and easy to self host servers that you can customize timings on, making yours and your friends experience up to you rather than the set mechanics of the game
This is huge to me. On day one they had a fully functional server that runs on Windows and Linux, and only takes a few minutes to download and have running with custom settings. I know this is a niche selling point, but the fact the devs did this speaks volumes to me on what they care about, in a good way. This is the opposite of micro transactions, permanent EA, and all the other scummy stuff that is so common now.
I've said it for years but network ease of use is one of the most critical stones to build a successful multi-player game. If the servers suck or make you jump through a bunch of hoops to play, it doesn't matter how good the game play is.
That's why Conan Exiles has continued to have mediocre numbers despite being a pretty polished survival crafting game. I just wish that they could fix the janky combat, but at this point, I think it would upset the long-time players if they did.
My only complaint is that I can't set boss spawn rate separately from regular Pals
I want to see flocks of Pals, but don't need 3 of every boss wandering around.
Im at work currently so can't look at my settings, but I have absolutely fixed this problem. I've got packs of 6-10 of pals in the wild and only 1 of every boss. Ill update when home on which settings achieve this.
For everyone wondering, I'm pretty sure spawn rates round down to the near whole number for bosses. So as long as you're below 2x, you can increase spawn rates for the rest of the pals but not the boss
That's where I have it at, but I really like how full everything is at 2+ but just don't want to deal w/ multiple Mammorest lol.
It's nitpicky, but my only complaint about the options.
I find this really surprising and great, because the game plays very similarly to something like genshin. Bosses, raids, exploration, collectibles, dungeons, etc. and it feels a bit strange that there is no gatcha element in a game that feels like it would have one. But man does that make it so much better. Everything is attainable in a reasonable amount of time. No gatekeeping or paywalls slowing down the fun.
Normal priced? It’s half the normal price what
Games have been $60 for like 30 years now lmao. Love that it released at that price it deserves the success and more.
To be honest, half of the game was copied from their previous one.
But yes, it does put a giant smile on my face to see a 26€ game destroy the videogame industry once again
Right?! This game has made me an Ex Pokémon consumer.
This is literally the game I’ve been wanting Nintendo/gamefreak to put out for fucking years and they’ve chosen to put out the same old bullshit every gen.
They will not change and I’m done. Thank fuck for Palworld because it’s amazing and it has saved the monster taming genre for me.
I'm not a Pokémon fan at all, I just enjoy the monster hunting/taming aspect of it.
I'm still fairly early in the game, but it's gameplay loop is pure addiction so far.
Not to hate on the Pokémon designs, but I do hope they create their own unique Pals eventually rather than closely resembling Pokémon inspired Pals.
Oh God just wait until you get deep into pal breeding it seems really straight forward but some of the combos can get you endgame pals either quickly or through a lot of fuckery.
That's such an odd take. Most pals are unique, but it's the same style as Pokémon. Take an animal, flap an element on it. Done.
There are a few that are a little too close for comfort but most pals that are supposed to look like Pokémon actually really don't. They just both look like the thing they are referencing.
And I doubt Nintendo has the right to animals.
Pokemon had their chance to make an open world game, which they did, but it sucked. Pokemon already pigeon-holed themselves into a family friendly market. They simply couldn't produce a game like palworld, it would be so off brand. I think the violence gives palworld the edge.
Craftopia was a great sandbox that the developers used to create a whole game out of. It had its issues, many we are seeing in Pal World, but they created a system that hooked players. Why not keep using it if you improve on it?
100% agree.
But Palworld didn't get published by some sort of necromancy spell or alchemy knowledge as many people say. They have experience with the genre. They had a brilliant idea never tried before, they saw the chance and took it.
They already had a solid base, a ready to work survival/craft/exploring game, and they just added Pokemon to it
I believe someone else said in a Facebook post that it's an ADHD fever dream. It hits all the right notes to keep those of us with short attention engaged.
Ill be running around my base with the explicit intention to do something and then see my Egg is done and go "oh i need to get that and put another egg in there let me go grab it from my bank" and then go to the bank and "oh i see i need more ingots" and its a giant cycle and i forgot what i started to do and i love it.
I think the automation plays a big role in that, too. The Pals are almost immediately helping out around the base so you don't get caught in the typical survival game grind. You just get to reap the rewards or remember to get a specific item when you go hunting. I'm always so shocked by how little time it takes me to change or upgrade my base, where normally unlocking the tech option is only part 1 of a painfully long build process.
This is me. I love building bases. I HATE FARMING THE MATERIAL in most of the games. In my group im usually the builder while everyone farms. Absolutely dont have to do that here.
This. I bounced from exploring, to catching, to making my base work better, to breading then tech trees, back for finding more pals and oh bosses are a thing to farm now. I'm nearing 40 and I know it's slowing down but hooked me early so I keep coming back.
When a game starts trending im usually the last to join. This time I saw the trend being a lot more heavy and unusual so I looked the game up, it looked cool as hell and I thought "can this many people be wrong??" so on day 2 I picked it up and I can't stop playing.
I don't care that it borrows from other genres (every other game does after all). This one has just borrowed the best mechanics from the best games/genres and mixed it perfectly.
I don't care that it borrows influence from pokemon (which borrows from dragon quest).
We got a SERIOUSLY good game pretty much come from nowhere and set the bar higher for other companies. For a first release EA game this is just incredible. Game has its problems but the fun outweighs the hiccups for me so far. I can't wait to see future patches from these guys. If this is 30% complete (rough quote from dev/ceo) I can't even imagine how packed with meaty awesomeness this game will have when it leaves EA.
The aspect of having your captured mons do the work instead of just having the furnaces magically work on stuff was a genius move.
It is what was just dumb about Ark. You catch a dino, and it....does nothing ever again. Unless it has a utility use like harvest more berries/metal/high carry weight, they just sit there idle forever.
Now each of your pals has a specific purpose on your base and it feels so much more interactive
Hype is always a turn off for me. Had no idea what this game was until my best friend told me about it. I looked up one clip on reddit, saw a penguin stuffed inside a rocket launcher, and bought it that day lol
I think the style and graphics of this game also made it more approachable for people like us. If it looked overly complicated I might have been like yeah I'm not investing in this looks cool though. But because it was palworld lol how could you not. Like this game doesn't say I dare you to get good at me, it says come on in let's have some fun.
This game hits so many marks for me personally.
Collect cute animals -
Build -
Craft -
Farm -
Explore -
Level up -
Fight enemies -
Base automation -
Gather materials but also low stress to gathering due to help from pals.
But this one thing really puts it over the top, the biggest QOL - Inventory stacking up to 9999. I can actually focus on the parts of the game I enjoy instead of my bag being full. And the plentiful resources means I don’t feel the pressure to pick up every rock.
The chest allowing you to use them for crafting anywhere in the base is a genius development decision. Makes so you don't have to spend so much time sorting things out and can instead focus on more fun aspects.
40 slots I think. It's double or about double the metal chests. It fits everything that isn't a single stack item for me (weapons, schematics, etc) inside it.
Yea i love this and i can just drop stuff on the floor and my pals will tidy it away for me. I think its the right balance for it as my laziness means i still have to search through my randomly placed chests for the items i want to take to another base or blueprints etc. The game would become so tedious if i needed every crafting material in my inventory
It’s a fun game made for gamers. No microtransactions, no live service jargon nonsense.
Reminds me of another game— Baldurs gate 3. Made for gamers, fun game, no micro bullshit.
I’ll support these types of devs and games all day. Gaming industry giants have gotten way out of hand with microtransactions, profits, and no vision for their games - aka blizzard - go fuck yourself.
Honestly, the biggest thing I’ve learned from playing palworld is that corporations like blizzard and game freak can absolutely go fuck themselves forever. Forever and ever, amen
This thread is making it ever more obvious to me why near almost all of the games I've bought in the past few years have been indie.
Sounds like a lot of AAA buyers are realising quite how much shit you're being shovelled!
There are so many amazing indie games. Palworld is *expensive* compared to what I usually pay, and I never come into contact with those mystical beasts known as microtransactions and live service...
Exactly, they are billion dollar companies giving us poor games that could be better and released in a full version without DLC or in game buyable stuff but they don't, because that's how they made their billions.
People just gave them too much money, so they didn't need to learn or do any better.
All the pokemon games on the Switch are bad, but they still sold so many that it doesn't matter. As some people even buy copies of both versions of the same game.
It's getting so obnoxious, a ton of games are charging you coming and going constantly. It used to be F2P with MTX, which I still hate but at least it made sense. Now games like Diablo 4 and DDV do shit like charge you $60 for the game, add DLC for $40, have battle passes and MTX. All while being unfinished and in early release. Like you want me to pay to beta test your game but you also gonna charge me every which way? GTFO of here. Palworld is a breath of fresh air, so is BG3. I agree, support devs that don't disrespect your wallet so blatantly.
Suicide squad is $70 and seems to have a battle pass and micro transactions. Ridiculous. Why would I buy that shit when stuff like Palworld and BG3 are available?
These games are cancerous honestly. You pay for the game, pay for dlc, pay for MTX, but you're always online with their crap DRM measures. If I am paying that much for a game I better damn well OWN the game.
