History Main / ParabolicPowerCurve

* In the ultimate difficulty of ''PhantasyStarOnline'', the temporary invincibility after being hit is taken away unless you get completely knocked over. Thus, it's only possible to survive some attacks until your defense gets high enough.
* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' uses this intentionally. Stats granted by items (in particular, ratings that convert to a percentage increase in effectiveness like armor, critical strike chance, dodge chance, etc.) lose relative power as characters level up, encouraging players to seek better gear. This was actually done to avoid the problem of PowerCreepPowerSeep where, given a logical progression of gear at higher levels, players would eventually be running around with 100% crit, haste, dodge, etc., severely breaking game balance.

** It gets worse. Damage, both weapons and magical is capped (stats only go so high), but health is level dependent. So as you level beyond a certain stage, you and your enemies grow more durable, but your damage stays the same, leading to long, drawn out slug fests. Worse still, monster damage does scale with level, forcing the player to rely on a GameBreaker to kill anything at the higher levels, which in turn make things too easy instead.

** A large part of the problem was that while enemies scaled with the player's level, many friendly NPCs didn't. An early battle was designed to be fought by the player with a bunch of similar level allies against a bunch of similar level daedra. If the player levelled up a bit first, it instead became a bunch of low level allies being instantly slaughtered by high level daedra and leaving the player to deal with them all. Since this was an early part of the main story, it could become essentially impossible to progress at all. The same problem applied to the final boss, but since that was designed as a higher level fight to start with the friendly NPCs weren't quite so badly outclassed.

* Shmups with speed power-ups. One or two are usually necessary to dodge maneuver properly. Some, however, allow you to stack speed-ups far past the point when your ship handles with any sort of controlability. (The ''{{Gradius}}'' series is a prime example; though a few games have a method to speed down, they either cost many more power chips than to speed up or are only accessible at maximum speed.)

* Zig-zagged in DungeonsAndDragons 3.0, 3.5, and TableTopGames/{{Pathfinder}}. Spellcasters were subject to LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, and as such they just got better. However, the math of skill checks and saves broke down so that at high levels, saves meant to challenge characters who were good at the save simply blew away characters who were bad at those saves. Likewise, eating a high-level monster's Full Attack when you were a SquishyWizard usually made you very, very dead. As a result, at low level, characters could drop to a single unlucky hit or blown save. At mid-level, characters could contend with occasional bad luck and had a host of abilities, leading to them reliably outclassing their enemies. And at high level, RocketTagGameplay ensues and the nice cushion mid-level characters enjoyed against their enemies was gone. It wasn't that mid-level characters were stronger; they were objectively weaker. However, enemies and spells scaled in such a wonky way that mid-level characters were far less likely to be stomped flat by one attack or one failed save than any other characters.

* ''FinalFantasyVIII'' is another famous example. Your characters had levels and increasing them gave you slight bonuses to stats, but the enemies were scaled and got powerful much faster than the player. The player was supposed to use the Junction system - which provides a much better time to earnings ratio - to increase his own power, but obsessive grinders often didn't realise until it was too late.

* ''FinalFantasyVII'' had a multi-layered version of this: Sephiroth's stats during the final fight are determined by a number of flags activated by the player. The more of these flags activated, the stronger he became. Gaining levels above level 90 were among these flags, as were defeating [[BonusBoss either or both Ruby and Emerald Weapon]], [[GameBreaker acquiring Knights Of The Round]], [[InfinityPlusOneSword acquiring each character's best weapon]], and a couple other possibilities. Note that the fight is still fairly easy if you've achieved any of the above.

A design flaw that shows up mainly in {{RPG}}s, but also in other games where the main characters' abilities are supposed to improve over time. The Parabolic Power Curve is a situation where, beyond a certain point, increasing your character's power actually makes him less effective. Not CripplingOverspecialization, nor the milder situation where characters simply stop getting more powerful at a certain point. This is a situation where a character that should, on paper, be less powerful actually has an easier time with a given challenge.

* Zig-zagged in DungeonsAndDragons 3.0, 3.5, and {{Pathfinder}}. Spellcasters were subject to LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, and as such they just got better. However, the math of skill checks and saves broke down so that at high levels, saves meant to challenge characters who were good at the save simply blew away characters who were bad at those saves. Likewise, eating a high-level monster's Full Attack when you were a SquishyWizard usually made you very, very dead. As a result, at low level, characters could drop to a single unlucky hit or blown save. At mid-level, characters could contend with occasional bad luck and had a host of abilities, leading to them reliably outclassing their enemies. And at high level, RocketTagGameplay ensues and the nice cushion mid-level characters enjoyed against their enemies was gone. It wasn't that mid-level characters were stronger; they were objectively weaker. However, enemies and spells scaled in such a wonky way that mid-level characters were far less likely to be stomped flat by one attack or one failed save than any other characters.

