History Main / ParabolicPowerCurve

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' borrows the LevelScaling system from ''TES''[='=]s ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' sister series which helps to Downplay this trope especially when compared to ''Oblivion''. Most enemies simply get replaced by tougher variants in high-level areas, and while some do directly scale with player level the curve is now a lot less exponential. Random loot also scales, as do many pieces of unique equipment (which makes it advantageous to wait to collect some of them, lest they become [[SoLastSeason less useful later on]]). It is still possible to grind non-combat skills and end up facing very difficult opponents relative to one's combat ability, although almost every skill has ''some'' combat utility if applied with creativity. Failing that, dungeons are locked to the level you were at when you first entered, so if you do find an area too difficult you can simply leave and come back later when you're more powerful, meaning the game never becomes straight-up unwinnable. Though due to how magic works in this game (doing a set amount of damage and having very little in the way to squeeze out more damage) spell slingers can find themselves being outmatched by tougher and tougher foes while doing the same damage they were doing levels ago.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' borrows the LevelScaling system from ''TES''[='=] Creator/{{Bethesda}} ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' sister series which helps to Downplay this trope, especially when compared to ''Oblivion'', but it is still present in certain respects. Most enemies simply get replaced by tougher variants in high-level areas, while some do directly scale with player level. Random loot also scales, as do many pieces of unique equipment (which makes it advantageous to wait to collect some of them, lest they become [[SoLastSeason less useful later on]]). It is still possible to grind non-combat skills and end up facing very difficult opponents relative to one's combat ability, although almost every skill has ''some'' combat utility if applied with creativity, so the game never becomes straight-up unwinnable. Though due to how magic works in this game (doing a set amount of damage and having very little in the way to squeeze out more damage) spell slingers can find themselves being outmatched by tougher and tougher foes while doing the same damage they were doing levels ago.

** Present in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]''. Due to the game's flawed LevelScaling system, it is very easy to stumble into EmptyLevels. Enemies level scale based purely on your level, but your actual strength in combat involves many factors besides just level (health gain per level, attributes, equipment, and skills). As such, leveling up with too many non-combat skills is likely to result in an insignificant bonus to your abilities, but all enemies still increase in strength. Even if you've been [[MinMaxing careful in your leveling]], damage caps at a certain point while health does not, meaning high-level fights become increasingly drawn-out with even standard foes becoming [[DamageSpongeBoss damage sponges]] without providing much challenge. While being a full blown Min-Maxing {{Munchkin}} is only necessary if you want to max out every single attribute, you're best served incorporating elements of it in order to avoid falling on the wrong side of the curve. Further, even if ''you'' level up effectively, most friendly [=NPCs=] do not (and/or have low-level equipment even at the highest levels), making {{Escort Mission}}s with non-essential [=NPCs=] very difficult as your allies get torn apart in seconds by enemies scaled to ''your'' level. This is particularly blatant in a quest where you protect (what's left of) the city of Kvatch. If you do this quest early on, as the game expects you to, the CityGuards fighting alongside you are apparently being terrorized by the goblin-like Scamps, who don't do much besides fling slow-moving, weak fireballs. Postpone it until you're level 20 or so and the guards' reaction will finally look appropriate, now that they are facing humanoid crocodiles, magma golems, and demonic sorcerers.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' borrows the LevelScaling system from ''TES'' Creator/{{Bethesda}} ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' sister series which helps to Downplay this trope, especially when compared to ''Oblivion'', but it is still present in certain respects. Most enemies simply get replaced by tougher variants in high-level areas, while some do directly scale with player level. Random loot also scales, as do many pieces of unique equipment (which makes it advantageous to wait to collect some of them, lest they become [[SoLastSeason less useful later on]]). It is still possible to grind non-combat skills and end up facing very difficult opponents relative to one's combat ability, although almost every skill has ''some'' combat utility if applied with creativity, so the game never becomes straight-up unwinnable. Though due to how magic works in this game (doing a set amount of damage and having very little in the way to squeeze out more damage) spell slingers can find themselves being outmatched by tougher and tougher foes while doing the same damage they were doing levels ago.