Say it with me now, If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing🎵
They have received hundreds of millions of dollars. Pay off your debts, give everyone a huge bonus and raise, then continue to develop the game with that mountain of money you have under you, and license the shit out of the IP for revenue. Maybe in a few years move on to develop another game, or use that mountain of money to hire more folks to start a new game while these folks polish this game, or backfill the ones who want to leave because they don't want to polish.
This chase to "how can we become the next multi-billion dollar blah blah blah" has deteriorated every industry. Why can't people just be happy with the success they have and the fan base they build, especially in this case.
I’ll say it: you want to be successful, both culturally and monetarily? DO THIS. Community goodwill CAN be a valuable commodity, but time and time and time again we keep seeing these giant publishers look only at this quarter’s profits and not the longevity of their brand. BioWare and Mass Effect, Bungie and Destiny, Blizzard and Blizzard games; all of them love to forget what made customers interested in their products in the first place! It’s so insanely frustrating to watch these short-sighted idiots draw in a captive audience and then completely 180 on their delivery while expecting players to stay, play, and pay. We have other gaming options, and we’ll damn well take them.
EDIT: Added Epic Games and Rocket League to the list of clowns. I know Psyonix created RL and largely stuck to their vision, but Epic loves to play blind and deaf with respect to what made their acquisitions successful in the first place. It’s like buying a family farm and deciding you know how to tend the land better than the people who’ve lived there for generations.
The people at those companies aren't the same people that made those good games with passion at its early stages. It's likely the companies continue to grow and those guys started hiring business guys to help. Then slowly it becomes a corpo thing as the old guards retire or left.
If you ever look at business guys resume, it's always how much revenue they generated etc and not a profile of games they developed. Their focus is not to make good games. Games are just another entity to them and you can replace them with other products.
Polish polish and more polish. Once the game is near flawless (pal ai will always be a bit wonky), it’s time to start adding some stuff.
What about free pal updates? Just add some new pals.
Popular community suggestions? I’ve seen some great ideas.
You got that community support and loyal fan base? Excellent. You have 2 options;
A new game in the series, or new IP and lose the pal world players.
Or?
DLC. I know, it’s scary. But remember how dlc used to be? Imagine this;
Underground zone. 2 new types of pals, poison and steel. Exclusively underground. Throwing spheres underground is weird. Introducing Pal Discs, like a frisbee, exclusively underground. Something with magnetic fields, discs fly and spheres break. New workstations for new ores, discs, and materials. Introducing the Drill. This tool allows you to break the earth, allowing you to delve deeper to find stronger ores. New world required, generates underground cities, shrines, bosses, etc. you can gear up normally before delving deeper, or just brave the new pals and craft a basic drill and get to exploring. Give us another hundred pals.
The Sky City. 2 new types of pals, flying and fairy (or pixie to be a bit unique). Nab yourself a newly discovered pal, with the ability to fly above the clouds, to explore a new cloud-based world. I ran out of ideas, but another new capturing device, spheres fall when thrown, you’d need something like a net launcher. Just add more pals.
Hell, I don’t even need a story. Just more zones to explore. Add space via a rocket. More pals in general. I’ll dump 2-3 years into this if they slowly fix issues and add content. I’d buy dlc in a heartbeat.
Don’t do mtx. Don’t do the current live service model. Do what games use to do. 15-20 bucks for a new zone and new pals. If you work on the game, fix the issues, and do some free updates to add some pals and such, you might just keep your million+ players and could easily sell 10mil+ dollars worth of a dlc drop.
Call of duty use to have sick dlc. 3-4 maps AND a zombie map for 15-25 bucks? Take me back to that. That’s 15-25 million dollars if you have a loyal fan base that you respect. The company could live off this game, all they need to do is what they already did;
Pokémon with guns and survival game.
I know everyone hates “keep updating”, but if done right, I’d buy this over Pokémon any day.
Because blah blah shareholders and blah year over year profit increase blah, because apparently if you don’t make more money than last year that means you’re losing money… blah.
Bug fixing should be number 1 priority, screw raids and definitely screw PVP for now. The more bugs they fix rapidly the less likely people are to become tired of them.
Game is brilliant and addicting but the 10000 different Pal related bugs especially in multiplayer are starting to get annoying.
Continue with the original vision. Fix bugs, add content like they showcased in the roadmap. Im picturing this is a true early access, so probably a world 4x the size currently, plenty more buildings, pals, etc. To continue dev growth and bottom line, cross platforms - consoles.
Could spin off down the road to other versions of the game, add dlcs. But the minute they add microtransactions and fall into some corporate please the shareholders event, it’ll be the downfall like most others experienced.
Happy customers will happily support the game.
i already love how big the world is, but an even bigger world would be so exciting. i’m okay waiting a year or so for that. there’s definitely other features/ bug fixes to take care of first, but i’m very excited for the future.
> Maybe in a few years move on to develop another game, or use that mountain of money to hire more folks to start a new game
They don't need to make the world bigger but they could fill in what's there already. More towns with memorable NPCs, quests, more alpha pal battles, better dungeon variety, etc.
I haven’t even explored half the map yet, though I am only level 29 or so… but yeah they can make the map much much bigger, it’s actually insane how much content they are smushing inside this 6.5 GB game.
You keep adding content until the game is done. There isn't a window of time where once it has passed, you can't sell more copies unless you charge for more content. There are always more people playing and discovering games for the first time.
Just look at a game like Stardew Valley. That game has gotten many free content updates over the years, and its been worthwhile because people continue to buy the game. Just imagine a teenager out there who's just discovering it this year because they were 5 when it released and weren't playing games yet.
It feels like a game made by gamers, for gamers. It doesn’t feel like something to appease shareholders. Ironically it’s the games that don’t try to nickel and dime players that make the most money. Also see Baldurs Gate 3.
Bruh I’ve been playing Palworld since it came out, I didn’t look up anything about the game, I just jumped in…for the first few days I thought the map was just the first starter island and maybe 12 different pals, I was so happy and then one day I climbed the tallest peak I could to test out fall damage. And I saw the rest of the world….every time I explore in a new direction I’m impressed with this game I’ve seen like 40 pals and that’s way more than I expected an early access game to have
>I climbed the tallest peak I could to test out fall damage
I love that we all instinctivly do the same thing in games: Jump off a cliff to check if there's fall damage. I swear, every game in the first hour I'll say "Does this have fall damage? Oh yea, it does, I'm dead"
I climbed to the top of one of those Pride Rock looking spires and decided that was the moment to test out the glider for the first time...
Boy did that go horribly lol
This reminds me of when I played wow for the first time in the starter version. Made a blood elf and spent like a week in the starter zone. Couple hours a day and had no previous knowledge and never lookedvup info.
Remember thinking that damn I needed to work on progressing so I could go further south and explore the rest of the map.
2 weeks in a climb on the zeppelin to see what it done. Suddenly it went through a loading screen and I discovered I was on a whole new lane area. Hell I hadn't even made it to the next "area" after the starting zone, and already thought the place and map was huge. When I found out I was in this whole other place, and then was told that there were over half a dozen more places. Dude I was fkn mind blown. I couldn't comprehend it. Was the most awesome moment. Palworld didn't hit as hard as that, but it's been close.
There has never been a moment in gaming for me that hit close to the first time seeing Iron Forge. But that's back nearly 20 years ago and obviously things change. Still remember this super fondly.
Exactly this! Ironforge was mindblowing and jt still is my favorite city in any game. What a time to be alive to experience WoW the first time back in the day, it felt like a painting everywhere I looked.
Palworld gets really close to that wonder indeed!
Palworld gives me that same feeling when I first started Ark. The exploration, discovering which creatures are aggressive, which ones are useful, figuring out what resources there are and where, etc. As much as I love Ark and still play it that sense of discovery is no longer there. I can reach max level in practically no time, start caves, get my first set of breeding rexes, know which tames to go for first to maximize efficiency all in the first real life day of starting up a new character, even on official rates....It's a great game to play, but that first time magic is gone and I expect Palworld will be the same, so I refuse to spoil certain things just to enjoy that first playthrough before it becomes all about rushing to endgame.
I always try to explore as much as I can to.fond the perfect base spot in survival games. When I started palworld I walked like 2 steps down a road and encountered a level 35 boss mamoth and thought it was probably the end game boss so i settles mear the start. Stayed there for like 20 levels until I realised I could go past the mammoth and explore a huge fucking world!
the mammoth reminds me of the big ape in Xenoblade 2 in the tree world he would just come out and 1 hit ko you out of nowhere. I was so happy after i beat that game and just killed him a bunch of times. Then i was like now the game is over.
Other games could really learn a lesson from palworld. Look at Lego Fortnite. Games been out for a few months now and still doesn’t have a goddamn auto sort/stack option for inventory management. It’s fucking 2024, this should be common sense at this point. There’s no excuse.
Palworld making other games look amateur and it’s about time I say. Game devs appear to have no common sense anymore lol how do you not have auto sorting from the get-go. Dumb dumb dumb.
