History Main / NoStatAtrophy

[[AC:DatingSim]]

* ''ShiraOkaSecondChances'' decreases points in skills that aren't necessary for the particular activity you're doing each week (i.e. if you choose to study art and literature, you may receive a slight decrease in your math skills until you choose math as your next activity), so it's important to try to switch up your activities every week to keep from falling behind.

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[[AC:Miscellaneous Games]]

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* MLB The Show, in the "Road to the Show" mode, if you don't work on something every two months, your ability will begin to decrease.

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* ''[[GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas GTA: San Andreas]]''. Physical exertion will consume the character's energy, first in the form of his reserves of body fat. If that is used up, his muscles will start to decay, making him weaker.
** This is also an example of why it's rarely used. Many gamers complained about having their wanton violence, setting things on fire and parachuting off of high buildings interrupted by mandatory visits to the nearest restaurant. It was removed in Grand Theft Auto IV despite it being the most realistic of the series otherwise, possibly due to complaints.

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* In ''FinalFantasyXI'', you can lose experience points (and levels if you lose enough XP) through death. Crafting also has skill decay: you can level all crafting skills to 60, but you can only level 4 crafting skills to 100 (i.e. you have 160 more skill levels available). If you try to take a crafting skill beyond 60 after using up all your 60+ skill levels, one crafting skill would lose a level for every level you gained.

* In the original version of ''FinalFantasyII'', building up magic would reduce your weapon abilitys and vice versa, but this was removed in the GBA version.
* In ''FinalFantasyX'', some Blitzball players would actually ''lose'' stats on some level-ups. Extremely minor and rare, however.
** Also in ''FinalFantasyVIII'', where increasing your affinity with a Guardian Force to summon it faster came at the expense of losing affinity with others.
** In ''FinalFantasyIV'', the old sage Tellah increases his Intelligence and Spirit when he levels up, but his Strength and Stamina decrease. This is meant to simulate the effects of his old age.
** ''FinalFantasyV'' has a status ailment called "Aging" which weakens the character. Fortunately, it's not as permanent as the name of the status ailment implies.

* In ''{{GURPS}}'' your stats drop as you age. Technically you skills fade if you don't use them but that's usually a bit of book-keeping that no one finds necessary.

* In the latest editor of the BattleTech RPG both physical and mental stats start to drop past middle age. Additionally the character will eventually receive the Glass Jaw (increased vulnerability to damage and fatigue) and the Slow Learner (increased exp cost for all skills) traits. [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Clan]] characters even take negatives to their Reputation to reflect the ageist sentiments within their society. All of these can be countered by spending experience but eventually characters will see a slip in their performance to the point that they die of old age when their BOD hits zero.

* ''ShiraOkaSecondChances'' decreases points in skills that aren't necessary for the particular activity you're doing each week (i.e. if you choose to study art and literature, you may receive a slight decrease in your math skills until you choose math as your next activity), so it's important to try to sikwtch up your activities every week to keep from falling behind.

* The H-Game ''TrueLove'' had several stats which would influence random encounters and events, if you didn't keep these up then you'd be slacking off and miss out on some [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean interesting plot]].

* In ''{{Darkstone}}'' characters can and will age, and once you hit a certain age your stats begin to decrease. There are potions in the game which can reduce your age to make you younger and stronger, but they are extremely rare and hard to find.

** In ''FinalFantasyIV'', the old sage Tellah loses stats that seem to deal with physique (Strength and Stamina) every time he levels up. His Intelligence, Spirit, and fortunately, his HP still goes up.

* In ''SagaFrontier 2'', Wil Knights loses half of his stats due to old age in his granddaughter Ginny's scenarios, but they can be built back up via prodigious grinding.

* In the ''{{Mario}}'' [[GoKartingWithBowser sports game]] ''Mario Tennis: Power Tour'', not leveling skills would make them gradually decrease.

* In ''FinalFantasyXI'', you can lose experience points (and levels if you lose enough XP) through death; also, if you attempt to level one craft well past 60 before levelling another well past 60, the first craft's skill will eventually be reduced to 60.

[[AC:MMORPGs]]

* In ''[=~Sid Meier's Pirates~=]!'', swordfighting and dancing become noticeably more difficult as your pirate ages.

!!Examples:

[[AC:RolePlayingGame]]
* ''TheElderScrolls'' games have this in abundance. You increase skill by using them, paying for training or using items that increase skills. Increases in physical stats depend on using skills connected with these stats. Running around a lot will increase your running skill and subsequently your speed stat. Even if the character remains bone idle for months of game time, they will never decrease. The only way to permanently decrease stats in-game is to commit a crime and go off to hard labour, which will make character stats decay slightly. Some players actually use this as an exploit to reach higher character levels than would be possible without it.
** Hard labour? In ''Oblivion'' at least, the implication is that you're doing diddly squat during your jail time, making this an aversion.

* Starting in DF2010, ''DwarfFortress'' implements a very rough system of skill decay: a dorf who doesn't use a skill for a while will become "rusty", and then "very rusty". Most effects of this aren't known, but it is known that a dorf who stays "very rusty" for too long will suffer permanent experience loss in that skill.

