Playing With / Absurdly High Level Cap

Basic Trope: A Level Cap so absurdly high, that most players will never reach it— in fact, it might not even be necessary for completion.

• Straight: In Tales of Troperia, the level cap is 100, but the Final Boss can be easily defeated when the characters are around level 50.
• Exaggerated:
  • In Tales of Troperia, the level cap is 999, but the Final Boss can be easily defeated when the characters are around level 75.
  • There is no level cap for Tales of Troperia.^note Actually, the level would be capped to 2,147,483,647, but you probably couldn't reach it in a lifetime.
  • The developers made sure to make all stat integers which allows for indefinite expansion despite the absurd amount of time it would take for it to become relevant without cheating.
• Downplayed: The level cap is 100. The Final boss can be beaten with a level 75 party, but with EXP farms that were put in the game one can get to 100 in a few hours of grinding.
• Justified:
  • The game developers deliberately put in the level cap to make 100% Completion next to impossible, making players spend more time and/or money on the game or simply give up.
  • On an MMO, levels are used for tracking how the player base for that game plays, and how it is supposed to be balanced. The high level cap is just a formality in order to help track the progress of one player compares to another, or how far the most hardcore of players can get.
  • It's part of a hidden Aesop, and meant to show a personal belief or ideal.
  • The level caps are left high to make a Solo-Character Run possible.
  • Levels only give you improved stats of minor benefit, so an endless level cap is hardly a problem.
• Inverted:
  • The characters in Tales of Troperia max out at level 10, which can be reached in about 30 minutes out of a dozen hours of gameplay.
  • Absurdly Low Level Cap
• Subverted: While the game says that the maximum level is 9999, there are no enemies above level 100, and they eventually give 0 EXP when defeated as your characters increase in level.
• Double Subverted: ...except for enemies and bosses in the Brutal Bonus Level, which are level 101~9999.
• Parodied:
  • Snarky EXP-based Metal Slimes openly mock the player (not the player characters, the player himself/herself) during battles.
    Bob the Trope Guy: "Don't YOU have anything better to do? Have you done your homework? I think you should go to work, no? D00d, reaching level 9999 isn't worth ruining a marriage!"
  • Alternatively: Achievements that are unlocked as character levels are increased. Those achievements mock you as your level increases beyond the range necessary to finish the game.
  • The player reaches level 9999 by defeating a particularly menacing blade of grass.
  • The levels are literally irrelevant to everything else in the game.
  • The game uses scientific notation to mark its levels.
• Zig Zagged: There is an inconsistency in Tales of Troperia. The games display your level as "current level/max level possible". Sometimes the max level possible is 99, other times it's 9999. So far, all enemies that can give you enough EXP to reach 9999 are truly random; it's possible that they're glitches.
• Averted:
  • Tales of Troperia doesn't use level-up system. Or it went for something completely unusual.
  • Alternatively, the level cap is easily reachable by the end of the storyline, or by going through the Bonus Dungeons.
  • Or levelups happen, but at fixed points only, so grinding accomplishes nothing except getting more items.
• Enforced:
  • Tales of Troperia is meant to be a Deconstruction, Level Cap is just one of many things it's satirizing.
  • Tales of Troperia is a mod that didn't bother to adjust the base game's leveling system.
• Lampshaded: "The sky is our (level) limit! Reach the improbable! Do the impossible!"^note ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH!
• Invoked: Hunting the aforementioned snarky monsters (and putting up with their snarkiness). You want to show your friends just how powerful your party is!
• Exploited:
  • Developers implemented level-scalability; the enemies become more powerful as you increase in level. Anything that increases gameplay hours, man...
  • The developers plan a sequel that averts Bag of Spilling and therefore put the level cap higher than what can be achieved in normal game play to make your character usable for the new game as an Old Save Bonus.
  • Developers make it that high so as to expose if someone is cheating or not.
• Defied: The developers tweak equipment, skills, etc. so that an extremely low- party can finish the game.
• Discussed: "Are we ever going to reach level 9999? We're on the Big Bad's doorstep and we're only level 50!"
• Conversed: "Why didn't the developers make a lower level cap? It's impossible to reach it in normal gameplay."
• Deconstructed:
  • You can fight an Ax-Crazy Superboss who aims to reach level 9999. That boss is really insane and is obviously tortured by his desire.
  • Players get frustrated by the ridiculously high level cap, seeing as little more than padding.
• Reconstructed:
  • ...defeating that boss gives you enough exp to gain 1000+ level-ups.
  • The players soon learn to ignore the level cap since it serves no purpose.

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Stop! You must be Lv 9999 before you can go back to Absurdly High Level Cap!

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