History Main / PowerCreep

*** In the early days of the game milling (sending a player's cards from the deck to the graveyard) was detrimental as you'd risk losing a key card or being decked out. Nowadays, so many cards have useful effects in the graveyard that milling your own deck has become a ''benefit'' rather than a cost.
*** Tokens at one point were of limited usefulness due to taking up space on the board and not being usable for a Tribute Summon, and some cards like Lava Golem specifically relied on giving a monster with negative effects to your opponent. Nowadays Link Summoning allows tokens to easily be removed, netting you a free Link Monster into the bargain, so giving them to your opponent is a very bad idea.

** Pokémon stat spreads slowly became more specialized as time went on. Those that could be seen as {{Lightning Bruiser}}s in ''Red and Blue'' became [[JackOfAllStats Jacks-Of-All-Stats]] as more MinMaxing was done by the designers. In ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', it reached its zenith with [[SuperMode Mega Evolutions]], which are explicitly designed to be on par with the series's OlympusMons with less stat points to go around. The Ultra Beasts in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' are like the Mega Evolutions in certain ways too, with some extreme and specialized stat differences--[[AbsurdlySharpBlade Kartana]], for instance, has one of the highest Attack in the game but its Special Defense is awfully poor.

** ''Pokémon'' downplays this with many monsters from early versions of the game also frequently get new moves, abilities, evolutions and other changes to mechanics that make them much more playable. One such change was dividing all attacks into being physical or special, rather than one or the other based on its type. This allowed many Pokémon to make better use of their attacking stats.[[labelnote:*]]For example, the Kingler line has high Attack power, but since Water-type attacks were originally special in nature (thus running off its lower Special Attack), Kingler's SecretArt Crabhammer wasn't very useful. From Gen IV onwards, Crabhammer is considered a physical attack and runs off Kingler's Attack stat, allowing it to do a lot more damage.[[/labelnote]] The above-mentioned [[SuperMode Mega Evolution]] mechanic was also mostly given to older Pokémon.

** The advent of D-Weapons, Superheavy vehicles and Gargantuan Creatures. All of these introduced new rules on top of existing rules, because they were suppose to be so powerful that the current statistic system couldn't accurately represent them without exceptions. D-Weapons in particular, as they were supposed to be surpass the Strength value which only goes ''up to 10''. In 7th edition, they were all incorporated into the ''base rulebook'', whereas previously they were exclusive to the Apocalypse supplement.

This makes sense, [[MoneyDearBoy at least from a monetary point of view]]. New-added-content requires people to actually buy it and use it, but why would they use their money to buy some obscure thing they don't know how to use (yet) if [[{{Whoring}} they can keep on using]] their awesome InfinityPlusOneSword by paying 5 mana? Easy, make every new content item an [[UpToEleven Infinity +2 Sword]] which requires 3 mana to work. And the same will happen in the next expansion, with an [[SerialEscalation Infinity +3 Sword that only costs 2 mana]].

** The advent of D-Weapons, Superheavy vehicles and Gargantuan Creatures. All of these introduced new rules on top of existing rules, because they were suppose to be so powerful that the current statistic system couldn't accurately represent them without exceptions. D-Weapons in particular, as they were supposed to be literally UpToEleven as the Strength value only goes ''up to 10''. In 7th edition, they were all incorporated into the ''base rulebook'', whereas previously they were exclusive to the Apocalypse supplement.

* The ''[=MicroStars=]'' series - a set of collectable {{Football}} player figurines that could be used in a tabletop football game, suffered badly from this. When the first series of players were released, Gold-base players (the strongest and rarest) would have their five stats total around 50-60 with no stat being higher than maybe 15. By the time the figures stopped being sold in shops, Gold-base players could have stats of 25 across the board...[[UpToEleven and then there were]] [[SerialEscalation the new Black-base players]] who were ''even stronger'' (and rarer).

