What do you do when you hit the level cap?

[Dreadman75]

I love Borderlands 2. Just putting that out there now so people know where I'm coming from. I love Borderlands 2, the characters, the locations, the enemies, all of it.

But lately as I've begun getting into the later stages of the game, some of my characters are about to hit the level cap and I can't help but wonder "What happens after that?" There's not really much to do at that point besides taking on the strongest bosses in the game and even then you can't do it without four players. (Which I hardly ever have in a public game)

So I want to ask my fellow gamers: What do you do when you hit the level caps in your favorite games? If you want to stick with the game further, how do you keep it interesting?

For people who suggest I play a different game for a while: I'm gonna save you all some time because I do. I have many other games that I do play but right now I'm just hooked on Borderlands 2.

Also, for clarification, I have not yet played through Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode with any of my characters.

 

[piinyouri]

Well you won't be fighting any raid bosses alone, so unless you want to team up those are out of the question, along with all the loot they drop + seraph crystal items.

You could browse the wiki and see if there is a legendary gun/shield that would fit one of your builds perfectly and go farm for it (I don;t like doing this myself, but I know a lot of folks do so...)

UVHM is broken, and pretty unplayable by yourself, so I've started looking at it like this. 50 is still the cap to me, any levels I get beyond that are just bonuses. I do not particularly care about (nor do I really want to, for a multitude of reasons) getting to the actual current cap of 61, nor the incoming 71 cap.

Anyway as far as other games, it depends. Something like Fallout, the level cap doesn't mean much if I've still got some quests left to do, or if I haven't finished the story I've planned out for my character. Same with Skyrim, though usually by the time I get to around level 40(what I consider the soft cap) I've almost always done everything I wanted to accomplish with that character anyway.

In something like Diablo/Torchlight/Titan Quest ect though, if they reach the cap, I retire them.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I face existential crisis really... I feel empty if my XP bar is constantly full, ironic. Actually, this is why the Prestige mode implemented in Call of Duty multiplayer is freaking genius. You know that's stupid thing to do, you know that you will lose all your guns and will suck until you get them back, you know that the only thing you will get is shinier badge and some cosmetic stuff... but you just can't help it.

 

[Dreadman75]

I face existential crisis really... I feel empty if my XP bar is constantly full, ironic. Actually, this is why the Prestige mode implemented in Call of Duty multiplayer is freaking genius. You know that's stupid thing to do, you know that you will lose all your guns and will suck until you get them back, you know that the only thing you will get is shinier badge and some cosmetic stuff... but you just can't help it.

Doesn't UVHM implement a prestige system of sorts? I've heard that it did but that it was only for the badass rank challenges or something like that.

 

[piinyouri]

I face existential crisis really... I feel empty if my XP bar is constantly full, ironic. Actually, this is why the Prestige mode implemented in Call of Duty multiplayer is freaking genius. You know that's stupid thing to do, you know that you will lose all your guns and will suck until you get them back, you know that the only thing you will get is shinier badge and some cosmetic stuff... but you just can't help it.

Doesn't UVHM implement a prestige system of sorts? I've heard that it did but that it was only for the badass rank challenges or something like that.

It's not just in UVHM (I think) but anytime now you can, once enough challenges have been completed(like 70% or something) reset your challenges and keep your BA rank.

 

[TehCookie]

Everything I wanted to do but couldn't because I was too low of level. Just because you max level doesn't always mean you did all the sidequests and explored everywhere.

 

[Dreadman75]

Everything I wanted to do but couldn't because I was too low of level. Just because you max level doesn't always mean you did all the sidequests and explored everywhere.

Lol! You never seen the way I play. I am methodical to the point of OCD. There isn't a sidequest I DON'T do.

Although I will admit taking on the "Invincibles" solo and coming out on top is quite satisfying. Especially that bastard Master Gee!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

After I hit the level cap is when I go to the gold chest and start opening it to get all of my gear max leveled. After that my friend and I take on the raid bosses, and play the DLCs and stuff. He plays Siren, I play Gunzerker, and we can absolutely wreck all the raid bosses after we know their attack patterns.

Also, we played through Ultimate Vault Hunter mode and thought it was too easy with the level cap increase. I mean, for god's sake, my gunzerker can gunzerk INFINITELY. Once I finish a gunzerk I immediately have one ready again, and I can gunzerk while I'm down. Combine that with my friend's ability to instantly pick me up with phaselock and the game is a breeze regardless of how many enemies there are or how much health they have, all I have to do is keep them aggroing on me and we're golden.

