Some fights just aren't Worth It. In this case, an enemy that requires a lot of effort to take down gives so little reward when defeated that there's no point in fighting them in the first place. When the only possible "victory" is a Pyrrhic Victory, the winning move is to avoid a fight.
Typically, this tactic is used by developers to denote a target the players shouldn't be fighting, at least not yet. Border Patrols, Elite Mooks, and important NPCs are common targets for this treatment, and common rewards to deter include Experience Points, money, crafting materials, quest items, and high-quality Random Drops usually reserved for the late-game. It generally works as an alternative to either enemies that are just too strong for the player to fight (while avoiding the pitfall of being taken as a challenge) or enemies that are just straight-up invincible. In some cases, the effect can be achieved without the developers even foreseeing the enemy being beaten; if it's not programmed to drop loot on death, it won't. In games where monster hunting/capturing is the primary focus (Mons for example), the deterrent in this case is being unable to slay or capture monsters well above your current level.
If the enemy is a boss instead, it may overlap with Heads I Win, Tails You Lose and The Battle Didn't Count, especially if it's possible to defeat the boss but not outright kill them and obtain their rewards from the outset.
See also Anti-Grinding, Anti-Hoarding, and Anti Poop-Socking (for gacha games and MMO games) for other reasons developers might employ this tactic. Piñata Enemy and Money Spider are inverses of this trope. Contrast Metal Slime, which covers specific types of enemies that are worth hunting for high payouts but are difficult to track and/or take down. Also contrast Random Drop Booster, Money Multiplier, and Peninsula of Power Leveling.
Video Game Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- Subnautica: It's possible to kill the gigantic Reaper, Ghost and Sea Dragon Leviathans, which requires considerable effort in the first place due to the game's near-total lack of lethal weapons encouraging the player to creep past or otherwise avoid them. However, the only benefit in doing so is the fact they don't respawn, with the creatures dropping no resources or loot of any kind when killed, making slaying them usually a waste of time.
Eastern RPGs
- Dark Souls:
- The skeletons in the cemetery by Firelink Shrine serve to indicate to a new player that they're going in the wrong direction; they have a ton of hitpoints and drop a mere fifty souls on death (in contrast, the Hollows on the "correct" path go down in two hits and drop upwards of sixty apiece). The player is intended to come back when the skeletons and Hollows pose about as much of a threat.
- Crystal Cave is home to a number of Moonlight Butterflies, most of which don't act unless provoked. A new player may eagerly recall the 10000+ soul reward achieved from defeating the first one... only to find out these butterflies drop a mere 400 souls apiece, without dropping one bit in difficulty. It's best to leave them alone unless you're farming for certain items.
- The Chaos Bugs in Lost Izalith really only exist for two reasons: to create a Player Punch regarding Solaire, and to be farmed for Sunlight Medals. They're also one of the few completely non-hostile mobs in the game (not counting NPCs) and only drop a mere 20 souls apiece; no point in bothering them unless you really need those Medals.
- Dark Souls III has its first DLC accessible from an early-game area. Right off the bat, you'll get a developer message warning you that the DLC is intended for players who are nearing the very end of the game. Ignore this warning and the very first group of enemies will most likely destroy you. In the event that they don't, however, you will find that they drop a pitiful amount of souls as well as basic Titanite Shards. This was most likely done to prevent players who are able to kill them early from farming many souls quickly and becoming overleveled for most of the game. Most enemies in the DLC after this initial area drop an appropriate amount of souls for their strength.
- Elden Ring: Immediately after Opening the Sandbox, the game puts a Tree Sentinel field boss in front of you and expects you to figure out that you should give this mounted, heavily-armored giant of a knight a wide berth and come back much later. And even if you, through summons, luck, and a ton of patience, manage to wear him down on your first run-in, all you get for your troubles are 3,200 runes (or about 2 levels at that point) and a halberd you won't be able to wield for another 10 hours, at least. The purpose of this encounter is actually to teach you that field bosses can be easily avoided — a concept quite foreign to Soulsborne veterans, as you just couldn't do that in older games.
- Fire Emblem Fates: In the level "Eternal Stairway", the infinitely spawning Faceless have the Void Curse ability which causes them to give no experience when killed so that what could easily turn into a rare grinding opportunity remains a tense fight to the exit.
- Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis: Enemies that are 5 or more levels higher than you and/or are outside of your Battle Power range are marked with red names, take 1 damage from all of your attacks, and don't drop any loot or count towards Task completion on kill.
- Pokémon Sword and Shield: A Mon catching variant. You can encounter very high-level Pokémon in the Wild Area, often up to twenty levels higher than what your team is expected to be at the time. However, while it is possible to defeat these Pokémon, and they give a lot of experience if you do, they can't be caught without the proper number of badges. This continues into Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
- Tales Series:
- Tales of the Abyss: In Inista Marsh, there's a boss-level enemy named Behemoth who will pursue you throughout the whole area. Your party tells you to not fight it immediately and you're supposed to run away from it every time you encounter it, but while it is possible to defeat it with some effort, doing so will not net you experience points and gald (the game's currency), and it will continue to respawn with each defeat. It isn't until you do an optional late-game sidequest that you're able to fight the Behemoth as a boss proper and put it down permanently, earning you some decent rewards in the process.
- Tales of Graces: In the PlayStation 3 re-release named Tales of Graces f, it's possible to defeat the Rockgagong (a powerful late-game Optional Boss) earlier than intended using a Game-Breaker setup for Hubert, but doing so will not net you any experience points whatsoever. In fact, back in the original Nintendo Wii version, it was possible to gain experience points from the Rockgagong repeatedly to overlevel your party members, which became so broken that it was understandably patched out in the PS3 release. Subverted in that pulling the same trick on the PS3 version will net you a PlayStation Network Trophy, but that's it.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1 series: Zig-zagged. High-level enemies can and will drop their standard drops if the player manages to kill them. However, if the party members are too low a level, the amount of experience earned by killing the monster in question is capped, meaning it would be more worth it to go after enemies closer in level and less difficult.
- Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana: Early in the game, you'll frequently encounter dinosaur-like enemies called Primordials who're very tough to fight at that point. Your attacks will only do Scratch Damage against them so running away is the ideal option, but if you're bold and skilled enough to take them on anyway (using the Flash Move and Flash Guard mechanics to evade their attacks), you'll find that depleting their HP to zero will just temporarily knock them out instead of killing them and they'll quickly get back up with full health, denying you experience points and high-quality materials. This is because Primordials can only be killed with Orichalcum weapons, and until you get those midway through the game, they're nigh-undefeatable.
Fighting Games
- In Tekken 7's online ranked fights and offline Treasure Battle mode, the rank points gained or lost depend on your proximity to your opponent's rank, presumably to discourage higher-ranked players from trying to pick on lower-ranked ones instead of fighting opponents at their own level. However, the point rewards don't account for whether you're up or down the ladder compared to your opponent, so if a lower-ranked player does manage to pull off the upset, their reward will be tiny.
Roguelike
- Darkest Dungeon: Every enemy in the titular Darkest Dungeon will not drop any loot except for the Shuffling Horror dropping an Ancestral trinket from the Shambler loot pool and the Final Boss returning the trinkets from your sacrificed heroes. Considering that almost every enemy in said dungeon are Demonic Spiders that can inflict terrifyingly high amounts of Damage Over Time, Stress damage, and potent debuffs with ease, it’s usually a good idea to instead stock up on as much supplies as possible instead of cheating out on supplies.
- FTL: Faster Than Light: Getting caught by the Rebel Fleet will put you in a fight against an elite rebel ship guaranteed to have weapons and defences that can easily counter yours. If you somehow manage to defeat this ship (whether by destroying it or killing its crew), all you will get is a single fuel cell as you don't get much time to scavenge properly with a fleet of angry rebels surrounding you and still firing at you from offscreen with powerful projectiles.
Tower Defense
- The Battle Cats: Assassin Bears are incredibly fast black enemies which attack over three times a second for immense DPS from long range, and are usually spawned to make you lose if you take too long. Should you manage to kill an Assassin Bear, whether via sniping it with the Cat Cannon or with other ranged and piercing attacks, it drops 4 money — in a game where the basic Cat costs 75 money in most stages, and most Uber Rare cats cost 4500 money or more.