** Somewhat relatedly, Wizards has also identified ''complexity'' creep as an issue. The rules needed to deal with thousands of different cards make for an [[DoorStopper imposing document]]. The spiraling increases in complexity put the game at risk of being impossible for any potential customer to understand. This was another reason for the Standard format, as it has far fewer possible interactions that players need to track. At this point, the rules page on the Wizards website presents the basic rules, and the link to the [[UpToEleven 250-page]] Comprehensive Rules states that:

** The franchise's fondness for this was evident extremely early on. In the first set ever released in Japan, the strongest monster that could be summoned without tribute was Hitotsu-Me Giant, with 1200 ATK and 1000 DEF. ''One month later'', Celtic Guardian showed up with 1400 ATK and 1200 DEF. By Volume 4, just six months later, Gemini Elf was running around with 1900 ATK, and 2000 DEF monsters were downright common--many cards came out ''already'' powercrept because they couldn't stack up to Gemini Elf's statline. Equip Spells like Laser Cannon Armor and Legendary Sword, which gave a 300 ATK boost and could only be equipped to a specific type of monster, were rendered useless by Sword of Deep-Seated, which gave a 500 ATK boost and could be equipped to any monster. Ookazi, which did 800 burn damage, rendered Sparks (200), Raimei (300), Hinotama (500), and Final Flame (600) all strictly worse. All of this happened inside of the game's first ''year'', and nearly all of the above cards are completely forgotten by the meta today. Part of the reason Effect Monsters were created was that they allowed more avenues to make a monster good than just jacking up its stats; thankfully, the upper limit for low-level monster statlines has more or less stayed at 2000 since the late GX era, though this has led to Normal Monsters being something of an endangered species outside of decks relying specifically on their support.

*** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Painful_Choice Painful Choice]] was rarely used in the early days of the game and was considered a terrible card in general, only seeing use if the player wanted to bring back one of the discarded monsters with Monster Reborn, Premature Burial or Call of the Haunted. Nowadays? It's a broken +5 in card advantage that could set the stage for a myriad of combos.

[[folder:Toys]]
* Toys/NerfBrand guns come in Gatling models now. The old ones obviously do not hold up.
* Figurines from ''Toys/MonsterInMyPocket'' originally had a value between five and twenty five, but by the time the fourth set was out these had ballooned into the triple digits.
* Perfect monsters were what everyone wanted in the original ''Digimon'' V-pets. The pendulums added Ultimate monsters, which were better than the supposedly "perfect" ones. All Pendulum monsters registered as the highest-power Perfects when facing an older model (or the Digivice, which also registered as a Perfect against older models, making it competitively unviable), in an effort to push out the originals from the competitive scene. These Ultimates gained better stats over time. Later editions added Super Ultimate monsters, which were superior to the supposedly "ultimate" ones.
* The ''[=MicroStars=]'' series - a set of collectable {{Football}} player figurines that could be used in a tabletop football game, suffered badly from this. When the first series of players were released, Gold-base players (the strongest and rarest) would have their five stats total around 50-60 with no stat being higher than maybe 15. By the time the figures stopped being sold in shops, Gold-base players could have stats of 25 across the board...[[UpToEleven and then there were]] [[SerialEscalation the new Black-base players]] who were ''even stronger'' (and rarer).
[[/folder]]

** 3.5:

** Ground combat has went in a similar trajectory in higher tiers. The introduction of guided missiles with [=HEAT=] warheads made late World War 2 and Cold War-era heavy tanks obsolete as such rounds can cut through their thick armor like a hot knife through butter. Then the addition of modern tanks with composite and explosive reactive armor beginning with the T-64A and Chieftain Mk. 10 shifted the higher tier meta towards armor-piercing fin-stabilized ammunition, which are the only type of ammo capable of reliably penetrating new armor. Likewise, new features like gun stabilizers, night vision and thermal sights drastically altered the gameplay in favor of modernized vehicles.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' is fairly good on this track since the release of the Abyssea expansion, first raising the maximum player level from 75 to 99 and then providing equipment that "simulates" player levels well above 100 by equipping it (in the later Adoulin expansion). While previous expansions did provide increases in equipment, those were mostly marginal or situational, but newer equipment has escalated on the improvements to such a degree that, for example, the legendary "Pandemonium Warden" boss (which gained some notoriety outside the community) can now be beaten by a single player, and there seems to be no end in sight, with nearly monthly updates that add new equipment (compared to the previous policy of roughly two updates a year that mostly fixed bugs or other issues). The developers have attempted (and at times succeeded) in keeping older content up-to-date by creating copies of it with higher statistics and level requirements and consequently level-appropriate rewards. The game's population has continued to decrease on many servers, but whether that is because of a case of "BrokenBase" or ''despite'' the changes made by the developers is hard to say.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
** This invevitably happened where player stat(s) and damage per second often double over the course of an expansion. A level 50 player from A Realm Reborn would be ''slaughtered'' by level 50-51 {{Mook}}s in Heavensward, for example. This is why the game would scale players' item level up during mandatory post-game dungeons as well as provide a secondary set of gear after the next expansion is out. Additionally, tomestones of lore can be used to purchase gear from previous expansion content with item levels that are well on par with the ''highest level gear'' from that expansion back when it was new, good enough to last the next four-ish levels.
** The exponential growth of player stats over time actually made the devs have to perform a stat squish in ''Endwalker''. Tanks could generate so much [[DrawAggro Enmity]] that it was able to cause an overflow error and reset it back to 0.
** Power creep also has an affect on older content due to how level syncing works. Level sync reduces a player's power and disables skills that are beyond the "cap" imposed by the level sync. Item level, which is the player's stats based on their gear, is usually not synced down. This creates cases where a high level player doing early game content can quickly kill enemies compared to another player whose gear is weak. The game does have an item level sync as self challenge option for those that want to experience old content at the intended difficulty.