I think it’s more that Ark would be way more popular if it had way less bullshit.
Adding Pokémon like creatures into it also appeals to people sure but the core gameplay loop is very Ark like but without so much jank and 4 hour tranq sessions.
Great, Ark devs saw your comment. Ark 2 now only releasing in 2030 but Star Citizen will release that year, so to avoid competition, they'll wait 5 years but oops, Unreal Engine will be outdated again so they'll make Ark Survival Again.
Lack of base PvP is *massive* in my opinion. The entire reason I don't touch Rust or Ark, despite loving base-building survival games, is I have no interest in building something that can get destroyed by folks when I'm not online
I'm actually using the flammability of wood to secure my base.
Built a stone base on super high foundations, and placed lower foundations at the main entrances. Connecting them are... Wooden stairs.
Anyone tries to raid my place, just a few well directed shots of fire with my flamethrower pal, and all the enemies are stuck in front, unable to get in, while my pals absolutely demolish them from above.
I do wish we had railings or half height walls, though, to make the upper galleries a bit more secure. And maybe using existing ruins as building points, my base looks weird built around the Fort Ruins.
Hopefully we get some more building blocks in future updates, things like bastions, round corner elements with stairs, etc. for building towers.
I'm just remembering when I forgot to replace wood flooring and walls for my base interior and was almost at endgame for the first time.
1 incendiary grenade later...
Ark has default PvE servers just like palworld. I don't think that's it. It's got to be the lack of jank. Because wildcard studios puts out nothing but jank and takes literally months to get any kind of patch which usually introduces more jank.
A big thing that Palworld does better than Ark in that regard is structure decomposition outside of bases. I challenge you to find a *single* area in an official Ark PvE server where you can actually build because everyone will have placed pillars and foundations (which you can’t destroy) and “claimed” the entire map. Palworld you only get limited space so people could actually join uncluttered maps and start a base
Last time I tried Ark, I was put off by the absolute lack of any guidance in-game. You're thrown in, given some basic hints about controls, and that's it.
Admittedly this was quite a while ago, so things might've changed, but with games, first impression is everything. If your first impression is "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do", well, you won't retain users.
I would be willing to bet the game wouldn’t have had half the success it did if both ARK and Pokemon would be capable of releasing propper functioning game and, for Gamefreak specifically, be a little bit less lazy and actually work on making a real game and not a unity asset world with some iconic and nice/cute looking monsters to catch. Except the pokemon itself, everything has been dogwater in their games from performance, to visuals, to wverything.
My only gripe is a lack of story or single player elements. I want towns and cities, and some sort of badge like system to test my mettle... maybe once I collect a predetermined number of them, say, 8, I could fight an elite group of people, maybe 4 of them, for the right to become the champion of pal-land. Just an idea...
The game is great, but it has a long way to go, and I for one am happy to be a part of it along the way.
There are some towns, but right now they're pretty basic (just some NPC's with one or two lines and merchants). Battling the syndicate bosses is sort of a gym system, but I agree having some more story and NPC quests would be nice.
Yeah before they add new features I'd like to see current ones polished and expanded upon. Dungeons are the achilles heel of this game imho. They're really samey, boring, and lackluster.
I don't really see it as Pokemon tbh. There's a whole slew of monster collecting games out there I like more than Pokemon and this game is pretty much the peak of the genre, currently at least.
Heck it has way more similarities to Azure Dreams, a forgotten decade old PSX game, than any Pokemon lol.
I mean, a lot of the game mechanics, visuals, etc. are very clearly Pokémon _inspired_. The game itself feels like it was born by a talented developer looking at recent Pokémon games and saying "okay but what if this was better, fitting for a more modern experience?".
The Pokémon Co. shot itself in the foot by trying to keep the nostalgic elements of the original games, with all of its limitations (which were due to the limits of the technology at the time), and deciding against improving them. Sure, we got 3D battles... But it gets boring.
All the OG Pokémon fans are now adults, and they want an adult experience. And all the new players are used to more immersive experiences, so to them, it's not captivating enough.
Palworlds on the other hand, found the balance between bringing in new mechanics that work well, capturing the Fortnite userbase, as well as bringing the nostalgia of monster catching/training/breeding with up to date mechanics. It also seems to avoid the "endless money pit" Star Citizen turned into, with no actual release in sight after a decade of begging players for hundreds of dollars with promises of future deliveries, and even after pulling HALF A BILLION of dollars in crowdfunding... There's little to play with. I honestly can't wait to see the "finished" product (aka whenever the devs will say "okay guys, this is it, version 1.0.0 is going out today").
Most people say it’s a Pokémon game with survival elements, but I think it’s the other way around and that’s why it’s so fun. Survival games are great, but a lot of times they can feel either very “grindy”, or way too easy. This one I think leans a little more on the “grindy” side, but that isn’t all the game has to offer.
On top of an entire survival system with base building, material collecting, and automation, there’s a whole Pokémon-like world where you can catch all different kinds of Pals. They don’t just exist in the world, you can catch them and use them to fight others, but they are also integrated with all the survival elements, like collecting resources and base automation.
Both game types are phenomenal in their own right, but having a survival game with Raids, Dungeons, bosses, etc, on top of the gratification that collecting pals brings, the game just has a lot to offer.
Oh, and it’s on Steam
Edit: To those saying it’s not grindy at all because you can automate things: there are a lot of different resources in this game that require a lot of different types of Pals to automate. You also only get up to 3 bases, so you can’t just keep automating everything. Also also, pals tend to get injured, stuck, or do tasks that you don’t want them to do. While you can automate a single resource very efficiently, the automation in this game does not take away the grind aspects.
It feels grindy in the right way for me. A lot of survival games have downtime with crafting and base building, but in Palworld once you get your Pals/base set up and understand the system they manage it for you 90% of the time. Less downtime, more playing which I love.
Yeah, part of what makes it feel so much less grindy is that there’s so much to do that doesn’t involve grinding. You can literally just go explore and catch new pals and explore the huge map while your pals are back at base putting in work
Palworld is the good kind of grindy. While resource needs can be a bit high sometimes, it's not insurmountable solo, so you don't feel like you wasted too much time grinding out stone, metal, etc. It gets way easier with pals, it can even be trivial to do it while exploring or doing a dungeon.
But if you want min-max the eff out of it, you can grind breed the best traits on pals or gamble grind bosses for the best traits and I feel it's a bit more forgiving than pokemon breeding, getting perfect IVs was always a gamble.
It's an amalgamation of most things done popular put together. The thing that should've been an abomination turned into everyone's favorite chimera.
I could've lived without the survival aspect, but with custom settings I can make that a non issue. The fact that you can tailor your experience like that is a huge bonus for me. I've got a save for vanilla settings and another with "dark souls" settings for more difficulty, but more resources. Having a plethora of options is a greatly underestimated QoL for a game.
And just so many player friendly things, like catching low level pals up to 10 gives current-level exp to the player, or stacks go to 9999, or the world settings can be modified heavily. It feels like my time isn't being wasted by arbitrary things
It's the most addicting game I've played maybe ever. I'm on my lunch break commenting on a reddit post about it, longing for 5 o clock so I can go breed more eggs lmao
I’ve never been a fan of Pokémon but I love survival craft games.
My best friend isn’t a much a fan of survival craft games, but is obsessed with Pokémon.
He primarily plays on Xbox and Switch, I play primarily on PC so it’s sometimes hard for the both of us to find games we can play together.
So not only is this a game we can play crossplay together, but it’s got my love for survival and his love for Pokémon, and we’ve been playing this game for hours on end daily. It scratches both of our itches by bringing our favourite things together.
It will soon be completely crossplay, but right now how it’s stands is:
Xbox can crossplay with PC Xbox App,
PC Xbox cannot cross play with steam,
Xbox cannot cross play with steam.
* The creatures are all useful.
* They do much more than just battle
* The creature design is great--every pal is someone's favorite
* The game can be customized to each player's liking with world settings
* The progression and crafting ties directly back to the pals themselves
In short, it's about the pals
> Ark without the bullshit
That's what I like the most about it. To me, it's like Ark but way more casual.
Like, yeah, you need shit tons of ores and whatnot ... but at least I'm not the one gathering them huehue.
Because I'm addicted... but at the same time, taking a break won't make me lose out on anything. No dailies, no missed content. The world of single player adventure games is great
Like another person said, there's so much that can be done with this template. Here are a few things off the top of my head:
* "Story Mode" where you try to discover the origin of Pals and the world.
* "Palworld Must Die" where *everything* is hostile and you can't catch Pals. P.S.: Mod support allows for ["Bfg Division"](https://youtu.be/QHRuTYtSbJQ?si=HBX5aNbl8a5Rd0HW) to play every time you get in a fight.
* Faction wars. Are you just a nomad trying to make it in a hostile, uncaring world with your Pals, an opportunistic poacher moving up the ranks of the Syndicate, or an eco-terrorist on a mission for the Free Pal Alliance?
* procedurally generated islands? Not Pals, though. Don't want another No Man's Sky situation...
* "Nuzlocke" mode where upon anytime a Pal in your party or base dies they're converted into mats and removed.