Often shows up when a game uses elements of DynamicDifficulty, such as [[LevelScaling scaled encounters]], but doesn't get the balance right. Occasionally a designer will put this in a game deliberately, as a kind of AntiGrinding, but this is not wise as it tends to infuriate the players - especially if they've gotten so powerful that the game has become {{Unwinnable}}. Sometimes this can be defused by advertising it as a feature, but not always.

Contrast EliteTweak. Compare EmptyLevels, where it's all downhill from the start. [[IThoughtItMeant Unrelated to]] LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, which is about a parabola opening upward rather than downward.

[[AC: {{TabeltopGames}}]]

* In the [[{{Pokemon}} Pokemon games]] , while high level {{mons}} great are for battling trainers and Gym Leaders, unless it knows the move False Swipe, they're not very good at helping you catch wild Pokemon.

* As with the ''Manga/Dragonball Z'', example above, this happens in an episode of {{Series/Charmed}} where Paige magically grants Morris invincibility in which to stop a hostage situation. Unfortunately for him he [[PowerIncontinence can't turn it off]] and as the episode goes on Morris gets stronger and stronger, first he is impervious to bullets, then he starts pulling car doors off of his police car, then he accidentally tosses a criminal with his superstrength. At the end of the episode he sits in his wrecked office calling Paige and wishing for her to take it back. Then he crushes his phone in his hand.

** It gets even worse if you have the Broken Steel DLC installed. Once you pass level 20 some new monsters start showing up (Albino Rad Scorpion, Feral Ghoul Reaver, Super Mutant Overlord, etc...) who are much tougher than anything that came before them, with the sole exception of the Super Mutant Behemoth.

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' tones down the level scaling in the base game, but uses a "sine power curve" with the DLC's, each of which raises the level cap by 5.

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' tones down the level scaling in the main game, but plays this trope straight in the DLC's.

* Kinda happens in ''Manga/DragonBall Z'', surprisingly enough. During their time in the [[YearInsideHourOutside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], Goku and Gohan learn to remain in their [[SuperMode Super Saiyan]] forms either indefinitely, or for days at a time. While this is useful for fighting, as it saves them the time and energy required to transform, it leaves them too strong for normal household stuff. For example, they tend to accidentally crush mugs when they try to have something to drink. After the Cell arc ends, they stop using Super Saiyan as default, though they can still maintain it outside of a fight if they choose. High-school was awkward enough for Gohan as it was; bright gold hair would've only made things worse.

* Kinda happens in ''Manga/DragonBall Z'', surprisingly enough. During their time in the [[YearOutsideHourInside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], Goku and Gohan learn to remain in their [[SuperMode Super Saiyan]] forms either indefinitely, or for days at a time. While this is useful for fighting, as it saves them the time and energy required to transform, it leaves them too strong for normal household stuff. For example, they tend to accidentally crush mugs when they try to have something to drink. After the Cell arc ends, they stop using Super Saiyan as default, though they can still maintain it outside of a fight if they choose. High-school was awkward enough for Gohan as it was; bright gold hair would've only made things worse.

* ''TheElderScrolls 4: {{Oblivion}}'' raised quite a furor over this. Due to how the LevelScaling worked, it was reputedly easier to fight the FinalBoss at level 1 than at level 20.

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* ''{{Fallout 3}}'' does it as well. While completing quests gives you better and better perks, to the point that a BB gun in the hands of a level 30 character is better than a [[{{BFG}} minigun]] in the hands of a level 5, enemy health scales much faster and much farther than the increased damage you can do even with the best perks and weaponry. The major changeover starts to occur around the time Super Mutant Brutes replace most of the normal Super Mutants. After that, enemies with sky-high health become bog-standard. Some people build specialty characters who can still waste them, but this is difficult and takes a lot of knowledge of the game and usually just the right gear and tactics.

* Kinda happens in ''Manga/DragonBall Z'', surprisingly enough. During their time in the [[YearOutsideHourInside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], Goku and Gohan learn to remain in their [[SuperMode Super Saiyan]] forms either indefinitely, or for days at a time. While this is useful for fighting, as it saves them the time and energy required to transform, it leaves them too strong for normal household stuff. For example, they tend to accidentally crush mugs when they try to have something to drink. After the Cell arc ends, they stop using Super Saiyan as default, though they can still maintain it outside of a fight if they choose.

* Kinda happens in ''DragonBallZ'', surprisingly enough. During their time in the [[YearOutsideHourInside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], Goku and Gohan learn to remain in their [[SuperMode Super Saiyan]] forms either indefinitely, or for days at a time. ...While this is useful for fighting, it leaves them too strong for normal household stuff. For example, they tend to accidentally crush mugs when they try to have something to drink. ...After the arc ends, [[CanonDiscontinuity this is not brought up again.]]