An Honest Review From an Original Alpha Tester

[Roan]

I've wavered back and forth between whether I wanted to write this or not. I was in the very first group of testers way back in the pre-alpha days of Palia. I've seen a lot of iterations and changes over the years, and yet... Palia never really managed to feel like a fun, fully-fleshed out game to me. It's a mish-mosh of half-baked systems that are neither fun nor rewarding to participate in.

The Positives:

+ Exploration is fun - the first time. It's a beautiful world they've created and there are certainly a few secrets to find for those that thoroughly explore.
+ You don't NEED a party. The game is entirely soloable if that's your preferred style of play. Even the "endgame resources" you need a metric ton of can be obtained solo, just be prepared to incur the wrath of the server. More on that later.
+ The home / housing plot customization actually is pretty cool and fun. I've seen a lot of amazing and unique homes in my time playing the game.

The Negatives:

- There is very little reason or incentive to play with other people. Palia feels more like a single player game with other people milling about. Sure, you *can* party up with other people but for most activities it feels pointless or just slows everything down.
- Toxic Positivity. Palia has a lot of people who feel that their way to play is the only right way. Resources are shared and can be picked up by anyone who contributes towards obtaining it, which has created an expectation that you are to pause your own gameplay to call out rare resources to the entire server, then waiting an unknown amount of time for random strangers to slowly meander over that way. Resources respawn instantly somewhere else on the map, by the way... so this entire process actually ends up slowing *everyone* down, but that doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
- No trading or economy. Palia's tagline has long been "play the way you want" and yet, you are actively forced to participate in activities you don't enjoy. Palia's fishing system, for instance, bores me to tears; I was essentially locked out of completing the game's first "bundles" because I couldn't buy or trade these fish from other people for the things *I* enjoyed doing. There's a half-realized "gifting" system, but it requires you to have already obtained an item before you can request it from other people.
- Writing is lackluster at best, and downright uncozy at worst. Palia is filled with characters that fit into tropes quite nicely, some which border on rather insensitive or offensive.
- Severe lack of meaningful content. I'll admit, I enjoyed Palia at first. It's cute when you get started and everyone I know has found some enjoyment upon just getting started. That lasts for approximately 10-20 hours, when you get out of the honeymoon phase of the game and enter the absolute hell that is Palia's "end-game" grindfest. S6 has been (and likely always will be) terrified of losing players in the game's introduction, so much so that there... really isn't one. You level up so fast that you'll be done with Softwood and Hardwood within your first few days playing the game, and then all that's left is to farm Flow Trees for the rest of eternity.

Palia has always felt like a video game for people that don't play video games. If you're looking for a beyond-casual game you can play for half an hour or an hour a day and feel like you're making progress, Palia is right for you. If you were hoping for an MMO-style Stardew Valley you can sink hundreds of hours into... I'm sorry to say this isn't it.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

Originally posted by Batabii • Palia:

Overwatch 2 is free to play but you still get some cosmetics for free, and if you really want to you can buy just about anything without paying as long as you grind enough weekly challenges.

They should give you rare opportunities to earn palia coins in small amounts like as random drops from ore deposits or quest rewards or something. Just enough to let you actually buy something eventually without spending money

Overwatch 2 is backed by a multi-billion dollar corporation. They don't need your money.

And yet they still gouge out every dollar they possibly can. Hmm.

[CatsEyes]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

Originally posted by CatsEyes:

Collecting all the dyes is the easiest way to add
The clothes in the cash shop are ridiculously overpriced and it does not entice me to spend anything at all. This was a stupendously stupid decision they made.

Seeing as how the game is 100% free, it's either pay for cosmetics or pay to win. Your choice.If they offer free clothing, people lose the incentive to pay. If no one is paying, S6 isn't making money and the game shuts down.

I get that they need a cash shop but it needs to be enticing.

I play warframe and I actually regularly spend a small amount in their shop because I never felt like I was missing out on anything if I didn't. You can still get cosmetics, weapons, slots by in game mechanics. They give you some free dye colours during events. The game is a labour of love and you get discounts on plat regularly (sometimes even 75% discount). Most of it is reasonably priced. A skin is like 5-10€. The tennogen is a bit more expensive but its fan made stuff and they get a cut to. It makes me want to support the devs and spend money on the game. And I've spend quite a bit now.

16-24€ for one outfit that I can not even dye properly so I'm stuck with meh colours is not enticing. I'd rather spend that money on a different entirely new game where I can dye my clothes.