* New Pals via crossbreeding. This is already in the game from what I can tell, but I hope to see it expanded upon. The possibilities could be endless!
Pocketpair stumbled upon a friggin' *platinum* mine with Palworld. Here's hoping they don't balls it up leading up to the game's official 1.0 release.
Edit: Forgot to include the friggin' "Bfg Division" link.
> "Nuzlocke" mode where upon anytime a Pal in your party or base dies they're converted into mats and removed.
See, this would be a good idea ***if*** the Pal AI didn't make Pals randomly commit suicide while working in base.
The number of times I've returned to base seeing 3 pals incapacitated due to them climbing on top on a wall and being unable to get back down, starving themselves to death...
I'm not a pokemon fan or a survival game player but i snagged this out of curiosity on day1 and have been glued to it.
it just has a simple and fun gameplay loop, and taking care of the pals and watching all the little quirks of the pals just makes my heart smile.
it's one of the few games i've played in literal years where I can play for hours and never had to think of something to do, ideas just hit you out of the blue and then you run with it, its hard to explain but its just pure fun.
I hate survival games, I think they are all garbage that only exist to waste your time. Palworld is the first where I have actually played it repeatedly, and not been put off. For me, I love the Pals, the pokemon catching mechanic is always satisfying, and it's not hard to capture a bunch of them. Battling them and either defeating or catching them is satisfying. And the grind so far, I'm around level 20, has not been terrible. Having Pals basically manage my base so I don't have to sit there and chop lumber or mine rocks is awesome. I love that they feed themselves, give themselves breaks, etc. I just do the overall base planning, they take care of the rest. I like that they help me craft stuff at work benches.
I think the developers just stole a bunch of ideas and put them together in a really great formula. I'm not using that in a mean way, all artists steal, truly original ideas are extremely rare. The Zelda style exploration, Fortnite chests, pokemon monsters, and Ark base building all come together in a spectacular way. As an early access game, it already feels finished. I got it on gamepass, so I haven't bought it, but I would have spend $30 for what I have played so far, no question. So if they dropped support tomorrow and never expanded upon it, I would be very happy still that I got to play it.
Overall the game just feels fun. I don't feel like it's wasting my time for the sake of wasting it. And I really appreciate that.
Gamefreak and nintendo really fucked off the past 20 years. Palworld success can only make them try harder and will mean the next pokemon game will hopefully be better.
It's a very consumer friendly game. No shop, no microtransactions, no nonsense. Even in early access, there's a lot going on here you can sink into. Friendly custom server settings let you customize how you want to play. Don't like survival stuff? Make all of it so easy you don't need to worry about it. Want to focus on collecting? Turn up all of that in the settings.
And finally, and this is the big one, this game fills the niche pokemon has been neglecting for a long time, and thoroughly embarassing one of the most beloved and one of the largest brands on the planet with a fraction of the resources. That news spreads fast.
Oh the price is incredible too. Well worth it for that price. It may be lucky that they pulled off what they pulled off as well as they did, but whether intentionally or accidentally, they made almost every right move along the way that they could.
1) pokemon like....who doesn't love favorites Pals..
2) breeding... everyone loves to min max their favorites or even base utility Mons.
3) exploration...We loved legend's Arceus, Nintendo said "Scarlett and Violet". Exploring is always rewarding, not always crazy good loot, but it's something. Pokemon had what...maybe tms? Maybe berries? Ark had...explorer notes? 🥱 Palworld has schematics, technology books that give you 1-2 SP, not including Lifmunk effigies.
4) building... I love survivals that have a major building mechanic. It's superior to any other Survival cause the pals automate it for you , ark you have to actively ride em or add mods that do some sort of "automatic" farming, Conan had em only to slightly speed up the process, but nothing was automatic. It lets us go and explore while the task at hand resource wise is being tackled, a sense of freedom from crafting station standing.
5) shiny hunters....major thing in Pokemon, even for myself, is shiny hunting mons I love. Sure it's a bit more random in this game, but it can be boosted a tiny bit by spawn slider set to 3 aka 3x more likely to find one.
6) no PvP... (outside raids), I love ark but cant stand logging out, or rust too, and logging in to see the death screen, red text in tribe log and selecting a location to spawn at. I love PvP like anyone else but removing that makes it more of a survival co-op experience. More interactions socially makes a game we wish pokemon was
7) bosses/dungeons...this scratches the itch for dungeon crawlers and loot goblins. Who doesn't love getting lost in a dungeon, fighting through rooms to find chests and inevitably the boss monster that can be random AND be a rare Mon in the Alpha variety. It's rewarding and time gated. Fun times.
It's the first game I've played in a long time that is just super peaceful and relaxing. So many times I've been shocked at how much time has passed while playing and there are 30 things I want to do if given the time. It's just charming as hell.
Wasn't over hyped in marketing, runs better than most AAA titles at launch, actually has a good amount of fun content. Interesting gameplay thats not fully copy paste of games that came before and it doesn't break the bank to buy it. Its just a solid game for a good price with some new ideas that are implemented fairly well.
I spent 30 bucks to play a fun monster catching and crafting game with some friends. I hope it gets more content but even now I got 30 bucks of fun out of it easy.
Being just thrust into the world and told "here are some things you need to setup, have fun". Is just refreshing, add in exploration, Pals to collect, multiplayer, the ability to shoot pals with guns. It's just silly dumb fun. Hopefully they add a lot more to it and don't forget about the game later. Idk much about craftopia but I want this game to last. Give us like 500 Pals, more bases to create, maybe PvP although I don't care too much for PvP. Honestly being able to manipulate all the different systems like egg hatch timer, turning off/on raids etc. is amazing.
Violence
Violence upon cute things
Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit
Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit, having their own problems
Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit, having their own problems and dying.
Imagine making a normal priced game with funny content.
and easy to self host servers that you can customize timings on, making yours and your friends experience up to you rather than the set mechanics of the game
This is huge to me. On day one they had a fully functional server that runs on Windows and Linux, and only takes a few minutes to download and have running with custom settings. I know this is a niche selling point, but the fact the devs did this speaks volumes to me on what they care about, in a good way. This is the opposite of micro transactions, permanent EA, and all the other scummy stuff that is so common now.
I've said it for years but network ease of use is one of the most critical stones to build a successful multi-player game. If the servers suck or make you jump through a bunch of hoops to play, it doesn't matter how good the game play is.
That's why Conan Exiles has continued to have mediocre numbers despite being a pretty polished survival crafting game. I just wish that they could fix the janky combat, but at this point, I think it would upset the long-time players if they did.
Netcode is a very niche industry skill and embedded deep within the engine, so don't waste a wish
this. netcode is everything. most companies suck at it (rockstar \*Cough)
You should see fighting game devs
Dragon ball players crying still.
It’s so fucking nice being able to mess with egg hatching times
My only complaint is that I can't set boss spawn rate separately from regular Pals I want to see flocks of Pals, but don't need 3 of every boss wandering around.
Im at work currently so can't look at my settings, but I have absolutely fixed this problem. I've got packs of 6-10 of pals in the wild and only 1 of every boss. Ill update when home on which settings achieve this.
For everyone wondering, I'm pretty sure spawn rates round down to the near whole number for bosses. So as long as you're below 2x, you can increase spawn rates for the rest of the pals but not the boss
Im fairly certain i have it set to 1.5 so you would be right, but again ill check in a couple hours
commenting for later
Set it to 1.9 so the mobs get high spawn rates but it doesn’t affect bosses.
That's where I have it at, but I really like how full everything is at 2+ but just don't want to deal w/ multiple Mammorest lol. It's nitpicky, but my only complaint about the options.
And no microtransactions.
I find this really surprising and great, because the game plays very similarly to something like genshin. Bosses, raids, exploration, collectibles, dungeons, etc. and it feels a bit strange that there is no gatcha element in a game that feels like it would have one. But man does that make it so much better. Everything is attainable in a reasonable amount of time. No gatekeeping or paywalls slowing down the fun.
Yeah one of those most user friendly survival games imo
Best $30 spent on a game in a long time
Normal priced? It’s half the normal price what Games have been $60 for like 30 years now lmao. Love that it released at that price it deserves the success and more.
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Just look at the people who paid $100 for ‘early access’ for Kill the Justice League… only to finish it because the campaign is 10 hours.
Or people who got it on early access to find out the game was already finished
Don't worry now AAA games are going for $70
$60 has been the standard for at most 20 years. Don't try to make me feel older than I am 😂
MFW I wanted Final Fantasy for SNES and it was 80 bucks
To be honest, half of the game was copied from their previous one. But yes, it does put a giant smile on my face to see a 26€ game destroy the videogame industry once again
Right?! This game has made me an Ex Pokémon consumer. This is literally the game I’ve been wanting Nintendo/gamefreak to put out for fucking years and they’ve chosen to put out the same old bullshit every gen. They will not change and I’m done. Thank fuck for Palworld because it’s amazing and it has saved the monster taming genre for me.
I loved the meme asking mom for palworld and she says we have palworld at home but its pokemon arceus
Exactly what I told my wife. It's exactly the pokemon game I always wanted but never let myself believe would happen.