* Similarly, ''VideoGame/WarThunder'' suffered badly from this after supersonic jets and modern tanks were introduced.

** Ground combat hasn't been better. The introduction of guided missiles with [=HEAT=] warheads made Cold War-era heavy tanks obsolete as such rounds can cut through their thick armor like a hot knife through butter. Then the addition of modern tanks with composite and explosive reactive armor beginning with the T-64A and Chieftain Mk. 10 shifted the meta towards armor-piercing fin-stabilized ammunition, which are the only type of ammo capable of reliably penetrating new armor. Likewise, new features like gun stabilizers, night vision and thermal sights drastically altered the gameplay in favor of modernized vehicles.

** Ground combat hasn't been better. The introduction of guided missiles with [=HEAT=] warheads made heavy tanks obsolete as such rounds can cut through their thick armor like a hot knife through butter. Likewise, the addition of modern tanks with composite and explosive reactive armor beginning with the T-64A and Chieftain Mk. 10 shifted the meta towards armor-piercing fin-stabilized ammunition, which are the only type of ammo capable of reliably penetrating new armor. Likewise, new features like gun stabilizers, night vision and thermal sights drastically altered the gameplay in favor of modernized vehicles.

** The ''VideoGame/{{Fire Emblem}}'' series as a whole has experienced this over the years. In the early entries, dealing a low double-digit amount of damage per hit would often be considered solid damage output, and most enemies would have at most maybe 2-3 dozen HP on the hardest difficulty setting. The ''final boss'' might have 60-80HP, and your units' stats by endgame could comfortably be in the high teens to low twenties. As of the more recent entries, it is not unusual to hit for 30-50 damage in a single hit, not even factoring in mechanics like skills (e.g. bypassing defense stats, hitting 5 times at 0.5x damage each, etc.) critical hits, dual-strikes, Brave Weapons (which were once extremely limited but are now easily obtainable, and allow you to attack multiple times per combat round) and more. These factors can enable a player to literally deal hundreds of damage in one round of combat - utterly unthinkable several entries ago. Naturally, enemy stats have been inflated all around to compensate for this.

* This happened in ''VideoGame/GuildWars'', albeit in a more PvE example. Many missions in ''Prophecies'' were super duper difficult back in 2005 - but after ''Factions'', ''Nightfall'', and ''Eye Of The North'''s addition of heroes (who are much more customisable henchmen), skills, classes, and even [=PvE=] only skills, it got significantly easier. The only exception however was the doppelganger - who, despite being [[ArtificialStupidity very exploitable]], learned to use skills that were cornerstones of certain GameBreaker builds.

Compare with RevenueEnhancingDevices. SoLastSeason applies to non-gaming examples of this trope. The complete opposite of PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage, which is a new content which is actually unusable.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' has its iconic Fire Flower, which saw its usefulness diminish as the series went on. In the first game, it was the only way you could attack outside of a GoombaStomp, while in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'', you had the Super Leaf and Cape Feather that also provided you with a decent attack, but added mobility boosts on top of that. ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' added the Ice Flower on top of that, which was basically a better Fire Flower. Many other games do something similar.

