Palworld will be the last sandbox survival game i ever buy

[Aubmaire]

I'm completely done with this genre of game. I think Palworld is great don't get me wrong.
but between the huge stint in ARK back around when the first expansion came out for it, the countless hours of Minecraft, Valheim and now Palworld, i'm pretty much done with the genre. I don't find the gameplay rewarding and i don't like the back burner narratives.

I'd like to ask what you like about these types of games and the ones that you play.

[Pay Child Suport]

played v-rising as my first minecraft game. this is my 2nd.

looking back, yeah it IS horrible. too much downtime just to get mats. weight doubles that downtime. I remember being in base way more than being out in the wild hunting.

and then there's base building. I've been requesting the 2x2 and 3x3 floor/wall/roof so many times already and they just won't give it. it should greatly save time but nope they just won't.

I'm glad that at least in palworld the devs did mention something about your base being transferable to other servers. that should open up some things. which will happen next year.

[Sagebrush]

Only one I play currently is Palworld. (would play Minecraft, but it died when Mojang sold it. Currently waiting for Minetest and its games (mod suites) to reach parity, which doesn't seem that far off, now.) Others I've played are modded Bethesda stuff and 7DtD. Modded Fallout 3 (FWE, etc) was probably the best experience as a true survival game, but it got to be incredibly time-consuming, so I stopped. 7DtD was addicting for a while, but the devs keep screwing around with it too much and they ruined the loot tables. That game is a bad habit.

The primary reason I'm playing Palworld is the Pals, second is the third-person action aspect. Thirdly, I just really like exploring space in gameworlds. I'm getting more than I expected to from it, and am happy to have gotten it. (Forgot to put this in, but Palworld scratches this hunting (and now capturing) itch I often feel that Skyrim handled best.)

Minecraft/test offers decent exploration and the best building/design experience of the lot, but it becomes rarer and rarer that I fire it up due to prior exposure and grinding blocks. I could just fire up Blender and model some structures for fun, but I find it's more fun to build stuff within the constraints of a gameworld.

Would agree in general that this genre is overstaying its welcome, but I'm happy Palworld in particular came along. I likely won't really get any others myself (will probably be modding Minetest at that point), but I could see myself getting Palworld dlc.

[Zalzany]

I got high funcitioning autism so I never be tired of them. I always love base building open world survial crafts. ♥♥♥♥ my steam report for last year 90% of the games i played was this genre, and I played over 40 games last year only 16 were new games. I mean I can't go more then 2 months with out getting bored and isntalling Atlass, Conan, Space Ship Engieneers, or any number of games in this genre just depends on my mood and who had the last cool sounding update.

I did 72 hours of this before I burned out and I know next major update I be back for another 20-50 hours. I am waiting for Myth of Empires 1.0 to come out on the 21st, Omega Crafters to come out next month, and little curious on what Conan's next battle pass will have in store as I hated the last one. Oh and talk on of my discords of doing 7 Days to Die sever so I might play that agian be a few years since I played that but hoping I can get them to try MoE instead.

[rick.vanopdorp]

Yes, in this type of game you do spend a lot of time just farming mats or base building to get it (somewhat) aesthetically pleasing and functional. I can totally see people getting burnt out on that. That is something to really think about when considering to buy a game like this.

Fortunately I love base building and since I usually play solo I can ajust the settings so farming mats isn't such a chore. Therefore at the moment it's actually my favourite type of game, although that could change in the future ofcourse.

[Sourwine]

Ok

[MrNatas]

If you want less resource farming and more exploration, maybe you could try No Man's Sky. The game launched in a terrible state, but it's become something worth trying. Lots of things to collect and it's mostly 'play as you want'.

[Shiroe (cortana)]

the better question would be: How would you improve a survival genre? Tbh, there is only so much you can do .