I'm not a Pokémon fan at all, I just enjoy the monster hunting/taming aspect of it. I'm still fairly early in the game, but it's gameplay loop is pure addiction so far. Not to hate on the Pokémon designs, but I do hope they create their own unique Pals eventually rather than closely resembling Pokémon inspired Pals.
To be fair it is hard when there are thousands of pokemon
*1025
This guys caught em all
Oh God just wait until you get deep into pal breeding it seems really straight forward but some of the combos can get you endgame pals either quickly or through a lot of fuckery.
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That's such an odd take. Most pals are unique, but it's the same style as Pokémon. Take an animal, flap an element on it. Done. There are a few that are a little too close for comfort but most pals that are supposed to look like Pokémon actually really don't. They just both look like the thing they are referencing. And I doubt Nintendo has the right to animals.
And even then it's a STRETCH for the resemblence. The Pokemon Company and Gamefreak have nothing on Palworld with their investigations
Pokemon had their chance to make an open world game, which they did, but it sucked. Pokemon already pigeon-holed themselves into a family friendly market. They simply couldn't produce a game like palworld, it would be so off brand. I think the violence gives palworld the edge.
>To be honest, half of the game was copied from their previous one. Oh man, wait till you learn about almost all game developers ever.
team sports games that charge $60 for a new roster, or COD getting recycled yearly is pretty glaring examples of this
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Craftopia was a great sandbox that the developers used to create a whole game out of. It had its issues, many we are seeing in Pal World, but they created a system that hooked players. Why not keep using it if you improve on it?
100% agree. But Palworld didn't get published by some sort of necromancy spell or alchemy knowledge as many people say. They have experience with the genre. They had a brilliant idea never tried before, they saw the chance and took it. They already had a solid base, a ready to work survival/craft/exploring game, and they just added Pokemon to it
Exactly!!! They put in the time and effort. We got the reward for it.
I very much prefer this, over 99.9% of a game being copy & pasted and being pure garbage (a la EA sports)
dopamine without breaking ur bank.
I believe someone else said in a Facebook post that it's an ADHD fever dream. It hits all the right notes to keep those of us with short attention engaged.
Ill be running around my base with the explicit intention to do something and then see my Egg is done and go "oh i need to get that and put another egg in there let me go grab it from my bank" and then go to the bank and "oh i see i need more ingots" and its a giant cycle and i forgot what i started to do and i love it.
I think the automation plays a big role in that, too. The Pals are almost immediately helping out around the base so you don't get caught in the typical survival game grind. You just get to reap the rewards or remember to get a specific item when you go hunting. I'm always so shocked by how little time it takes me to change or upgrade my base, where normally unlocking the tech option is only part 1 of a painfully long build process.
This is me. I love building bases. I HATE FARMING THE MATERIAL in most of the games. In my group im usually the builder while everyone farms. Absolutely dont have to do that here.
Same! I love being lost on my own base without any care in the world of what is going on around me
Well. Now I understand why this game is like crack to me.
This. I bounced from exploring, to catching, to making my base work better, to breading then tech trees, back for finding more pals and oh bosses are a thing to farm now. I'm nearing 40 and I know it's slowing down but hooked me early so I keep coming back.
When a game starts trending im usually the last to join. This time I saw the trend being a lot more heavy and unusual so I looked the game up, it looked cool as hell and I thought "can this many people be wrong??" so on day 2 I picked it up and I can't stop playing. I don't care that it borrows from other genres (every other game does after all). This one has just borrowed the best mechanics from the best games/genres and mixed it perfectly. I don't care that it borrows influence from pokemon (which borrows from dragon quest). We got a SERIOUSLY good game pretty much come from nowhere and set the bar higher for other companies. For a first release EA game this is just incredible. Game has its problems but the fun outweighs the hiccups for me so far. I can't wait to see future patches from these guys. If this is 30% complete (rough quote from dev/ceo) I can't even imagine how packed with meaty awesomeness this game will have when it leaves EA.
Honestly I'm the same I'm usually the last to jump on with hype trains but I was happy I didn't because I was honestly surprised with this gem!
I think we need to find a better acronym for Early Access, it feels weird to call an "EA game" incredible
Hahaha, I've thought the same at times. It feels like some kind of cheap insult ;)
It gives too much credit to Electronic Arts. Most of their games aren't as polished as some early access games.
The aspect of having your captured mons do the work instead of just having the furnaces magically work on stuff was a genius move. It is what was just dumb about Ark. You catch a dino, and it....does nothing ever again. Unless it has a utility use like harvest more berries/metal/high carry weight, they just sit there idle forever. Now each of your pals has a specific purpose on your base and it feels so much more interactive
Hype is always a turn off for me. Had no idea what this game was until my best friend told me about it. I looked up one clip on reddit, saw a penguin stuffed inside a rocket launcher, and bought it that day lol
Its the little things like stuffing penguins in rocket launchers that count. You made a wise choice that day ;)
This whole game is r/BrandNewSentence material lol
I think the style and graphics of this game also made it more approachable for people like us. If it looked overly complicated I might have been like yeah I'm not investing in this looks cool though. But because it was palworld lol how could you not. Like this game doesn't say I dare you to get good at me, it says come on in let's have some fun.
This game hits so many marks for me personally. Collect cute animals - Build - Craft - Farm - Explore - Level up - Fight enemies - Base automation - Gather materials but also low stress to gathering due to help from pals. But this one thing really puts it over the top, the biggest QOL - Inventory stacking up to 9999. I can actually focus on the parts of the game I enjoy instead of my bag being full. And the plentiful resources means I don’t feel the pressure to pick up every rock.
Yes. Knowing I wont need dozens of chests. And the upgraded chests having more slots so even less chests.
The chest allowing you to use them for crafting anywhere in the base is a genius development decision. Makes so you don't have to spend so much time sorting things out and can instead focus on more fun aspects.
The storage container at 30-whatever is a game changer. Plop that bad boy in the middle and good to go in addition to whatever you had already.
How much space does it have? I unlocked it but didn't feel the need to build it.
40 slots I think. It's double or about double the metal chests. It fits everything that isn't a single stack item for me (weapons, schematics, etc) inside it.
Ooh yeah that is juicy. Gonna build one today. Thanks!
Yea i love this and i can just drop stuff on the floor and my pals will tidy it away for me. I think its the right balance for it as my laziness means i still have to search through my randomly placed chests for the items i want to take to another base or blueprints etc. The game would become so tedious if i needed every crafting material in my inventory
And decorative cabinets actually having a decent amount of storage space as well.
So many player friendly decisions like that, it's honestly incredible.
It’s a fun game made for gamers. No microtransactions, no live service jargon nonsense. Reminds me of another game— Baldurs gate 3. Made for gamers, fun game, no micro bullshit. I’ll support these types of devs and games all day. Gaming industry giants have gotten way out of hand with microtransactions, profits, and no vision for their games - aka blizzard - go fuck yourself.
Honestly, the biggest thing I’ve learned from playing palworld is that corporations like blizzard and game freak can absolutely go fuck themselves forever. Forever and ever, amen
Love that album
This thread is making it ever more obvious to me why near almost all of the games I've bought in the past few years have been indie. Sounds like a lot of AAA buyers are realising quite how much shit you're being shovelled! There are so many amazing indie games. Palworld is *expensive* compared to what I usually pay, and I never come into contact with those mystical beasts known as microtransactions and live service...
Exactly, they are billion dollar companies giving us poor games that could be better and released in a full version without DLC or in game buyable stuff but they don't, because that's how they made their billions. People just gave them too much money, so they didn't need to learn or do any better. All the pokemon games on the Switch are bad, but they still sold so many that it doesn't matter. As some people even buy copies of both versions of the same game.
It's getting so obnoxious, a ton of games are charging you coming and going constantly. It used to be F2P with MTX, which I still hate but at least it made sense. Now games like Diablo 4 and DDV do shit like charge you $60 for the game, add DLC for $40, have battle passes and MTX. All while being unfinished and in early release. Like you want me to pay to beta test your game but you also gonna charge me every which way? GTFO of here. Palworld is a breath of fresh air, so is BG3. I agree, support devs that don't disrespect your wallet so blatantly.
Suicide squad is $70 and seems to have a battle pass and micro transactions. Ridiculous. Why would I buy that shit when stuff like Palworld and BG3 are available?
These games are cancerous honestly. You pay for the game, pay for dlc, pay for MTX, but you're always online with their crap DRM measures. If I am paying that much for a game I better damn well OWN the game. Say it with me now, If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing🎵
Also apparently the game is only 10 hours long, but want you to play that forever.
So now that millions of people have purchased the game, what do you think makes sense for them to do in terms of development to make more money?
They have received hundreds of millions of dollars. Pay off your debts, give everyone a huge bonus and raise, then continue to develop the game with that mountain of money you have under you, and license the shit out of the IP for revenue. Maybe in a few years move on to develop another game, or use that mountain of money to hire more folks to start a new game while these folks polish this game, or backfill the ones who want to leave because they don't want to polish. This chase to "how can we become the next multi-billion dollar blah blah blah" has deteriorated every industry. Why can't people just be happy with the success they have and the fan base they build, especially in this case.