[LeanivBirb]

i played for a few days then gave up,was good fun at the start,but the lack of player interactions make me desist. If is a mmo,i want to interact with other people. Seems the idea is there,but isn't implemented at all. The best you can do is just fullfil other people requests of materials,but just ends there.

Why not add some minigames in towns to create interactions between players? Chess ?tic,tac,toe ? Checkers ? Ultima Online had them more than 10 years ago

Looks like they wanted to implement something regarding cooking,but you can do everything by yourself,so there's nothing to gain from playing with someone

[hätähousu]

Why is it so hard for gamedevelopers to make games actually rewarding? I'm also so tired of running everywhere.

[ChaosManiek]

I also started playing like in September 2023. Like okay this game was fun and enjoyable at first of my maybe month or so when I had to collect materials/gold/renown to build my place. I am trying to get some nice trophies for my next bulding's after they increased building limit from 15 to 30, however I think the slots for famring should be increased for at least twice as current number basing on fineally new crops. However since I am casual player with work and life after few months of playing I feel like Palia is pushing me away. Mostly I play with my gf and my other friend for some farming for their achievements. I agree with lack of content, like new map would be nice so there are more places with nodes to farm. Also whats really annoying are stupid bugs I noticed since I started playing and lack of simple add-on's that would make things easier.
Features? Here we go: I actually collected good amount of stuff, furniture etc. but is it really hard to add ,,search'' feature? That would make things super easy, player will type ,,plant'' = only plant crafts.
Cooking with friends also needs to be adressed. When we want to do our assigned roles the list simply resets itself to the first option avaible. For example during cake making Leaves are placed as 1st and if I remember frosting/cake second. Me and Gf choose to make 2x leaves, simple right, because its on the first place so we can use this nice button ,,make'' easly. Fine. But when other friend chooses to make frosting, before she actually can click make, the list goes back to leaves and instead of mixing frosting she mixes leaves. You would say: Why don't you take ingredients to locked chests? With 300 Capacity? Give me a break. The storage is for making supplies so we can prevent lack of stuff which is also with annoying limit of 10k for best chest. I can simply fill that with crops, worms, wood, stone etc. How would I resolve this as developer?: 1. Prevent list from jumping to first choice after other party members started their assigned mix/prep. 2. Simply add freaking double click on those. 3. Let us assign the mix/prep roles to specific person. 4. Or simply make those mixed stuff do not disappear. As a person I DO NOT ACCEPT WASTING FOOD. Think? Will you trash sliced eatable one more tomato to trash can just because you sliced one too many or you just simply store it in fridge?
Now the party. Why the hell game out of no where kicks someone out of the party even we are all in the game? Today we decided to go fish for star quality for achievement. Around 9PM I was simply kicked out of the party and whats worse.. My gf couldn't even inv me back EVEN when I was in game. And it happens sometimes since October when I decided to play together with others.

In my opinion Palia needs like REALLY huge update with lot's of content. I was looking this kind of topic so I can also share my thoughs since I found out that first tester announced his POV.

[hätähousu]

I wish Palia had:
- Mounts ( for faster travelling)
- Fast travel, even teleporting
- Possibility to feed or pet your pets + keep it at home
- Minimap
- Magic (spells etc)
- Costumes/hats/mounts you'd EARN always when you learn new skills / when levelling up (so that other players could see from your clothes your progression / your special skills)
- Trading + currency ( like gold coins you could change to silver coins and back, for example like in Albion Online)
- Possibility to use firepits around Palia ( for cooking )
- More rare resources

..So basically I wish Palia was a mix of Albion Online and maybe Runescape?

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by hätähousu:

I wish Palia had:
- Mounts ( for faster travelling)

The next point kind of renders this moot

- Fast travel, even teleporting

We already have fast travel, the problem is how limited it is.

- Possibility to feed or pet your pets + keep it at home

And the possibility to get a pet WITHOUT real money

- Magic (spells etc)

For what? There's no real combat.

- Costumes/hats/mounts you'd EARN always when you learn new skills / when levelling up (so that other players could see from your clothes your progression / your special skills)

Yeah there's very little free clothing, which is annoying.

- Trading + currency ( like gold coins you could change to silver coins and back, for example like in Albion Online)

For what? Seems like unnecessary steps

- Possibility to use firepits around Palia ( for cooking )

I don't see much point, firepits are extremely limited.