Hell, I can beat level 66 enemies (that's 5 levels above me for those who can't do math) in the Tiny Tina DLC on my own.

 

[RJ 17]

With BL2 in particular, go for 100% completion. Already got that? Start a new character and get them to the cap. Already got all the classes to the cap? Find some friends to team up with and take on the raid bosses and/or UVHM. Don't have enough friends to do that? Why are you still playing the game?

Seriously, forget everything else, if you're not playing that game with friends then you're playing it wrong. It exists to be a grind-fest that gives you an excuse to spend countless hours with friends talking with one another while going through a rather humorous game world. If you take away the "play with friends" aspect, all you're left with is a boring grind-fest. To play BL2 without friends is to declare yourself exceedingly lonely.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I loved Borderlands (1 and 2), Torchlight 2, Diablo 2, Titan Quest, and pretty much all those other "looting and leveling" type of games.

But honestly, I've never hit the level cap in any of them.

To me, once you start to get to the higher levels, it just takes too damn long to level up. I just lose all incentive to continue playing, knowing that it's going to take another 5 hours of gameplay so that I can increase 1 skill by 1 point and it increases my damage by 1% or something along those lines.

 

[Dreadman75]

With BL2 in particular, go for 100% completion. Already got that? Start a new character and get them to the cap. Already got all the classes to the cap? Find some friends to team up with and take on the raid bosses and/or UVHM. Don't have enough friends to do that? Why are you still playing the game?

Seriously, forget everything else, if you're not playing that game with friends then you're playing it wrong. It exists to be a grind-fest that gives you an excuse to spend countless hours with friends talking with one another while going through a rather humorous game world. If you take away the "play with friends" aspect, all you're left with is a boring grind-fest. To play BL2 without friends is to declare yourself exceedingly lonely.

And here in lies one of my biggest problems. A lot of the people on my friends list don't log in much anymore and those that do don't frequently play Borderlands 2. This forces me to set my game to "Online Public" mode and hope for the best. Sometimes I meet cool people, other times I meet people who don't much care for the "game" and only want the fastest way to the loot and anyone who tries to take in the whole game is dead weight to them.

You see, I have a particular play style that other people may find grating. I like listening to what everyone says, every piece of mission based dialogue and stuff like that. Other people just rush on through and, in my opinion, ignore some of the best parts of the game. That frustrates the hell out of me and that isn't helpful to trying to play as a team. Then again, the people that like to rush aren't the best teammates to begin with.

I would genuinely like to hear if you have someway of finding good team players to play with. I play on PS3 if that helps at all.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

You see, I have a particular play style that other people may find grating. I like listening to what everyone says, every piece of mission based dialogue and stuff like that. Other people just rush on through and, in my opinion, ignore some of the best parts of the game. That frustrates the hell out of me and that isn't helpful to trying to play as a team. Then again, the people that like to rush aren't the best teammates to begin with.

To be fair to those people, if they have characters that are at the level cap, or near it, they've probably already played through the game at least twice, and that's if they only have one character. They don't care about the dialogue for the missions anymore because they've already heard all of it multiple times.

 

[Drakmorg]

I usually just stop playing. That's what I did in World of Warcraft. I hit max level, and being uber serious about raiding and endlessly grinding the same enemies for loot never interested me, so I just stopped being interest and cancelled my account after realizing I hadn't used it in almost a month. Usually if there's other classes or races to play, I'll try playing them instead. I'm more of a "journey" and less of a "destination" kinda player in those types of games.

 

[piinyouri]

You see, I have a particular play style that other people may find grating. I like listening to what everyone says, every piece of mission based dialogue and stuff like that. Other people just rush on through and, in my opinion, ignore some of the best parts of the game. That frustrates the hell out of me and that isn't helpful to trying to play as a team. Then again, the people that like to rush aren't the best teammates to begin with.

To be fair to those people, if they have characters that are at the level cap, or near it, they've probably already played through the game at least twice, and that's if they only have one character. They don't care about the dialogue for the missions anymore because they've already heard all of it multiple times.

Indeed, I rush through everything as much as possible but that's only because I've heard and seen it 20 + times.
First few times were wonderful though, and I actively searched out miscellaneous ECHO's and stuff.

 

[Risingblade]

I stop playing, idk but there's something magical about leveling up that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

 

[Dreadman75]

You see, I have a particular play style that other people may find grating. I like listening to what everyone says, every piece of mission based dialogue and stuff like that. Other people just rush on through and, in my opinion, ignore some of the best parts of the game. That frustrates the hell out of me and that isn't helpful to trying to play as a team. Then again, the people that like to rush aren't the best teammates to begin with.