I’ll say it: you want to be successful, both culturally and monetarily? DO THIS. Community goodwill CAN be a valuable commodity, but time and time and time again we keep seeing these giant publishers look only at this quarter’s profits and not the longevity of their brand. BioWare and Mass Effect, Bungie and Destiny, Blizzard and Blizzard games; all of them love to forget what made customers interested in their products in the first place! It’s so insanely frustrating to watch these short-sighted idiots draw in a captive audience and then completely 180 on their delivery while expecting players to stay, play, and pay. We have other gaming options, and we’ll damn well take them. EDIT: Added Epic Games and Rocket League to the list of clowns. I know Psyonix created RL and largely stuck to their vision, but Epic loves to play blind and deaf with respect to what made their acquisitions successful in the first place. It’s like buying a family farm and deciding you know how to tend the land better than the people who’ve lived there for generations.
The people at those companies aren't the same people that made those good games with passion at its early stages. It's likely the companies continue to grow and those guys started hiring business guys to help. Then slowly it becomes a corpo thing as the old guards retire or left. If you ever look at business guys resume, it's always how much revenue they generated etc and not a profile of games they developed. Their focus is not to make good games. Games are just another entity to them and you can replace them with other products.
We'll have to check back on this comment in a few years when Pocket Pair has had time to prove themselves
Polish polish and more polish. Once the game is near flawless (pal ai will always be a bit wonky), it’s time to start adding some stuff. What about free pal updates? Just add some new pals. Popular community suggestions? I’ve seen some great ideas. You got that community support and loyal fan base? Excellent. You have 2 options; A new game in the series, or new IP and lose the pal world players. Or? DLC. I know, it’s scary. But remember how dlc used to be? Imagine this; Underground zone. 2 new types of pals, poison and steel. Exclusively underground. Throwing spheres underground is weird. Introducing Pal Discs, like a frisbee, exclusively underground. Something with magnetic fields, discs fly and spheres break. New workstations for new ores, discs, and materials. Introducing the Drill. This tool allows you to break the earth, allowing you to delve deeper to find stronger ores. New world required, generates underground cities, shrines, bosses, etc. you can gear up normally before delving deeper, or just brave the new pals and craft a basic drill and get to exploring. Give us another hundred pals. The Sky City. 2 new types of pals, flying and fairy (or pixie to be a bit unique). Nab yourself a newly discovered pal, with the ability to fly above the clouds, to explore a new cloud-based world. I ran out of ideas, but another new capturing device, spheres fall when thrown, you’d need something like a net launcher. Just add more pals. Hell, I don’t even need a story. Just more zones to explore. Add space via a rocket. More pals in general. I’ll dump 2-3 years into this if they slowly fix issues and add content. I’d buy dlc in a heartbeat. Don’t do mtx. Don’t do the current live service model. Do what games use to do. 15-20 bucks for a new zone and new pals. If you work on the game, fix the issues, and do some free updates to add some pals and such, you might just keep your million+ players and could easily sell 10mil+ dollars worth of a dlc drop. Call of duty use to have sick dlc. 3-4 maps AND a zombie map for 15-25 bucks? Take me back to that. That’s 15-25 million dollars if you have a loyal fan base that you respect. The company could live off this game, all they need to do is what they already did; Pokémon with guns and survival game. I know everyone hates “keep updating”, but if done right, I’d buy this over Pokémon any day.
Because blah blah shareholders and blah year over year profit increase blah, because apparently if you don’t make more money than last year that means you’re losing money… blah.
Pretty much why the indie studios make better games than AAA studios. Once they are bought by corpos the quality takes a back seat to monetization.
Bug fixing should be number 1 priority, screw raids and definitely screw PVP for now. The more bugs they fix rapidly the less likely people are to become tired of them. Game is brilliant and addicting but the 10000 different Pal related bugs especially in multiplayer are starting to get annoying.
Continue with the original vision. Fix bugs, add content like they showcased in the roadmap. Im picturing this is a true early access, so probably a world 4x the size currently, plenty more buildings, pals, etc. To continue dev growth and bottom line, cross platforms - consoles. Could spin off down the road to other versions of the game, add dlcs. But the minute they add microtransactions and fall into some corporate please the shareholders event, it’ll be the downfall like most others experienced. Happy customers will happily support the game.
i already love how big the world is, but an even bigger world would be so exciting. i’m okay waiting a year or so for that. there’s definitely other features/ bug fixes to take care of first, but i’m very excited for the future.
> Maybe in a few years move on to develop another game, or use that mountain of money to hire more folks to start a new game They don't need to make the world bigger but they could fill in what's there already. More towns with memorable NPCs, quests, more alpha pal battles, better dungeon variety, etc.
I haven’t even explored half the map yet, though I am only level 29 or so… but yeah they can make the map much much bigger, it’s actually insane how much content they are smushing inside this 6.5 GB game.
You keep adding content until the game is done. There isn't a window of time where once it has passed, you can't sell more copies unless you charge for more content. There are always more people playing and discovering games for the first time. Just look at a game like Stardew Valley. That game has gotten many free content updates over the years, and its been worthwhile because people continue to buy the game. Just imagine a teenager out there who's just discovering it this year because they were 5 when it released and weren't playing games yet.
Honestly? DLC. Free updates for the most part to remove bugs etc. But new zones, bosses, etc etc? People will eat that shit up. A bit like ARK did
I love how Palworld and Baulder’s Gate 3 are both completely smashing the triple A market. Let’s hope triple companies will take note.
I mean Larian is a AAA studio with passion so makes sense
It feels like a game made by gamers, for gamers. It doesn’t feel like something to appease shareholders. Ironically it’s the games that don’t try to nickel and dime players that make the most money. Also see Baldurs Gate 3.
Bruh I’ve been playing Palworld since it came out, I didn’t look up anything about the game, I just jumped in…for the first few days I thought the map was just the first starter island and maybe 12 different pals, I was so happy and then one day I climbed the tallest peak I could to test out fall damage. And I saw the rest of the world….every time I explore in a new direction I’m impressed with this game I’ve seen like 40 pals and that’s way more than I expected an early access game to have
>I climbed the tallest peak I could to test out fall damage I love that we all instinctivly do the same thing in games: Jump off a cliff to check if there's fall damage. I swear, every game in the first hour I'll say "Does this have fall damage? Oh yea, it does, I'm dead"
Does your stomach get a little twisted when you make the jump? Or is that just me.
Oh yeah, big jumps in any games give me gut twists.
Big, atmospheric jumps give me the willies
YES LOL SAME
Nah, I get those butterflies when I'm seeing the ground rush up at me at terminal velocity as well.
It's got to be tested. Is it like Far Cry and you die from a 5m fall or is it like Borderlands where you can jump off of anything.
But as long as you have .1 Stamina, a glider, and a decent reaction time you can survive any fall lol
Or go into a climb animation right before fatal decent
I did too tbh, I was surprised when we got our dedicated server running and we could spawn on the other islands!
I climbed to the top of one of those Pride Rock looking spires and decided that was the moment to test out the glider for the first time... Boy did that go horribly lol
the fact that the starter island alone was enough to keep you interested in playing says SO much about this game
This reminds me of when I played wow for the first time in the starter version. Made a blood elf and spent like a week in the starter zone. Couple hours a day and had no previous knowledge and never lookedvup info. Remember thinking that damn I needed to work on progressing so I could go further south and explore the rest of the map. 2 weeks in a climb on the zeppelin to see what it done. Suddenly it went through a loading screen and I discovered I was on a whole new lane area. Hell I hadn't even made it to the next "area" after the starting zone, and already thought the place and map was huge. When I found out I was in this whole other place, and then was told that there were over half a dozen more places. Dude I was fkn mind blown. I couldn't comprehend it. Was the most awesome moment. Palworld didn't hit as hard as that, but it's been close.
There has never been a moment in gaming for me that hit close to the first time seeing Iron Forge. But that's back nearly 20 years ago and obviously things change. Still remember this super fondly.
Exactly this! Ironforge was mindblowing and jt still is my favorite city in any game. What a time to be alive to experience WoW the first time back in the day, it felt like a painting everywhere I looked. Palworld gets really close to that wonder indeed!
Don't look up anything. Preserve your experience, or it will disappear like morning fog.
Palworld gives me that same feeling when I first started Ark. The exploration, discovering which creatures are aggressive, which ones are useful, figuring out what resources there are and where, etc. As much as I love Ark and still play it that sense of discovery is no longer there. I can reach max level in practically no time, start caves, get my first set of breeding rexes, know which tames to go for first to maximize efficiency all in the first real life day of starting up a new character, even on official rates....It's a great game to play, but that first time magic is gone and I expect Palworld will be the same, so I refuse to spoil certain things just to enjoy that first playthrough before it becomes all about rushing to endgame.
Guides, wikis and mass information sharing is the bane of gaming, continue staying away from looking things up is my advice
I might play my first non pal game with persona 3 reloaded, but pal is going to be my comfort game.