* In the ''[[ChooseYourOwnAdventure Fighting Fantasy]]'' books, players have to determine Skill, Stamina, and Luck scores at the beginning. Normally, the higher these are, the better. In ''Magehunter'', however, due to body-switching, it's an advantage to start with the lowest Skill and Stamina scores possible.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' had some class combinations run into this, while others didn't. Due to how the LevelScaling worked, classes who leveled up by using non-combat skills (like Speechcraft) would inevitably get into encounters with creatures who [[EverythingTryingToKillYou weren't interested in talking things out]], whereas combat-oriented classes weren't so burdened because they spent their levels killing things. Likewise, the attribute bonuses for a given level-up could be messed up by leveling up with skills governed by the wrong attribute (like a mage getting bonuses for the [[DumpStat Personality attribute]] instead of [[MagicIsMental Intelligence and Willpower]] because they trained up Illusion magic, a Personality based skill). Also, while enemies scaled with the PC, many allied characters either didn't have this scaling, or had the same low-level equipment even at the highest levels. Because friendly characters [[ArtificialStupidity behave like suicidal lemmings on crack in combat]], escort missions became increasingly difficult at high levels, with the highest level players having to constantly heal/shield their allies, nuke all the enemies in the area with custom Destruction spells before the battle could even begin, or sedate their TriggerHappy allies with Illusion magic until the battle was over to keep them from committing suicide by joining the fight. The good news it that aside from Martin (who at least can heal himself, levels with the player, and gets good equipment), there are almost no instances where losing NPC allies makes the mission unwinnable, though it often does leave the player to fight all the high-level enemies alone.
** Another issue came with inconsistent scaling. Damage, both of 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, which made certain enemies much harder unless the player resorted to a GameBreaker like 100% Chameleon or the best alchemy poisons, which could make the game too easy, instead.

* While it isn't completely fatal, larger bombs and faster fuses can make it very difficult to avoid killing yourself in ''VideoGame/BomberMan''.
* 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 ''VideoGame/{{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.)

* ''VideoGame/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'', being ''heavily'' inspired by ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'' has the same issue.

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* The ''FireEmblem'' games and many of their cousins, some of the units have this problem. You can eventually build some of your characters to the point where they can one-shot most enemies easily, at which point they become nearly impossible to keep alive. What happens is, an enemy will move into position and attack. He'll get blown away on the counterattack, but the character will still take some damage. Once the attacker dies, the space he currently occupied is now free and another enemy will move into it, swing for some damage, die on the counterattack, etc. Repeat six or seven times a turn and many characters, particularly the more glass cannon sorts, can end up dead. It is particularly obnoxious with mages, who can easily kill many melee units (due to their low resistances) but having low defense against physical attacks themselves, can easily put themselves in this situation. Some very powerful units, however, either have so many hit points, such high defenses, or are so likely to dodge that they annihilate groups of enemies single-handedly.

* As with the ''Manga/DragonballZ'', 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.

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* As with the ''Manga/DragonballZ'', 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.

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Contrast EliteTweak. Compare EmptyLevels, where it's all downhill from the start, and LowLevelAdvantage, where while gaining levels does make your character stronger, there are still benefits to staying low-leveled. [[IThoughtItMeant Unrelated to]] LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, which is about a parabola opening upward rather than downward... though the experience of playing a fighter in a game geared to scale its difficulty alongside quadratic wizard growth can sometimes result in this. If the Parabolic Curve is applied to specific stats rather than leveling as a whole, it's DiminishingReturnsForBalance.