[TheTool]

I run dedicated servers for these games for small communities with my own dedicated server blades. I enjoy providing realms at times to those that want to enjoy those types of games. I do my best to backup and manage servers and spend the time to know how much more I can provide for the players that may not be accessible to mainline servers. We usually do this a few times for EA titles as they get their updates then hold off for final release such as Valhiem.
I support early access and allow my players to speed through the game quicker than normal so they can see current end game status, because EA you have to expect wipes. That is most certainly part of the agreement we all make. Due to the fact that the games are incomplete and in a sense broken, it helps the community and the devs with valuable info that we do provide back to them. No one is perfect and no game is either. We take the good with the bad with generous amounts of patience in the hopes that something special lives on in the gaming world.
Ultimately, these types of games provide common goals that friends can work together to accomplish.. inside and outside the games.
That's what I enjoy.

[Xenai]

It will probably be my last too, but that's because I expect that when it gets more polished and fleshed out and released, and modding it really takes off, then I won't ever NEED another.

[jeetrix]

Originally posted by Aubmaire:

I'd like to ask what you like about these types of games and the ones that you play.

medieval engineers, space engineers, valheim, ark , astroneer, i really love this genre when combined with voxel-terrain and/or snap building. For me its the shared creativity aspect that draws me in. You can coop build so much cool and varied stuff in these. The grind could be numbing, but each of these games has mechanics to efficiently gather stuff and its this contrast that makes it satisfying imo. F.e. Medieval engineers or valheim, cutting a tree is an adventure that can kill you. in ME you can engineer machines or mechanical devices to mass produce, I love that kind of stuff. I dont like the genre when its dumbed down.

Palworld is oddball tho. I'm not even sure why exactly i like it. I just bought it to play w a friend, not expecting too much. at first sight it seemed dumbed down, but feel when playing it, the gameloop borrows from , but is much lighter than ark (which took me 500h+ to reach endgame on the island with a group of guildies, this game demands too much, even at X8 rates etc) and the mechanics are forgiving. It suits me well to play it a few hours/day with a friend and still have accomplished things, or something memorable happens. Also love the whole satire thing and the pal animations are savoury and fun, and pal party mechanics make for a fun mini-strategy-combat. The grind is a thing, but also here you can automate/speed up things by thinking twice. i like the not too much BS-mentality in how they designed it

[Frankie]

Well to make it short, I like to check off boxes. You have a lot of stuff to do in those games and you are checking off those boxes one after another. It is always the same but it is always different.

[Vyvyvn]

"Hey random people, I'm sick of this genre now!"

"Okay? Did you forget where the door was and are too awkward to ask directly?"

[Psycho]

when i got valheim i realized i was completely burnt out on survival games

i like palworld though because it has enough different stuff to make it still interesting

[MrNatas]

Originally posted by Vyvyvn:

"Hey random people, I'm sick of this genre now!"

"Okay? Did you forget where the door was and are too awkward to ask directly?"

Nevermind that it could lead to an interesting discussion about said genre and why people play it but hey, it's normal to be mad when other people say things. After all only our own opinion count, it's 2023.

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

I play these sorts of games as relaxing single player experiences. Either on low difficulty, or, as here, with things like raids disabled. With very occasional friend visits in mind. But mostly solo.

Most of my enjoyment derives from the repetitive, iterative tasks and just zoning out and developing things. Then secondly the creative aspect of building things I find fun or pleasing.

These aren't games I play for competition, excitement, or challenge. I do find a lot of the tedium and micromanagement in games like Ark bothersome, which is why I never got into it personally. Whereas a game like this clicks for me, as did Minecraft, as have games like NMS.

I think there's a sweet spot between the micro-level engagement, a simple to grok UI, optional lack of intense demands or threats (peaceful/story mode, disabled raids, etc.) creative freedom, experimentation, exploration, discovery, but at a pace I can take as I please and without too much micromanagement, that clicks with my brain and that I can find enjoyable.

Anything that doesn't quite hit that sweet spot for me in the genre though does become tiresome and I usually give it a pass. Palworld feels pretty in my wheelhouse zone, though. So far.