As you probably already know, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Borderlands world recently with the release of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for the PS4. While I’ve enjoyed most of my time shooting and looting around Pandora, when starting my True Vault Hunter playthrough to reach level 50 I’ve encountered more then my fair share of power levelers. If you play Borderlands you know what I’m talking about. It’s those people that hop into your room at a much lower level, I’ve had people jump into my room when I was a level 45 Siren with their level 19 character, with the sole purpose of using you just so that they could advance their character at a faster rate. This then goes on to lead to many annoying experiences and made me wonder if this power leveling technique was wrong, right, or just plain rude.
When it comes to a clear wrong or right when talking about power leveling, I think the whole subject is kind of a grey matter. It’s not straight out the right thing to do when you start a new character, but it’s not necessarily wrong or frowned upon either. If you want to spend hours ducking in the corner of my game just to level up without actually doing anything, then whatever that’s on you. It’s not something I would necessarily do because when I play Borderlands, I want to actually play Borderlands not just sit in the corner doing nothing.
Even though I don’t necessarily find power leveling right or wrong, I do find it extremely rude when someone just pops into my game with the intent to power level without even asking me. Every now and again when I’m playing I would have a friend message me seeing if they could come into my game with their lower level character, and I would then send them an invite. I knew I could handle myself in the game and didn’t mind the fine ass loot that would drop because I had more people in my room. What I do mind is when my room is open and Random Joe decides to just drop in with his lower level character and just expect me to help him. I don’t know Random Joe, so why should it be my responsibility to help him?
Not only does Random Joe want to power level off of you, but he only wants you to do certain missions. Random Joe will constantly switch your missions to the missions he wants. Seriously? Not only am I power leveling you, but now I have to do what you want in MY game. This isn’t the only thing Random Joe will do either. Random Joe will hide out in the corner until you kill a boss and then run out and try to collect the Orange weapon that was dropped. Random Joe is one sneaky bastard that you have to block so that you can get the weapon for yourself. At this point, Random Joe gets the boot because I’ve had just about enough of his crap and I get the nasty message about stealing his Orange weapon and then kicking him from the game when he’s been helping me out this whole time. Sigh…multiplayer.
While I haven’t power leveled because to me it’s just plain boring, I don’t think it’s a clear wrong or right. If you want to power level fine, if you don’t then fine. The only thing that I find power leveling is extremely rude, especially if you just pop into my room and expect me to just help you out. All I ask is that if you’re going to power level is to send me a message and just ask me. Or just actually ask me because I know you probably have a microphone. It’s not really hard and the worst thing I could do is say no.
1 Broke Gamer Girl 