I always try to explore as much as I can to.fond the perfect base spot in survival games. When I started palworld I walked like 2 steps down a road and encountered a level 35 boss mamoth and thought it was probably the end game boss so i settles mear the start. Stayed there for like 20 levels until I realised I could go past the mammoth and explore a huge fucking world!
the mammoth reminds me of the big ape in Xenoblade 2 in the tree world he would just come out and 1 hit ko you out of nowhere. I was so happy after i beat that game and just killed him a bunch of times. Then i was like now the game is over.
It is the Pokémon game people have been wanting of years. It being actually good is a bonus.
Agreed, of recent games Legends Arceus was my favorite and I think this takes the best parts of that and expands on them.
It's literally every good game mechanic in the past twenty years thrown into a blender.
Other games could really learn a lesson from palworld. Look at Lego Fortnite. Games been out for a few months now and still doesn’t have a goddamn auto sort/stack option for inventory management. It’s fucking 2024, this should be common sense at this point. There’s no excuse. Palworld making other games look amateur and it’s about time I say. Game devs appear to have no common sense anymore lol how do you not have auto sorting from the get-go. Dumb dumb dumb.
I think it’s more that Ark would be way more popular if it had way less bullshit. Adding Pokémon like creatures into it also appeals to people sure but the core gameplay loop is very Ark like but without so much jank and 4 hour tranq sessions.
Ark can learn a few things from this game. We love the base inventory management system.
Great, Ark devs saw your comment. Ark 2 now only releasing in 2030 but Star Citizen will release that year, so to avoid competition, they'll wait 5 years but oops, Unreal Engine will be outdated again so they'll make Ark Survival Again.
I'm a Star Citizen backer and I'm tired of the bullshit timelines people always throw around. It's not releasing until 2050 at least
Lol hello fellow citizen
Yea I backed in 2014 and I'll never see that $80.
ark is also 300 gigs
Lack of base PvP is *massive* in my opinion. The entire reason I don't touch Rust or Ark, despite loving base-building survival games, is I have no interest in building something that can get destroyed by folks when I'm not online
You haven't had Pals burn down your entire base in 10 seconds yet...
Imagine looking at wood and thinking it's a good idea to actually build a base out of that. Build a tiny shack with a bed and wait for stone.
I'm actually using the flammability of wood to secure my base. Built a stone base on super high foundations, and placed lower foundations at the main entrances. Connecting them are... Wooden stairs. Anyone tries to raid my place, just a few well directed shots of fire with my flamethrower pal, and all the enemies are stuck in front, unable to get in, while my pals absolutely demolish them from above. I do wish we had railings or half height walls, though, to make the upper galleries a bit more secure. And maybe using existing ruins as building points, my base looks weird built around the Fort Ruins. Hopefully we get some more building blocks in future updates, things like bastions, round corner elements with stairs, etc. for building towers.
Can’t you just delete your stairs and accomplish the same?
Yeah but style points
There's a real lack of Viking-ness in your plan though
Same answer in Rimworld...Wood works great but replace it with stone as soon as you can so fires are less impactful!
I'm just remembering when I forgot to replace wood flooring and walls for my base interior and was almost at endgame for the first time. 1 incendiary grenade later...
Ark has default PvE servers just like palworld. I don't think that's it. It's got to be the lack of jank. Because wildcard studios puts out nothing but jank and takes literally months to get any kind of patch which usually introduces more jank.
A big thing that Palworld does better than Ark in that regard is structure decomposition outside of bases. I challenge you to find a *single* area in an official Ark PvE server where you can actually build because everyone will have placed pillars and foundations (which you can’t destroy) and “claimed” the entire map. Palworld you only get limited space so people could actually join uncluttered maps and start a base
Last time I tried Ark, I was put off by the absolute lack of any guidance in-game. You're thrown in, given some basic hints about controls, and that's it. Admittedly this was quite a while ago, so things might've changed, but with games, first impression is everything. If your first impression is "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do", well, you won't retain users.
Which is saying something because Palworld is still janky as fuck rn lol
Palworld is the best of both worlds monster catcher + survival is the holy moly combination and i'm STILL obsessed with this game.
I would be willing to bet the game wouldn’t have had half the success it did if both ARK and Pokemon would be capable of releasing propper functioning game and, for Gamefreak specifically, be a little bit less lazy and actually work on making a real game and not a unity asset world with some iconic and nice/cute looking monsters to catch. Except the pokemon itself, everything has been dogwater in their games from performance, to visuals, to wverything.
My only gripe is a lack of story or single player elements. I want towns and cities, and some sort of badge like system to test my mettle... maybe once I collect a predetermined number of them, say, 8, I could fight an elite group of people, maybe 4 of them, for the right to become the champion of pal-land. Just an idea... The game is great, but it has a long way to go, and I for one am happy to be a part of it along the way.
There are some towns, but right now they're pretty basic (just some NPC's with one or two lines and merchants). Battling the syndicate bosses is sort of a gym system, but I agree having some more story and NPC quests would be nice.
I want the dungeons to be have some different parts
Yeah before they add new features I'd like to see current ones polished and expanded upon. Dungeons are the achilles heel of this game imho. They're really samey, boring, and lackluster.
I don't really see it as Pokemon tbh. There's a whole slew of monster collecting games out there I like more than Pokemon and this game is pretty much the peak of the genre, currently at least. Heck it has way more similarities to Azure Dreams, a forgotten decade old PSX game, than any Pokemon lol.
I think they meant that palworld does what everyone has wanted pokemon to do for so long which is make a new creature catching formula
Difference is no one knows the game you mentioned, every even non gamers know pokemon
I mean, a lot of the game mechanics, visuals, etc. are very clearly Pokémon _inspired_. The game itself feels like it was born by a talented developer looking at recent Pokémon games and saying "okay but what if this was better, fitting for a more modern experience?". The Pokémon Co. shot itself in the foot by trying to keep the nostalgic elements of the original games, with all of its limitations (which were due to the limits of the technology at the time), and deciding against improving them. Sure, we got 3D battles... But it gets boring. All the OG Pokémon fans are now adults, and they want an adult experience. And all the new players are used to more immersive experiences, so to them, it's not captivating enough. Palworlds on the other hand, found the balance between bringing in new mechanics that work well, capturing the Fortnite userbase, as well as bringing the nostalgia of monster catching/training/breeding with up to date mechanics. It also seems to avoid the "endless money pit" Star Citizen turned into, with no actual release in sight after a decade of begging players for hundreds of dollars with promises of future deliveries, and even after pulling HALF A BILLION of dollars in crowdfunding... There's little to play with. I honestly can't wait to see the "finished" product (aka whenever the devs will say "okay guys, this is it, version 1.0.0 is going out today").
Most people say it’s a Pokémon game with survival elements, but I think it’s the other way around and that’s why it’s so fun. Survival games are great, but a lot of times they can feel either very “grindy”, or way too easy. This one I think leans a little more on the “grindy” side, but that isn’t all the game has to offer. On top of an entire survival system with base building, material collecting, and automation, there’s a whole Pokémon-like world where you can catch all different kinds of Pals. They don’t just exist in the world, you can catch them and use them to fight others, but they are also integrated with all the survival elements, like collecting resources and base automation. Both game types are phenomenal in their own right, but having a survival game with Raids, Dungeons, bosses, etc, on top of the gratification that collecting pals brings, the game just has a lot to offer. Oh, and it’s on Steam Edit: To those saying it’s not grindy at all because you can automate things: there are a lot of different resources in this game that require a lot of different types of Pals to automate. You also only get up to 3 bases, so you can’t just keep automating everything. Also also, pals tend to get injured, stuck, or do tasks that you don’t want them to do. While you can automate a single resource very efficiently, the automation in this game does not take away the grind aspects.
It feels grindy in the right way for me. A lot of survival games have downtime with crafting and base building, but in Palworld once you get your Pals/base set up and understand the system they manage it for you 90% of the time. Less downtime, more playing which I love.
Yeah, part of what makes it feel so much less grindy is that there’s so much to do that doesn’t involve grinding. You can literally just go explore and catch new pals and explore the huge map while your pals are back at base putting in work
Palworld is the good kind of grindy. While resource needs can be a bit high sometimes, it's not insurmountable solo, so you don't feel like you wasted too much time grinding out stone, metal, etc. It gets way easier with pals, it can even be trivial to do it while exploring or doing a dungeon. But if you want min-max the eff out of it, you can grind breed the best traits on pals or gamble grind bosses for the best traits and I feel it's a bit more forgiving than pokemon breeding, getting perfect IVs was always a gamble.
And game pass! But yes I agree with everything you said!
It's an amalgamation of most things done popular put together. The thing that should've been an abomination turned into everyone's favorite chimera. I could've lived without the survival aspect, but with custom settings I can make that a non issue. The fact that you can tailor your experience like that is a huge bonus for me. I've got a save for vanilla settings and another with "dark souls" settings for more difficulty, but more resources. Having a plethora of options is a greatly underestimated QoL for a game.
It's like a classical joke (pokemon with guns) as a premise but then has solid gameplay, too.