- Snow Golems in Kingdom Rush: Vengeance. These enemies can be dealt with in one of two ways — either by spending 200 gold to deal with them prematurely before they turn active, or by fighting and killing them after they have. In the latter case, the player will have to face an enemy that's healthier than other Giant Mooks and can have a spawn position near the exit. When killed, Snow Golems give 25 gold, which is chump change compared to other giant enemies and very often not worth the hassle.
Web Games
- MouseHunt (2008) has a number of mice that invoke this trope by being hard to catch, causing harsh detrimental effects if not caught, while giving paltry amounts of loot if caught:
- Vampire Mice in the Mousoleum have high power stat for their area and can steal a lot of gold if you fail to catch them. If caught, they give much less gold and points than most other Mousoleum mice. The developers stated that this was intentional so that Hunters would consider them unappealing to catch.
- Caravan Guard Mice in the Fiery Warpath are either resistant to or immune to all trap types, and if you fail to catch them, they can reinforce the mice waves by adding one of each type, prolonging the wave. If you do manage to catch them, they give a very measly 900 gold and points each compared to the several thousand that every other mouse in the area gives.
Western RPGs
- Dragon Age: Origins: In the first encounter against Ser Cauthrien, she counts as an Elite Boss and is supported by a dozen archers, making this fight very hard and/or tedious, for relatively little reward. This is because the game intends for you to either surrender or fall and be captured, in order to trigger the next story quest (where your companions break you out). If you actually win this battle, that quest and all of its rewards are skipped altogether. This is compounded by the fact that if you avoid fighting Ser Cauthrien the first time, you will encounter a considerably weaker version of her a few quests down the line, with exactly the same XP and loot rewards for defeating her.
- Fallout 3: The Ghouls called Reavers are among the toughest enemies in the entire game, rivaling the Super-Mutant Overlords and the Albino Scorpions, yet the reward for killing them is usually a few caps or a jet.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: The guards and soldiers in various cities and strongholds, in addition to outleveling Geralt, won't drop anything more than token loot if killed. The effort to dispatch them for next to no reward means that it's always in the player's best interest to avoid angering them, or to run if they do, rather than stand and fight.
Wide-Open Sandbox
- Minecraft: The Warden, despite being one of the most powerful enemies in the game, doesn't drop anything besides a meagre amount of experience points and a Sculk Catalyst (which isn't too rare of an item) when killed. It doesn't even count towards the "Monsters Hunted" advancement, which requires killing one of every Hostile Mob type in the game. This is intentional, since the point of the Warden is to be avoided, not fought, and attempting to kill it almost falls under the Lord British Postulate.
- Terraria: The Dungeon Guardian has the highest defense and attack of any enemy in the game, meaning it can kill an endgame level player in 1-2 hits, and even the Zenith will only deal one damage per hit. Killing it is nearly impossible without extensive preparation. Until Version 1.2, it dropped absolutely nothing. As of the most recent version, it drops only the Bone Key, which is a simple cosmetic for Bragging purposes. The minimal drops and extreme difficulty is intentional as the point of the Dungeon Guardian is to prevent Sequence Breaking.
Non-Video Game Examples:
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer Quest: Players hate ghosts. While they're nothing for a high level party, these monsters are pretty dangerous for weaker parties as they have a number of special abilities. But the real reason, players hate encountering them is that ghosts uniquely have no gold! So you never get anything for fighting a ghost.
Webcomics
- Homestuck: Eridan's SBURB world is inhabited by angels. He gets Trigger-Happy and starts killing them, even though they are not initially aggressive, are Demonic Spiders in a fight, and don't drop any loot. He complains about this to Karkat, who explains this trope and tells him to stop since the game obviously doesn't reward killing the angels. Unfortunately Eridan is an idiot, doesn't follow the advice, and exterminates them all. If he was smarter, he might have realized they were Enigmatic Empowering Entities meant to guide him on his personal quest.
- Will Save World For Gold: Referenced. A pair of nearly-identical rangers come close to fighting, but call it off due to some persuasive arguments from their friend nearby. One of them notes that they have identical gear and thus wouldn't get much loot if they did end up killing each other.