[hätähousu]

- Mounts - because mounts are awesome. I love games where you can have your own mount.
- Fast travel is ♥♥♥♥ atm. We need more points.
- Teleporting could be a skill you learn. Magic skill for example.
- Yes, possibility to get a pet without real money. Much needed.
- And the teleporting is one example of magic I wish there was. Magic is.. kind of the imagination this game lacks. You could gather insects etc with magic. Or hunt. You could even shoot fireworks with magic.
- Definitely more (skill based) clothing.
- Trading is for people who wish to trade rare stuff, clothing, skins. Collectors would love this. Plus it's just nice you can trade whatever you want with other players. Maybe the currency is pointless.. but maybe it isn't. There's lots of games where you can trade or/and buy stuff with game currency.
- There needs to be more firepits then.

So basically we need more firepits, more clothing, more rare stuff and more skill/level based stuff. And mounts. And pets. And magic.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by hätähousu:

- There needs to be more firepits then.

No, I mean you can only cook like 5 things there. There's no real reason to USE firepits, aside from "because it's there"

[arielwyndwalker]

I too have played since doing both closed & open beta so here are my thoughts.

Closed beta was the best tbh. Yes it is easy to get your exquisite tools, got mine the first day. My glider on first which made the whole world easier.

What I liked about closed. People talked, people were helpful to one another. I tried to help people all I could & made a ton of friends.....who no longer play. I paid for my first 4 housing plots farming oysters which respawned at a great rate. I got a nickname of oyster girl before I moved on to farming trees. Then they nerfed the oysters. This area was great for getting your weekly 'catch bug together' done very quickly. Why would you do that? They said they were not meant to respawn that fast. Now no one farms oysters, no one, none zip nada. Area is always empty. Weekly bug catching together is now very hard, even with lures, people just do not want to do it. Way to go devs!

The price of clothing was an issue in closed & complaints were pretty harsh. Devs did bring down the prices of the clothing. I bought the Palia coins currency just to get the pet.

Open beta brought a LOT of people. It also brought major keyboard warriors. The ones who would try to shame you in chat for doing something nice. I used to call out a flow tree, dari cloves etc. I would flare the dari, call it out & either stick around or move on. Calling something out can take 15 minutes + for people to arrive. One day I was running around foraging & the person ahead of me picked dari cloves & moved on, I picked the cloves, flared it & called it out & moved on. A warrior actually tried to shame me for not only NOT sticking around the cloves but not saying I had picked it. They went on for ten minutes in chat. I told them congratulations, they are responsible for me not ever calling out dari's in the game anymore, and I have not. (by the way, people in chat agreed with me, that person was off the rails).

It also brought cake parties that had massive appeal for a ton of folks. I did not do the cake parties mainly because the amount of time involved & I need to be afk at times during the game because real life always intrudes. Cake parties brought people a massive amount of gold. Then devs nerfed the cake parties & actually said this:

'Cake parties on the other hand are awesome and an activity we very much want to preserve, but they are generating too much income right now. '

I immediately thought, wow there goes most of your players. I was right. Fairly soon after the cakes were nerfed they announced starstones from mining nodes. Again another great money maker & once the devs noticed this, you bet they nerfed that also. They introduced Flow Tree Groves & pal spawning everywhere. Groves are great, pal spawning everywhere is good too, but it did take away from the last bit of people who would team up and the game lost another huge chunk of players Again, way to go devs!

Maji Market Event: There is not one item worth over 400 tickets at any of the stalls much less 1800+ tickets EACH. Why make it such a major grindfest when it should be something people can pop into for fun? They actually made a mistake & raised the price of one item. SMH. Why?

Hot Pot. People LOVE hot pot game. It is fun....until you get stuck with the people at your table that play lazy & go for three of the same color instead of sets that get your more tickets. They are also the same folks who use up all their 30 second time limit to make one move. It's not rocket science, you should be able to make your move within 5 seconds not 30. I could play three games solo in the time of doing one game with these folks. People going for 3 sets of 3 always, always make more in tickets than the person who 'wins' with their 3 of the same color. I have checked that out every time after each game. I always make more. What you do is cheat people out of time & making even more tickets.

Solution to Hot Pots. Solo tables & also 3 sets of 3 tables.
Since in game time is so short, event should stay open 24/7 during it's duration.
Bring those decoration prices down, way down.

Also wanted to state, I do not know who on the dev team loves jumping around in the sky, but the temple + the solo climbing game is not the way. Some find it fun, some hate it. I hate it. There should be a way for people who have fear of heights to progress than making them jump around in the air to finish a quest line.

Here I am now. My skills are closing in on 400 & 500+. My character level is 1027 & the game is a graveyard.