* Partially averted in ''GURPS'', all skill rolls are made by rolling 3 six-sided dice and comparing the total to the skill level - a roll lower than or equal to the skill level succeeds, but a roll of 18 is always a failure, so there appears little benefit in increasing any skill over the level of 17. However, there are at least three aversions to this in the rules:

* Zig-zagged in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3.0, 3.5, and TableTopGames/{{Pathfinder}}.

* The [[DifficultyByRegion US and EU releases]] of RPG ''{{The 7th Saga}}'' altered level-up stat gains waaay downward, resulting in lots of ForcedLevelGrinding. It also had boss battles with other characters [[DynamicDifficulty at the same level as yours]] - but with the ''old'' stat gain formula. If you leveled up ''too'' far, their stats would outmatch yours to an unbeatable degree.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' had some class combinations run into this, while others didn't. Due to how the LevelScaling worked, classes who leveled up by using non-combat skills (like Speechcraft) would inevitably get into encounters with creatures who [[EverythingTryingToKillYou weren't interested in talking things out]], whereas combat-oriented classes weren't so burdened because they spent their levels killing things. Likewise, the attribute bonuses for a given level-up could be messed up by leveling up with skills governed by the wrong attribute (like a mage getting bonuses for the [[DumpStat Personality attribute]] instead of [[MagicIsMental Intelligence and Willpower]] because they trained up Illusion magic, a Personality based skill). Also, while enemies scaled with the NPC, many allied NPCs either didn't have this scaling, or had the same low-level equipment even at the highest levels. Because friendly NPCs [[ArtificialStupidity behave like suicidal lemmings on crack]], escort missions became increasingly difficult at high levels, with the highest level players having to constantly heal/shield their allies, nuke all the enemies in the area with custom Destruction spells before the battle could even begin, or sedate their TriggerHappy allies with Illusion magic until the battle was over to keep them from committing suicide by joining the fight. The good news it that aside from Martin (who at least can heal himself, levels with the player, and gets good equipment), there are almost no instances where losing NPC allies makes the mission unwinnable, though it often does leave the player to fight all the high-level enemies alone.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' 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.
** The problem (or lack thereof) is based almost entirely on the player's class. If you spent your twenty levels [[ClassyCatBurglar being nice to people and stealing their stuff when they aren't looking]], the above is true when you get into areas where [[EverythingTryingToKillYou none of the entities around want to talk to you]]. If you're [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy a combat-oriented class]], you won't have the above problem, because you've spent twenty levels killing things.
** Regardless of what type of class you are the way stat increases were given forced the player to play in extremely specific ways. It was possible to weaken your character by gaining a level of "athletics" (ie, moving, so completely unavoidable) at the wrong time. In fact, to get the best stats possible, you would need to level up your 21 different skills in a very specific order (several of which raise by doing passive things like moving, jumping, getting hit).
** Also, NPC equipment never scales and they all have the artificial intelligence of a suicidal lemming on crack. Escort missions become difficult at level fifteen, borderline impossible at level twenty, and unwinnable at level twenty-five.
** 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.
*** Depending on class, there was a workaround: The Illusion school could, among other things, make people stop fighting, and could render them invisible. Long story short: if you were a master level illusionist, the easiest way to escort Mr. TriggerHappy was to '''sedate''' him, hide the body, then clear the area yourself before he woke up to commit suicide by joining the fight.
** 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 makes things too easy instead.

** Then there's ''Point Lookout'', whose Swampfolk and Tribals not only have the highest HP and DR of any human enemies despite their lack of armor, but their weapons are haxed to deal unblockable damage bonuses much like the ''Broken Steel'' Overlords. What's worse Point Lookout Tribals and Swampfolk carry double-barrel shotguns that do +35 damage '''per pellet'' for a total of 400 hit points if all 9 pellets hit. Yippee.