To be fair to those people, if they have characters that are at the level cap, or near it, they've probably already played through the game at least twice, and that's if they only have one character. They don't care about the dialogue for the missions anymore because they've already heard all of it multiple times.

Indeed, I rush through everything as much as possible but that's only because I've heard and seen it 20 + times.
First few times were wonderful though, and I actively searched out miscellaneous ECHO's and stuff.

I can understand that. It just hasn't gotten to that point for me yet so I still enjoy listening to the characters. Particularly after the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve and the Assault on the Bunker. Those are some honest to god great moments.

But is it really so hard to take it slow anyway, if not for the dialogue then maybe the atmosphere or something like that. Something I enjoyed about Hamerlock's Big Game Hunt was the atmosphere of some of the areas, Candlerakk's Crag especially.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I keep going until I run out of story content to consume. I don't play mutiplayer games with level-based progression systems.

Really though, a well-balanced (single-player) game should have the level cap set high enough that you could finish the game and still not hit it.

 

[Kyrian007]

I'm kind of surprised I stuck with Borderlands 2 through TVHM. The 50 cap kind of helped, hit it just after Wilhelm in TVHM and really saw no need to sidequest beyond that point. Blasted through DLC packs in TVHM. Got the cap increase but honestly, by then I was done. Borderlands had a couple of fun areas and one good DLC. But my friends were gaga over it. Borderlands 2... they got bored of it fairly fast.

But my disinterest in the Borderlands level cap isn't surprising. I finish level based games long before I hit level caps. If I want to keep playing or pick it up later I'll start a new character.

 

[piinyouri]

You see, I have a particular play style that other people may find grating. I like listening to what everyone says, every piece of mission based dialogue and stuff like that. Other people just rush on through and, in my opinion, ignore some of the best parts of the game. That frustrates the hell out of me and that isn't helpful to trying to play as a team. Then again, the people that like to rush aren't the best teammates to begin with.

To be fair to those people, if they have characters that are at the level cap, or near it, they've probably already played through the game at least twice, and that's if they only have one character. They don't care about the dialogue for the missions anymore because they've already heard all of it multiple times.

Indeed, I rush through everything as much as possible but that's only because I've heard and seen it 20 + times.
First few times were wonderful though, and I actively searched out miscellaneous ECHO's and stuff.

I can understand that. It just hasn't gotten to that point for me yet so I still enjoy listening to the characters. Particularly after the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve and the Assault on the Bunker. Those are some honest to god great moments.

But is it really so hard to take it slow anyway, if not for the dialogue then maybe the atmosphere or something like that. Something I enjoyed about Hamerlock's Big Game Hunt was the atmosphere of some of the areas, Candlerakk's Crag especially.

I did the first 4-5 times. The music is really good, and I really soaked it in the first few runs.
I've just ran through the story so many times that it's noise to me that must be skipped so I can go pop some more heads and get that next skill point for whatever crazy build I'm working on.

 

[RJ 17]

I would genuinely like to hear if you have someway of finding good team players to play with. I play on PS3 if that helps at all.

Unfortunately I do not. I'm sorry to hear that a lot of your friends have stopped signing on, and there's not much you can do if the ones that do sign on don't want to play BL2. As fun as it can be, the BL series definitely isn't for everyone, as I said it's pretty much just a grind-fest in a well designed, humorous world, and there's a lot of people out there that don't like games that just boil down to grinding. It's just a sad fate that you really enjoy the game while your friends apparently do not, because (again) like I said: BL2 is pretty much designed to be played with friends.

As for public matches, they're mostly miss with a couple hits. Playing CoD up until Black Ops stripped me of any desire to play with random people no matter what the game is, and in the BL series it can be even worse in that you never know if a random person is going to be a loot ninja or some other kind of jerk that you really don't want to play with. It really is just tough luck that you don't have anyone else to play with. The game can be enjoyed playing Solo, but you're really only getting half the experience if you don't have anyone to play with. I got lucky in that I've a bunch of RL friends on my friends list and a LOT of good/fun players that I've met through "friend of a friend of a friend" type scenarios, and most of them liked playing BL2 so I never ran into the problem you're facing.

My problem was that I just couldn't get into the game itself because it was essentially just "More Borderlands". As such, once I reached the level cap for my first character and had played through the entire game once, I just really didn't have a desire to play it anymore.

In short: I feel sorry that you're not able to fully enjoy a game that you really like, but BL2 is only half as fun as it can be unless you've got good friends to play it with.