. The idea, one suspects, is to prevent players from grinding low-level monsters indefinitely, but the end result is being punished for fighting battles as efficiently as possible, whereas if you artificially prolong the fight (a common strategy is to put enemies to sleep to prevent them from running away, then abusing fellow party members), the odds of getting a stat boost increase almost to the point of guarantee.

** Some German spies attempting to infiltrate the Americans were discovered because they knew the '''[[SecondVerseCurse second]]''' verse of the American national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner". Although the anthem has four verses, only one is ever played when used for a national anthem, and the lyrics used are those of the first verse. This anecdote of spies being exposed by knowing too much of the national anthem may have begun with the Isaac Asimov short story "No Refuge Could Save", in which the German spy is caught by his knowledge of the ''third'' verse.

** In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', one student at Unseen University aims to stay a student as long as he can and live off his student's allowance (left to him by a relative who was willing to pay for his education, but no more). He puts more effort into getting halfway between 88% (pass) and 80% (where he would lose the allowance) on the exam than most students put into simply graduating. One of his instructors catches on and gives him a final exam with just one question on it. The question being: What is your first and last name? Due to shenanigans, he switches exam questions with another student.

* In order to fight special opponents in ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoTsu'', you need to beat all the opponents on a floor while keeping your score below a certain point, or else you go to the next floor. However, you still have to do ''well'', as if your score is still too low to go to the next floor after defeating the special opponent, you get a NonStandardGameOver.

* [[VideoGame/SuperCrazyGuitarManiacDeluxe Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4]] has the boss battle with the God of Pirates, who only shows up while the player has an x3 or x4 combo multiplier. This is easy enough in [[DifficultyLevels amateur mode]], where x4 is the highest multiplier, but pro mode adds the x5 and x10 multipliers. Do too well in pro mode and you'll run right past the boss, but don't do well enough and you'll never reach him.

* In {{VideoGame/Patapon}} 2, hitting four perfect notes will send your Hero into {{Super Mode}}, and continuing to hit perfect four-note combos will keep it going. The problem lies in that they can't retreat while in it, so if your Hero s currently a melee class and the boss you're fighting uses a grab attack, the Hero is almost always the first one to go. This necessitates deliberately hitting an imperfect note so that your Hero can retreat when they need to.

** This is part of the BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil. The [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] is a servant of [[{{BigGood}} Hydaelyn]] and fights to prevent terrible calamities. A storyline in the ''Heavensward'' expansion, however, reveals that being ''too'' good at this results in Light aether growing out of control into a flood of light which annihilates all life in its path. The Warriors of Darkness are heroes from a world where this is in the process of happening, and the theme comes up again in ''Shadowbringers'' when the Warrior must become a Warrior of Darkness themselves. By the same token, the Ascians, servants of the dark god [[GodOfEvil Zodiark]], are trying to bring about the calamities which the Warrior is trying to prevent in order to free Zodiark. There is already an example of a world which fell completely into darkness as a result of them being too successful, creating a realm called "The Void" which their god has no use for.

* While the end goal of ''VideoGame/KaijuAGogo is'' to make every city bend the knee to you, there are times when it's preferable to lay off on a city and let it rebuild so that you can come back and re-harvest resources. Once a city surrenders it will give a monthly income, but you can't smash it up for resources any more.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Dawn, Ash's traveling companion in Sinnoh, struggles early on to compete in the Coordinator Circuit because she's too focused on perfecting her performance, and not on having fun with her Pokémon. This winds up causing her to fail to clear the qualifying round--twice--despite her efforts, because the Pokémon giving those performances go unseen. Her {{Friendly Rival|ry}} Zoey points out that Dawn needs to loosen up and have fun. Dawn takes that advice to heart and does much better in her contests.

* [[Main/StorytimeAnimators Swoozie]] intentionally toucched upon this in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9mq7B3paOk Cheating in High school]] video. He had a cheating ring of four people. Swoozie not only mentioned cheating for a "B" on the first test, but he also participated in the class to deflect suspicion.

This trope can be {{invoked|Trope}} by players, usually because [[SecondPlaceIsForWinners the rewards for 'well' is better than the one for 'perfect']]. This makes sense, in a way -- if the game thinks you're having difficulty it might [[DynamicDifficulty give you stronger items and power-ups to compensate]], but of course this then leads to people {{deliberate|UnderPerformance}}ly playing worse to get these bronze and silver awards. Alternatively, in games with MultipleEndings which tend to have one designated as the GoodEnding shown only to perfect players and alternate ones shown to well players, players might play worse to see what those said alternate endings are.

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'': In the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E11HowHermesRequisitionedHisGrooveBack How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back]]", Hermes is given only four minutes to [[ImpossibleTask sort through thousands of cylinders]]. He succeeds, but the head bureaucrat ''demotes'' Hermes, all because he finished with one second to spare, and states that a good bureaucrat never finishes early.

** The Pipe Maze level has a minigame where you jump on Goombas to win flower points. Score at least 20 points and you'll win a flower tab. However, the next time you play, you MUST score at least two extra points higher than your previous attempt in order to win again. If you scored more then twenty, this is still the case, and you'll have to score two more points the next time you play, so the best strategy is to stop and stand still once you've reached 20 points, beating your score little by little each time to continue earning victories.

* The AI in ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'' works on a principal like this, where it is much more aggressive in the first two laps but then dials itself back and uses less items in the final one, to make the early parts of the race much more hectic and challenging but still give you a fair chance at winning.

* Exploding straight out of the gate in ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}} 99'' can backfire on you quickly if you're too aggressive. This is because of the targeting system, which allows, among other things, allows players to attack their attackers and people with the most Badges. Scoring a lot of [=KOs=] early can help you earn quite a bit of Badges, but this gives any number of the other 98 players the opportunity to start ganging up on you if you aren't prepared to fight back.

* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' has an [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe]] GameShow in which points are awarded for correctly answering more questions than one's adversary in certain rounds. But if one answers every question correctly, one is judged to be [[AcceptableTargets a geek]], and is humiliated by receiving a geek "prize". The points awarded are the same.

** Invoked in "Show 'Em All" -- the Junkman pulls off a major heist without a hitch, then lives a life of luxury while everyone wonders who was the brilliant criminal who committed the robbery. However, he becomes frustrated at not getting recognition for the heist, especially since the public assumes he must have been caught for another crime. He decides to repeat the robbery again, but with deliberately-included mistakes, so he can get captured and be recognized for the first heist.