* This invevitably happened with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', where player stat(s) and damage per second often double over the course of an expansion. A level 50 player from A Realm Reborn would be ''slaughtered'' by level 50-51 {{Mook}}s in Heavensward, for example. This is why the game would scale players' item level up during mandatory post-game dungeons as well as provide a secondary set of gear after the next expansion is out. Additionally, tomestones of lore can be used to purchase gear from previous expansion content with item levels that are well on par with the ''highest level gear'' from that expansion back when it was new, good enough to last the next four-ish levels.

[[caption-width-right:341:Same attack power, same casting cost, same elemental synergies, but Ice Rager has one extra health. Not to mention, [[{{Pun}} it's a lot cooler]].]]

** The ability to carry more than one consumable was limited to Little Baggy and Starter Deck originally, which have the downsides of removing all cards/pills from the rest of the run unless the other was also obtained. ''Afterbirth'' added Deep Pockets, which unconditionally lets the player carry two consumables but is earned by playing a SecretCharacter who is a massive grind to unlock and easily the worst character in the game, making the reward well worth it. Then ''Afterbirth+'' came along and added Polydactyly, which has the same effect as Deep Pockets, is a boss item instead of a shop item (so it can be obtained for free), is unlocked by default, and even spawns an extra pill or card on pickup. The other choices are kind of bad in comparison.[[note]]''Repentance'' later [[AuthorSavingThrow reworked]] Deep Pockets to increase your max money limit instead.[[/note]]

** One example would be the case of flying - in the original game, getting the ability to fly was a rare ability only handed out by three items - Lord of the Pit, Transcendence, and the Pony. Of those three items, Lord of the Pit costs two red heart containers to obtain, Transcendence is one of the rarest items in the game, and the Pony takes up the active inventory slot that could be used to hold an item with a more helpful active effect. However, ''Wrath of the Lamb'' introduced four flying items that were either easier to obtain or came with additional benefits. By ''[[VideoGameRemake Rebirth]]'' onward, it was rarer for a run ''not'' to stumble upon at least one permanent flying item, making the initial flying items seem redundant.
** The ability to carry more than one consumable was limited to Little Baggy and Starter Deck originally, which have the downsides of removing all cards/pills from the rest of the run unless the other was also obtained. ''Afterbirth'' added Deep Pockets, which unconditionally lets the player carry two consumables but is earned by playing a SecretCharacter who is a massive grind to unlock and easily the worst character in the game, making the reward well worth it. Then ''Afterbirth+'' came along and added Polydactyly, which has the same effect as Deep Pockets, is a boss item instead of a shop item (so it can be obtained for free), is unlocked by default, and even spawns an extra pill or card on pickup. The other choices are kind of bad in comparison.

* This invevitably happened with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', where player stat(s) and damage per second often double over the course of an expansion. A level 50 player from A Realm Reborn would be ''slaughtered'' by level 50-51 {{Mook}}s in Heavensward, for example. This is why the game would scale players' item level up during mandatory post-game dungeons as well as provide a secondary set of gear after the next expansion is out. Additionally, tomestones of lore can purchase gear that will ''easily'' last the first fourish levels into the next expansion from Mor Dhana/Idyllshire/Gyr Abania/Eulmore.

** The franchise's fondness for this was evident extremely early on. In the first set ever released in Japan, the strongest monster that could be summoned without tribute was Hitotsu-Me Giant, with 1200 ATK and 1000 DEF. ''One month later'', Celtic Guardian showed up with 1400 ATK and 1200 DEF. By Volume 4, just six months later, Gemini Elf was running around with 1900 ATK, and 2000 DEF monsters were downright common--many cards came out ''already'' powercrept because they couldn't stack up to Gemini Elf's statline. Stat-boosting spells like Laser Cannon Armor and Legendary Sword (boost a specific type of monster by 300) were rendered useless by Sword of Deep-Seated, which boosted any monster by 500. Ookazi, which did 800 burn damage, rendered Sparks (200), Raimei (300), Hinotama (500), and Final Flame (600) all strictly worse. All of this happened inside of the game's first ''year'', and nearly all of the above cards are completely forgotten by the meta today. Part of the reason Effect Monsters were created was that they allowed more avenues to make a monster good than just jacking up its stats; thankfully, the upper limit for low-level monster statlines has more or less stayed at 2000 since the late GX era, though this has led to Normal Monsters being something of an endangered species outside of decks relying specifically on their support.