* ''GTA San Andreas''. Physical exertion will consume the character's energy, first in the form of his reserves of body fat. If that is used up, his muscles will start to decay, making him weaker.
** This is also an example of why it's rarely used. Many gamers complained about having their wanton violence, setting things on fire and parachuting off of high buildings interrupted by mandatory visits to the nearest restaurant. It was removed in Grand Theft Auto IV despite it being the most realistic of the series otherwise, possibly due to complaints.
* In the original version of ''FinalFantasyII'', building up magic would reduce your weapon abilitys and vice versa, but this was removed in the GBA version.
* In ''FinalFantasyX'', some Blitzball players would actually ''lose'' stats on some level-ups. Extremely minor and rare, however.
** Also in ''FinalFantasyVIII'', where increasing your affinity with a Guardian Force to summon it faster came at the expense of losing affinity with others.
** In ''FinalFantasyIV'', the old sage Tellah loses stats that seem to deal with physique (Strength and Stamina) every time he levels up. His Intelligence, Spirit, and fortunately, his HP still goes up.
** ''FinalFantasyV'' has a status ailment called "Aging" which weakens the character. Fortunately, it's not as permanent as the name of the status ailment implies.
* Some tabletop RPG systems, such as ''DungeonsAndDragons'': Characters can age, decreasing their physical stats while increasing their mental ones, and there are many spells and monster abilities that can permanently drain statistics or even levels.
** ''OrderOfTheStick'' lampshaded an odd side-effect of this: since Wisdom is undeniably a mental stat, and therefore increases when you age, and since perception-type skills use your Wisdom stat, your vision and hearing actually get ''better'' with age, as opposed to real life.
** However, skills rarely decay so if you keep training at a faster rate than you're losing stat points you can still be the best swordfighter in the universe even if you can barely stand up.
*** At least until you die of old age.
** The XP penalty seems to be a nod to this trope, although it's not related to aging. In 3rd edition, if you have levels in two classes and neither is favored for your race, you receive a 10% experience penalty. The assumption is that when you're not adventuring, you're training to keep up your skills, and this becomes more difficult if you're training in multiple disciplines.
* In ''[=~Sid Meier's Pirates~=]!'', swordfighting and dancing become noticeably more difficult as your pirate ages.

* ''{{Realmz}}'' always had character aging, but it didn't use to have any effect. In version 5, each race was given age groups (youth, young, prime, adult, senior) which alter stats when a character enters that age group. In order to avert whining from players, characters past their race's maximum age didn't die, but instead merely got a large penalty on XP gains as a hint that the character should be retired.
* In ''{{Darkstone}}'' characters can and will age, and once you hit a certain age your stats begin to decrease. There are potions in the game which can reduce your age to make you younger and stronger, but they are extremely rare and hard to find.
* In ''{{Nethack}}'' stats can be exercised and abused, causing them to rise and fall accordingly. For example, starving makes you feel weak, eventually causing your strength to deplete. However, losses due to abuse are considered the same thing as stat drains from monsters, and can therefore be "cured" in certain ways.
** Memorizing a spell from a spellbook imparts it to memory for a fixed amount of time, after which is must be re-memorized. In the spin-off ''Slash'EM'', however, reading a spellbook commits it to memory for a much shorter amount of time, but every time you cast the spell boosts how long it will stay memorized, so a spell you use all the time will only need to be memorized once, while spells that are rarely used will quickly fade from memory.

* In ''SagaFrontier 2'', Wil Knights loses half of his stats due to old age in his granddaughter Ginny's scenarios, but they can be built back up via prodigious grinding.
* In the ''{{Mario}}'' [[GoKartingWithBowser sports game]] ''Mario Tennis: Power Tour'', not leveling skills would make them gradually decrease.
* As far as aging goes, ''FinalFantasyTactics'' kept track of the ages of characters by how many calendar years had passed since the game began. If you spend a lot of time traveling and battling, the three-year-old Prince Orinas may be 20 by chapter 2, but he's still an infant as far as the story (and his appearance) is concerned.
** A similar situation in FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles. You may have played the game to year 157, but your character's appearance- that of a 12-15 year-old- doesn't change at all.
* The H-Game ''TrueLove'' had several stats which would influence random encounters and events, if you didn't keep these up then you'd be slacking off and miss out on some [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean interesting plot]].
* [Ultima Online] averts this, to the point that while the game was popular a number of people paid for people to play their characters while on vacations or business trips to avoid losing grand master status.

* In {{GURPS}} your stats drop as you age. Technically you skills fade if you don't use them but that's usually a bit of book-keeping that no one finds necessary.
* Played with in the {{MS Paint Adventures}} story ''{{Problem Sleuth}}''. As this fake Adventure Game becomes increasingly more of a fake RPG, there are only three [[StatMeters main stats]] for the three main characters - [[MrImagination "imagination"]], [[MeatShield "vim"]] and [[PureAwesomeness "pulchritude"]]. Each character starts out with one stat insanely high ("pulchritude" for Problem Sleuth, "vim" for Ace Dick and "imagination" for Pickle Inspector) and the others virtually empty. Throughout the "game", each time a character gains a level their stats go up - but ''only the one they're already proficient in''. Their other pitiful stats might go up by a point or two, stay even, or drop - at one point Pickle Inspector actually had ''negative'' vim.
* In LostKingdoms II, the main character has an affinity level for each of the seven elements of cards used. The maximum of said level was 8 (I think, it's been a while since I played), but no matter how much you tried balacing card usage, only one element could attain (and keep) this level at any given time. [[JustifiedTrope Somewhat justified]], since several maxed-out affinities would be too [[GameBreaker gamebreaking]].

* A variation: the Chao virtual pets in the SonicAdventureSeries have values and experience levels for each of their stats. Feeding them certain fruits and letting them play with animals ([[FunnyAnimal not including yourself]]) will raise their experience in some stats and lower them in other stats. However, the experience level of a stat cannot drop below what was necessary to previously level up that stat. This creates the interesting situation where it's actually not beneficial to be balanced in what items you give, instead spamming a whole lot of one item and then, once the stat in question levels up, spamming another.
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