** It gets even worse if you have the ''Broken Steel'' DLC installed. Once you pass level 15, some new monsters start showing up (Albino Rad Scorpion, Feral Ghoul Reaver, Super Mutant Overlord, etc...) who are much tougher and stronger than anything that came before them, with the sole exception of the Super Mutant Behemoth. Unlike the Behemoths however, these NuclearNasties ''respawn'' and these monsters are tough for a ''level 30'' character (someone who hit the level cap), let alone a level 15 player, and the Overlords are given an additional 35 points of damage with their Tri-Beam Lasers.

** It gets even worse if you have the Broken Steel DLC installed. Once you pass level 15, 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.
** Then there's Point Lookout, whose Swampfolk and Tribals not only have the highest HP and DR of any human enemies despite their lack of armor, but their weapons are haxed to deal unblockable damage bonuses.

* Due to a glitch, this can happen to seriously overleveled characters in ''PhantasyStarIV''. Once a character's level gets a few levels away from 100, their stats begin to drop sharply and they lose skills. This isn't an issue in normal play, however; you can beat the game at around level 45-50, and the experience required to get that high of a level is so massive that it takes very deliberate effort to get that high (XP requirements for a single level up when in the 90s range are more than the total XP need to be able to beat the game).

** ''OgreBattle 64'' also had one nasty problem with leveling. Dragons are particularly powerful enemies, and in order to get several powerful magical crests, you've got to defeat two dragons, and a dragon tamer (strengthens dragons) in a random battle in a certain place. If you don't do the battle early enough, the dragons are all extremely strong. Smart players would bring a strong multi-attacker, and two Pumpkin Heads (HP Halving attacks), but those are late game enemies, and only available by recruiting a special character.

* ''{{Geneforge}} 3'' gives the player canisters that can increase his attributes, but using too many makes him suffer [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity violent mood swings]]. Although this doesn't make the game unwinnable, eventually the player will not be able to take certain quests due to the character flying off the handle and attacking the quest givers. What makes this all the more annoying is the fact that the player was warned of this in the previous two ''Geneforge'' games, but due to GameplayAndStorySegregation nothing significant ever came of it. So when the warnings show up here for the third time, the player is likely to disregard them until past the point of no return.

* ''FinalFantasyTactics'' sort of falls under this trope. While LevelGrinding would allow you to easily win the normal missions, which all have a preset difficulty, it would actually make random battles far more difficult. This is because the enemies in RandomEncounters scaled to match both your level and the equipment you're supposed to have at that level. Players that overleveled would find themselves in the frustrating position of either having to save before around the overworld map and hoping not to get into a random battle, or training their characters in the thief class and stealing stronger gear from the few human enemies they encounter (a very tedious task, and quite difficult, considering how weak thieves are).

Contrast EliteTweak. Compare EmptyLevels, where it's all downhill from the start, and LowLevelAdvantage, where while gaining levels does make your character stronger, there are still benefits to staying low-leveled. [[IThoughtItMeant Unrelated to]] LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, which is about a parabola opening upward rather than downward. If the Parabolic Curve is applied to specific stats rathan leveling as a whole, it's DiminishingReturnsForBalance.

* Zig-zagged in ''TabletopGame/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.

** In all 5 games it will affect the ending. It's really hard to do a no-canister game, but it will make some bittersweet or even good endings better. In game 1 it lets you rejoin shaper society.

** Ditto ''BattleForWesnoth''. Paladins vs. walking corpses and magi vs. almost anything are particularly poignant examples.
* In the strategy RPG ''OgreBattle'', your units get universally more powerful with levels, however a crucial element of the game is keeping the populace's faith in you. If you defeat enemy units with higher-level units, that faith goes down because you look like a bully, so other characters help you out less along the way. This was meant to encourage players to level less, but it didn't work because the players instead identified and exploited loopholes in the system.

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Contrast EliteTweak. Compare EmptyLevels, where it's all downhill from the start, and LowLevelAdvantage, where while gaining levels does make your character stronger, there are still benefits to staying low-leveled. [[IThoughtItMeant Unrelated to]] LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards, which is about a parabola opening upward rather than downward.