*** In the early days of the game milling (sending a player's cards from the deck to the graveyard) was detrimental as you'd risk losing a key card or being decked out. Nowadays so many cards have useful effects in the graveyard that milling your own cards is seen as a benefit rather than a cost.
*** Tokens at one point were of limited usefulness due to taking up space on the board and not being usable for a tribute summon, and some cards like lava golem specifically relied on giving a monster with negative effects to your opponent. Nowadays Link Summoning allows tokens to easily be removed, netting you a free link monster into the bargain, so giving them to your opponent is a very bad idea.
*** Ancient Fairy Dragon destroys all field cards on the field and lets you activate one of your own from your deck. This was a mediocre effect when the card was released since most field spells were not very useful, but since then field spells have become much more powerful with valuable effects on activation and often act as the lynchpin of the deck, so the card that destroys your opponent's field spell while netting an extra activation for yours now spends time on the banlist.

*** Power creep has led to formerly banned or limited cards coming off the list because a lot of recent cards are more resilient or have ways to get around getting blown out by powerful cards. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh is filled with boss monsters that negate, are impervious to destruction, or have bonus effects if they leave the field, such that just a single boardwipe alone isn't a foolproof way of dismantling the opponent's advantage. To illustrate this, Raigeki came down from Forbidden to Limited in 2014 in the TCG (2019 in the OCG) without really breaking the game that much, and was loosened to ''three copies'' in 2022 in the TCG.

*** Effects as well. Early on? Monsters could often rely off of pure stats, while effect monsters were weak but made up the difference with effects. Effects became the more prioritised aspect of determining whether or not a card was useful, outside of a few cards which could be powerful enough (And often still required attack to be around 1700 or 1800 and/or defence of 1800-2000 to see play as anything more than tribute fodder) statwise to stand on their own. Effects later became more and more complex - which would [[RequiredSecondarySkills require people to have a magnifying glass or be very good at reading small print]]. Then came the Pendulum Summons which have ''two'' text boxes that are more than ''twice'' the length of cards considered to be ''very'' wordy like [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/yugioh/images/4/42/CyberJar-BP02-EN-R-1E.png/revision/latest?cb=20130703133627 Cyber Jar]].

* This invevitably happened with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', where player stat(s) and damage per second often double over the course of an expansion. A level 50 player from A Realm Reborn would be ''slaughtered'' by level 50 {{Mook}}s in Heavensward, for example. This is why the game would scale players' item level up during mandatory post-game dungeons as well as provide a secondary set of gear after the next expansion is out.

* The vehicular combat games from Wargaming.Net -- ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'', ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'', and ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarplanes'' -- constantly have this problem, largely due to their business model. The games are free to play, but players can spend money to buy premium vehicles, or to buy in-game currency to allow you to mostly skip the grind and quickly unlock the higher-tier tech tree vehicles and special equipment for your vehicles. What this means is, in order to maintain a continuous revenue stream, they must constantly introduce new premium vehicles and new tech trees to induce players to spend money, and there has to be something to make those new vehicles different from the existing ones and desirable. They can't make anything ''too'' overpowered compared to the current meta, or they risk alienating people who previously spent money on the game, but it's common to make each new thing just a little bit more powerful than the last... meaning the vehicles that have been in the game since the beginning get a little worse by comparison with every new addition. Every so often a blanket re-balance is undertaken but this rarely solves all of these problems. This has also become frustrating for gamers who are into the history of the vehicles in each game; as the developers run out of historical vehicles to add, they start turning to prototypes, never-built design studies, and in some cases purely fictional vehicles, which necessarily ''outperform'' the originals.

* The Battle Royale game ''Call of Duty: Warzone'' suffered from the problem of new guns that are more powerful than existing ones. When the game mode started out as a spin-off of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2019'', it shared the same meta weapons from the base game like the M13 assault rifle and [=HDR=] sniper rifle. However, the subsequent ''Modern Warfare'' seasonal updates added new weapons like the Grau 5.56 assault rifle and [=SP-R=] marksman rifle, which supplanted the base guns thanks to their competitive stats and additional benefits like better sights and faster bullet velocity. Then integration of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar'' into ''Warzone'' brought in new weapons like the [=MAC10=] submachine gun, [=C58=] assault rifle and Swiss [=K31=] sniper rifle, which are superior to their ''Modern Warfare'' counterparts with better recoil, damage output, and mobility. Some have accused Activision of intentionally introducing better weapons to incentivize players into [[BribingYourWayToVictory buying COD points with real world money]] to unlock these weapons.