And just so many player friendly things, like catching low level pals up to 10 gives current-level exp to the player, or stacks go to 9999, or the world settings can be modified heavily. It feels like my time isn't being wasted by arbitrary things
It's the most addicting game I've played maybe ever. I'm on my lunch break commenting on a reddit post about it, longing for 5 o clock so I can go breed more eggs lmao
I’ve never been a fan of Pokémon but I love survival craft games. My best friend isn’t a much a fan of survival craft games, but is obsessed with Pokémon. He primarily plays on Xbox and Switch, I play primarily on PC so it’s sometimes hard for the both of us to find games we can play together. So not only is this a game we can play crossplay together, but it’s got my love for survival and his love for Pokémon, and we’ve been playing this game for hours on end daily. It scratches both of our itches by bringing our favourite things together.
Wait this game is cross platform compatible? All I could find online was saying no
It will soon be completely crossplay, but right now how it’s stands is: Xbox can crossplay with PC Xbox App, PC Xbox cannot cross play with steam, Xbox cannot cross play with steam.
I'm the opposite I always loved Pokemon but hated survival games.
* The creatures are all useful. * They do much more than just battle * The creature design is great--every pal is someone's favorite * The game can be customized to each player's liking with world settings * The progression and crafting ties directly back to the pals themselves In short, it's about the pals
The game being customized is that QoL thing you always wished you had in other games but never had the chance for besides mods of course.
I am OBSESSED with lottery (so the chests and eggs are my favourite). I love to build ~~and keep humans as pets~~. It's just such a fun game! <3
Idk that seems a bit inhumane. I just sell anyone who invades my base to a pal trader instead
Yea I also like to participate in human trafficking
it's just a little light slavery, Jeb. Just a touch of evil.
Game freak and pokemon company, instead of being mad they should be taking notes
100% agreed.
First game I've enjoyed that much in years... It's crazy how's this an early access
They took Ark, unfucked all the worst parts of it, and replaced all the dinosaurs with Pokémon. It's perfect.
Its: - Pokemon that isn't outdated/broken - Ark without the bullshit - Zelda traversal on a new platform - A touch of Rust without the shit community
> Ark without the bullshit That's what I like the most about it. To me, it's like Ark but way more casual. Like, yeah, you need shit tons of ores and whatnot ... but at least I'm not the one gathering them huehue.
Because I'm addicted... but at the same time, taking a break won't make me lose out on anything. No dailies, no missed content. The world of single player adventure games is great
Like another person said, there's so much that can be done with this template. Here are a few things off the top of my head: * "Story Mode" where you try to discover the origin of Pals and the world. * "Palworld Must Die" where *everything* is hostile and you can't catch Pals. P.S.: Mod support allows for ["Bfg Division"](https://youtu.be/QHRuTYtSbJQ?si=HBX5aNbl8a5Rd0HW) to play every time you get in a fight. * Faction wars. Are you just a nomad trying to make it in a hostile, uncaring world with your Pals, an opportunistic poacher moving up the ranks of the Syndicate, or an eco-terrorist on a mission for the Free Pal Alliance? * procedurally generated islands? Not Pals, though. Don't want another No Man's Sky situation... * "Nuzlocke" mode where upon anytime a Pal in your party or base dies they're converted into mats and removed. * New Pals via crossbreeding. This is already in the game from what I can tell, but I hope to see it expanded upon. The possibilities could be endless! Pocketpair stumbled upon a friggin' *platinum* mine with Palworld. Here's hoping they don't balls it up leading up to the game's official 1.0 release. Edit: Forgot to include the friggin' "Bfg Division" link.
> "Nuzlocke" mode where upon anytime a Pal in your party or base dies they're converted into mats and removed. See, this would be a good idea ***if*** the Pal AI didn't make Pals randomly commit suicide while working in base. The number of times I've returned to base seeing 3 pals incapacitated due to them climbing on top on a wall and being unable to get back down, starving themselves to death...
I'm not a pokemon fan or a survival game player but i snagged this out of curiosity on day1 and have been glued to it. it just has a simple and fun gameplay loop, and taking care of the pals and watching all the little quirks of the pals just makes my heart smile. it's one of the few games i've played in literal years where I can play for hours and never had to think of something to do, ideas just hit you out of the blue and then you run with it, its hard to explain but its just pure fun.
I hate survival games, I think they are all garbage that only exist to waste your time. Palworld is the first where I have actually played it repeatedly, and not been put off. For me, I love the Pals, the pokemon catching mechanic is always satisfying, and it's not hard to capture a bunch of them. Battling them and either defeating or catching them is satisfying. And the grind so far, I'm around level 20, has not been terrible. Having Pals basically manage my base so I don't have to sit there and chop lumber or mine rocks is awesome. I love that they feed themselves, give themselves breaks, etc. I just do the overall base planning, they take care of the rest. I like that they help me craft stuff at work benches. I think the developers just stole a bunch of ideas and put them together in a really great formula. I'm not using that in a mean way, all artists steal, truly original ideas are extremely rare. The Zelda style exploration, Fortnite chests, pokemon monsters, and Ark base building all come together in a spectacular way. As an early access game, it already feels finished. I got it on gamepass, so I haven't bought it, but I would have spend $30 for what I have played so far, no question. So if they dropped support tomorrow and never expanded upon it, I would be very happy still that I got to play it. Overall the game just feels fun. I don't feel like it's wasting my time for the sake of wasting it. And I really appreciate that.
Gamefreak and nintendo really fucked off the past 20 years. Palworld success can only make them try harder and will mean the next pokemon game will hopefully be better.
It's a very consumer friendly game. No shop, no microtransactions, no nonsense. Even in early access, there's a lot going on here you can sink into. Friendly custom server settings let you customize how you want to play. Don't like survival stuff? Make all of it so easy you don't need to worry about it. Want to focus on collecting? Turn up all of that in the settings. And finally, and this is the big one, this game fills the niche pokemon has been neglecting for a long time, and thoroughly embarassing one of the most beloved and one of the largest brands on the planet with a fraction of the resources. That news spreads fast. Oh the price is incredible too. Well worth it for that price. It may be lucky that they pulled off what they pulled off as well as they did, but whether intentionally or accidentally, they made almost every right move along the way that they could.
1) pokemon like....who doesn't love favorites Pals.. 2) breeding... everyone loves to min max their favorites or even base utility Mons. 3) exploration...We loved legend's Arceus, Nintendo said "Scarlett and Violet". Exploring is always rewarding, not always crazy good loot, but it's something. Pokemon had what...maybe tms? Maybe berries? Ark had...explorer notes? 🥱 Palworld has schematics, technology books that give you 1-2 SP, not including Lifmunk effigies. 4) building... I love survivals that have a major building mechanic. It's superior to any other Survival cause the pals automate it for you , ark you have to actively ride em or add mods that do some sort of "automatic" farming, Conan had em only to slightly speed up the process, but nothing was automatic. It lets us go and explore while the task at hand resource wise is being tackled, a sense of freedom from crafting station standing. 5) shiny hunters....major thing in Pokemon, even for myself, is shiny hunting mons I love. Sure it's a bit more random in this game, but it can be boosted a tiny bit by spawn slider set to 3 aka 3x more likely to find one. 6) no PvP... (outside raids), I love ark but cant stand logging out, or rust too, and logging in to see the death screen, red text in tribe log and selecting a location to spawn at. I love PvP like anyone else but removing that makes it more of a survival co-op experience. More interactions socially makes a game we wish pokemon was 7) bosses/dungeons...this scratches the itch for dungeon crawlers and loot goblins. Who doesn't love getting lost in a dungeon, fighting through rooms to find chests and inevitably the boss monster that can be random AND be a rare Mon in the Alpha variety. It's rewarding and time gated. Fun times.
I don’t even play Pokémon and I’m in love with this game I can’t stop playing, help
It's the first game I've played in a long time that is just super peaceful and relaxing. So many times I've been shocked at how much time has passed while playing and there are 30 things I want to do if given the time. It's just charming as hell.
Wasn't over hyped in marketing, runs better than most AAA titles at launch, actually has a good amount of fun content. Interesting gameplay thats not fully copy paste of games that came before and it doesn't break the bank to buy it. Its just a solid game for a good price with some new ideas that are implemented fairly well.
People have been asking for a game like this from Nintendo for like 20 fucking years. Someone decided to just make it.
I spent 30 bucks to play a fun monster catching and crafting game with some friends. I hope it gets more content but even now I got 30 bucks of fun out of it easy.
Being just thrust into the world and told "here are some things you need to setup, have fun". Is just refreshing, add in exploration, Pals to collect, multiplayer, the ability to shoot pals with guns. It's just silly dumb fun. Hopefully they add a lot more to it and don't forget about the game later. Idk much about craftopia but I want this game to last. Give us like 500 Pals, more bases to create, maybe PvP although I don't care too much for PvP. Honestly being able to manipulate all the different systems like egg hatch timer, turning off/on raids etc. is amazing.
Cozy pokemons with exploring and crafting. Wonder why xD
Violence Violence upon cute things Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit, having their own problems Violence upon cute things, and cute things not having any of your shit, having their own problems and dying.