powerlevel

• power-level

From power +‎ level.

powerlevel (third-person singular simple present powerlevels, present participle powerleveling or powerlevelling, simple past and past participle powerleveled or powerlevelled)

1. (intransitive, video games, slang) To play so as to advance levels in a game as quickly as possible.
   • 2004 June, “Lost in convention: What happens when thousands of EverQuest fans meet in Las Vegas? We find out…”, in Edge, number 137, Bath, Somerset: Future Publishing Ltd, →ISSN, page 092, column 1:

     Returning to the convention area later we find EQ and its players have reclaimed the PCs, presenting a row of T-shirt prints ranging from gangsta rap to Ghost In The Shell. Some play side by side, some frantically text distant servermates; others are powerlevelling with near-catatonic detachment.

   • 2004 September, Eliot Fish, “Online Tips and Tactics: City of Heroes”, in David Wildgoose, editor, PC PowerPlay, number 103, Redfern, N.S.W.: Next Publishing Pty Ltd, →ISSN, page 110:

     Whilst fighting close to your mentor (who must be around 5 levels higher than you) your attack and defense ratings are boosted - temporarily making you of a similar level. XP is still proportionate to your “real” level though, so don’t expect to be able to powerlevel this way.

   • 2005, Alicia Ashby, Thomas Wilde, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: The Official Strategy Guide, [Redmond, Wash.]: DoubleJump Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, pages 55 and 227:

     Trying to explore the Garden of Madness when you first enter it can be deadly if you haven’t been powerlevelling. […] The best way to powerlevel is usually to go find something big and dangerous, like a Stolas or a Final Guard, and pick on it until you level up.

   • 2006, Iaian Ross, Kale Harbick, Alicia Ashby, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: The Official Strategy Guide, [Redmond, Wash.]: DoubleJump Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, page 291:

     Though she’s a Level 100 character, she can be beaten if your troops are as low as Level 30. It’s a good idea, however, to take this battle on only when you really want to get drawn into a Dark World stage that you know you can beat. This is because once you’ve defeated her, certain normal stages may automatically pull you into a Dark World stage that you are too weak to clear, thereby blocking repeated access to that normal stage until the Dark World variant is cleared. This can be a problem if you’ve been using a certain stage to powerlevel.

   • 2008, Frans Mäyrä, An Introduction to Game Studies: Games in Culture, London: SAGE Publications Ltd, →ISBN, pages 131–132:

     MMORPGs with experience of point and level system are susceptible to ‘powerlevelling’ and ‘grinding’, which are terms relating to the highly goal-oriented, repetitive play style aimed to make the character more powerful as quickly as possible.

   • 2012, Chaka Chaka, “Second Life and World of Warcraft: Harnessing Presence Learning”, in Harrison Hao Yang, Steve Chi-Yin Yuen, editors, Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in Virtual Worlds and Environments, volume I, Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Reference, →ISBN, section 2 (Virtual Communities, Applications, and Implications), page 247, column 2:

     Fourthly, powerleveling is a key issue in which the moral order of the game is contested. For instance, when powerleveling, lower level players advance swiftly through 60 levels because higher level players accompany them, making quest completions much easier.

2. (transitive, video games, slang) To cause (a game character or another player) to advance levels in a game as quickly as possible.
   • 2003 February 10, Tyson, “Re: Hard to believe....”, in SlashNOT; quoted in “The End of Similization As We Know It”, in Matthew Strebe, Michael Moncur, Charles Perkins, The Best of SlashNOT, 2002–2005, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, 2006, →ISBN, page 13:

     But they did all shell out big bucks to have simulated lives in place of actual lives. They just don’t want to do this in PUBLIC. Which is what an on-line game is. You can find plenty of geeks willing to justify publically^[sic] powerlevelling an orc avatar, but how many will you find willing to admit that their virtual girlfriend is the closest they’ve ever been to the opposite sex?

   • 2004 December, Timothy C. Best, “The Sims 2”, in David Wildgoose, editor, PC PowerPlay, number 106, Redfern, N.S.W.: Next Publishing Pty Ltd, →ISSN, page 72, column 3:

     If you’re busy trying to “powerlevel” your Sims out of their social rating slump, then you’re not likely to sit and watch conversations or dramas unfolds, and if you just want to pump up your environment score then it makes sense to randomly cram your Sim houses with all the highest rated stuff, even if it produces a scene that would make the Queer Eye team fall to the ground clutching their heads.

   • 2007 August, Sean Stalzer, The Legend of the Syndicate: A History of Online Gaming’s Premier Guild, Lancaster, Pa.: Avari Press, →ISBN, page 86:

     There was a reason the level based grouping decision was made which was to limit the ability to powerlevel a friend.

   • 2011, Tom Chatfield, “Virtual goods”, in 50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know, London: Quercus, →ISBN:

     Successful gold-farming businesses tended to involve teams of workers using computers in warehouses for ten or more hours a day in shifts, often sleeping on site, with the resulting gold being sold online by an entrepreneur running the ‘farm’ and paying workers on the basis of their ability to gain in-game gold. Games companies have cracked down on such businesses but it is thought that the global market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and increasingly includes more sophisticated services, like ‘power-levelling’ in-game characters by doing the hard work of advancing a character towards the end of a game on behalf of western players prepared to pay not to have to work hard at playing.

   • 2011, Michael J. Tresca, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, →ISBN, page 132:

     One RetroMUD player summed up the problem: […] If you’re a high level with a recent creation date, people think you’re a clueless newbie who’s just been spoonfed and powerleveled through everything.

   • [2012], Jose Jane, Minecraft: Unabridged Guide, [Ruislip, Middlesex]: [Tebbo], →ISBN, page 48:

     Bots are also commonly used in commercial operations in order to powerlevel a character, either to increase the sale value of the account, or to allow the character to be used for commercial gold farming.

   • 2018, Sakon Kaidou, translated by Andrew Hodgson, “In the Jaws of the Fox”, in Infinite Dendrogram, volume 6 (The Lunar Society), [San Antonio, Tex.]: J-Novel Club LLC, →ISBN:

     Just so you know, I’d done little to help them in the actual fighting. I’d changed my main job from Death Shadow to Journalist and only used the “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword” skill, increasing their EXP gain. After all, if I’d just powerleveled them while doing all the work, they wouldn’t learn anything.

   • 2019, FUNA, translated by Diana Taylor, “Leatoria”, in Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!, volume 6, [Los Angeles, Calif.]: Seven Seas Entertainment, →ISBN:

     “Oh? But I am good at magic. Not many people know about it because I couldn’t leave home thanks to my frail body, but I can do fire and water magic, and perform combat spells, too.” / “C-come again?!?!” / For a beautiful young noblewoman, this was incredibly rare. Indeed, as far as Mile’s recollections went, the only such individual she had ever even laid eyes on was Marcela of the Wonder Trio—a young lady that she had trained or “power-leveled”—in other words, one whom Mile had hand-raised herself.

   • 2022, Nazuna Miki, translated by Benjamin Daughety, “4’3” and a Hammer”, in My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1, volume 1, New York, N.Y.: Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC, →ISBN:

     Emily, with a low level yet very high power, had killed a mob of frozen monsters all at once. As a result, she’d been powerleveled. That was a common sight in games.

   • 2022, Hayaken, translated by Benjamin Daughety, “Akira Is… Akira?”, in Redefining the META at VRMMO Academy, volume 1, [San Antonio, Tex.]: J-Novel Club LLC, →ISBN:

     “You don’t have to powerlevel Takashiro. No worries.” From what I’d heard, my classmates would often party up together after class to grind levels for the big quest.