Split, as it covers several kinds.: Cap

The old thread for this seems to be lost. Anyway, Cap covers so many things in gaming that can be their own tropes: Point caps, level caps, damage caps, etc. Of course this would remain the Super-Trope, as games can't go to infinity, but the way they are handled matters differently.

edited 14th Feb '11 2:22:32 PM by DragonQuestZ

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Eh, I don't think it needs a split. It just needs folders. The page isn't that big, and there's not a big difference between a damage cap and a combo cap.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

It's not the size, but the form. And just because one form is similar doesn't mean they all are.

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No, they're all pretty much the exact same trope.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

No, the effects on the game are different.

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Nope. Not really. You hit a limit. You can't go over it. Same thing. Same results.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Not true Disgaea's stats are not capped at all [1]◊ the bonus boss has 400 million HP and nothing is stopping a player from having MORE than that except for grinding from what I understand.

[2] Video of someone doing 3 Trillion damage. 117725133012669X damage (the number actually went off the screen...)

edited 14th Feb '11 3:02:44 PM by Raso

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There'd still be de facto caps due to overflow, it just seems to have caps so high as to be functionally non-existent (Disgaea probably just uses 32 bits for each stat and allows up to a 64-bit damage value or something).

Everything a computer does has a "cap", so to speak. Computers can only store a number of finite size, or of finite precision, that said, a 64-bit value would be functionally uncapped.

edited 14th Feb '11 3:18:26 PM by Balmung

"Nope. Not really. You hit a limit. You can't go over it. Same thing. Same results."

Nope, I didn't mean that alone. There are other things that happen in the game than just those.

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Well, of course there are other gaming tropes, but they aren't about Caps. All of the different types of Caps could be the exact same definition with only the thing changing being what's capped.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The only one I could see splitting is inventory caps, since there is a logical error in being able to carry 99 potions and 1 antidote but not 100 potions.

The rest are either functionally the same trope or already split (Arbitrary Headcount Limit).

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Eh, even inventory caps aren't that different. It doesn't seem that logical that you can do 999 damage eight times in one round but you can't do 1000 either. It's just a fixed number you can't go over.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

"Well, of course there are other gaming tropes, but they aren't about Caps."

I didn't meant tropes. I meant specifically what happens with the different caps.

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Nothing happens different. You could change one word in a definition and you'd have the same trope. They're all the exact same thing.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

How does an effect on the game not mean anything to you?

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The trope is not about what it's limiting, only that you have a thing and it has a maximum value that it can't exceed. What the thing does does not matter.

"Only now, after being besieged by a flock of talking ponies, did he really understand what he'd lost. "

Your character level cap is not going to change how you play the game the same way a damage cap or inventory cap does.

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I'll back up shimaspawn on this one. Functionally, the difference between a skill cap and a money cap and a damage cap is...existent, sure, but not tropably distinct.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Again, the ways they have an impact on the game are not the same.

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Sorry, but, I, too, must say, a Cap is a Cap and the distinction is not tropable.

The way they impact on a game either not a trope or is its own trope. Damage points etc. etc.

In fact, let us not use "trope" for this one. Let's just use tool- a technical tool of the game is to cap something. This tool gets used for many different things, those things have different importances tied into what they are but really the issue for the cap that makes us note it as a tool is the same. (Long sentence there).

The page says "Once you've hit the cap for that thing, any other factors which would increase it beyond the cap may as well not have happened". Whether it be damage, inventory or score, the nature of the cap never changes.

edited 14th Feb '11 5:14:51 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

Agreed. Not distinct enough to split.

Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.

All caps are not created equal.

• Arbitrary Headcount Limit is a cap that limits your strategic options in combat and places more emphasis on individual character survival.
• A cap on your Magic Points imposes an ultimate limit on how many spells you can cast (and how much you can endure a Mana Burn or Mana Drain), even when it's more than enough for a single battle.
• A cap on your inventory may create an Inventory Management Puzzle.
• A money cap is rarely ever encountered unless it's deliberately upgradeable during the course of the game. In that case, it determines what you can and can't buy at stores, even if it won't have an effect on story progression or combat later.
• A damage cap is rarely even encountered during the normal story arc of the game.

edited 14th Feb '11 11:40:25 PM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Now that really depends on the game. The PS 1 and PS 2 Final Fantasy games all hit the cap with 0 effort. (working your way around that with multihit spells and such is the real key to games with a damage cap.)

edited 14th Feb '11 11:47:27 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

^ FF 7 through 9 are hardly what I'd call a majority sample of RP Gs. They're well-known examples, but that's not the same.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.