LARGE NUMBERS!!!!

Hehe... as I designed a Pen&paper RPG that's essentially a hommage to classic JRPGs and mmos, it is made so that in that game characters with the right build and stats setting can esily make up to 5 digits damage in mid- high level... ^^; It's fun and yeah, gives off more a ... well... how to put it... "Dragon Ball" feel-like "OMG it's over 9000! "

For me it's just a matter of the style of the game. For more old-school feel, i'd like stats to matter as much as possible. There is a sense of danger when an enemy does 3 damage to your hero with only 7 HP.

As for Final Fantasy style epic jRPG, huge numbers make battles bigger. Even if it's just smoke and mirrors. Breaking through 9999 damage in FFX was really cool.

Yet for a game I want to make or have plans for, I have a max level of 999 with stats equal to that for a soft cap in terms of stat points being used to raise parameters. Yet it has to be a large level cap for pacing reasons as I have two worlds (one is hub based and doesn't use an actual world map) and having the default traditional lv 99, you may cap out at 99 before part 3 pf the game begins. Also the lore of the game is the same lore as my series I'm writing, Esgardum Legends and character's power levels are a lv of 999 maximum, so it fits from that standpoint.

Near the end game, Damage will be up to 99999 possibly and bosses/monsters will have 10-11 digit HP. Yet that won't be noticeable until you hit the mid 500s and monsters have mid 500s in level (and by then they have advanced mode which doubles the stat formulas).

For most games they just want you to grind like in MMOs and some of those Atlus brand games which are known for being "over the top".

Typically, I try to keep stats as low as I can without getting into situations where I'd want to upgrade something by half a point. For example, I once found out that one equipment piece needed to gain 1,5 times the defense of another equipment piece. This means they should at minimum get 2 respective 3 defense per tier. Then their starting defense will be that times the number of tier upgrades it takes to double their defense. From that I can also calculate how much defense characters need to naturally have. Usually I have already made a decision in line of 1/3 defense natural and 2/3 defense from equipment or whatever numbers I choose.

However, I also want characters who are supposed to be good at a particular stat to gain some every level. I don't care if a mage sometimes gain no attack at all from a level up, but fighters should always get at least one point of attack every level up. This gives me a minimum natural stat value.

If starting with minimum equipment values gives me unacceptable low natural stat values, then I try double up or maybe even triple up equipment values until the natural stats meets their minimum values. Occasionally, I have to rethink the ratio between the various equipment pieces and the natural stats of the characters to get values that I like.

Once I have attack and defense and their magical counterparts, I look at HP. I always have a damage algorithm in mind before I go into detail with stats. This lets me make a guess how much HP the characters need in order to survive the right number of blows. The exact values will have to be tested, but a fairly accurate estimation can be made. If I find out that their start HP has to be too high for my taste, I can slap on a /2 at the end of the damage algorithm. However, I don't want to slap on a higher division. Just like my taste says a character should gain at least one point in a stat it's good at per level up, my taste also says that at the minimum, two points of defense should reduce damage by one. That is, unless enemies are using an attack with a special "ignores 50% defense" property or something like that.

Basically, I go for the minimum values that gives me neat whole number.