Pros for Palia:
Housing. Decorating your housing plot is very nice! It can be a bit of a grindfest for certain mats.
The world is peaceful & very pretty. It can be relaxing somewhat running around mining nodes.

Cons:
Devs have made Palia a major grindfest. Nerfed anything that might actually help you get ahead because I can tell you that it will take massive amounts of coin for housing. My 15th harvest house was either 100k or over. It currently says something like 138,000 for my next one, but I am at the maximum allotment. I would hate to be just starting out in the game having to come up with the coin to do all I have done so far in game. I literally would not do it.

Event TIme & prices. Short period of time & pricing is over the top silly.

Nerfing of cakes, starstones, oysters. Killing off the major population, why would you do this?

Weekly 'together' achieves. Please do away with all the 'together' achieves & just up the medals for the two left. There are not enough people left in the game to get this done without spending hours trying to find someone. Why not just get a boost for being around someone for a minute that has a bow, fishing rod, or bug bomb in their hand? A lot of people do not understand that they get the same amount of mats for someone else killing or bombing something with you & are not happy you are doing it around them.

I like the housing in Palia, I do like running around mining. gardening needs a major overhaul & allowed more plots because it is the slowest thing to level in the game & 9 plots only is a bit silly. Today I am just a bit sad. What the game could have been, what it now has become, a ghost town, and could it be fixed? I honestly do not know at this point. I have a couple of ideas but doubt it would bring back the ones it made so mad.

New land area. NOT in the sky. This is needed asap.
Birds. Where are the birds? We have animals, bugs, fish, but where are the birds???
Pricing, bring those prices down. I am talking about in game from NPC stores. Harvest House should always be the same price, so should large room, etc. Instead the price increases with each purchase.
Event, open that up 24/7.
Hot Pot has become as popular as Cake Parties to those left in game. I would make Hot Pot a full time game with some type of currency you can spend at an NPC store.

For the life of me, I do not understand why devs would nerf things so popular & keep doing it over and over & losing their player base in the process. Sorry this is so long & rambling.

I do hope the Devs wake up & listen.

[DryadGamer]

Originally posted by Valimure:

- Writing is lackluster at best, and downright uncozy at worst. Palia is filled with characters that fit into tropes quite nicely, some which border on rather insensitive or offensive.

While I agree that the writing on some characters is a bit lackluster, for some of the characters writing it can be quite touching. I know with choosing my Shepp Ashura brought a lump to my throat once or twice.

As far as incentive for playing with other people, I'm sort of grateful that it can be played like a single player for most of it. That way the option is there for people who don't really want to socialise. I could be wrong but wasn't that what the developers were/are going for?

I do agree though that the game lacks content, in my opinion it would be really nice if the game had a good main story to follow instead of a more sandboxey experience.

Also agree about waiting for resources... I'm not willing to wait 10 minutes for every pallium ore I find. Now what also helps with that, and what I've noticed recently is, set a time to mine/chop at that way you aren't waiting around that long.. Though what's a good point somebody said is that it just respawns anyway so... Some people do get too riled up about the whole thing.

[Fenrir]

People are saying that there is no point to doing group play.. but have failed to mention that everyone gets the same resources from the same gathered or harvested node. This is the reason why many people call out flow trees and large palium veins; each person that taps it gets the same amount of resources when it finally breaks.. so everyone that contributes towards something--whether it be tapping an ore vein, chopping a tree or landing a hit on a creature--gets the same reward. It's not a reduced reward, either! For gatherables such as Dari Cloves and Fishing Spots, they linger there for a couple minutes before disappearing, allowing multiple people to collect them (this is the ghostly outline you see left behind when picking something up).

I understand that starting out, things can be quite slow as you are left waiting for things to complete.. and the small inventory space certainly doesn't help!.. but as you progress these problems rectify themselves as you upgrade your tools, inventory space, storage space and crafting table allowance.

Community has been most wonderful and helpful, save for the occasional troll that thinks it is some Call of Duty lobby where they can be derogatory towards everyone or the odd player that feels that you should have waited indefinitely for someone to come even though you called out a reasonable time to crack a node. Writing has great detail if you are paying attention to it, underlining a greater story as you progress through relationships with the villagers, but once you run the gamut of content which is comprised of relationships, housing upgrades, quests and accomplishments?.. there's not much else to be done.

I certainly don't regret playing the game! I've been playing since Alpha, even!.. and I look forward to what the developers add down the line!.. but as of this moment? Looking back on it? There's really not much variety there if you dedicate yourself to 'finishing' it.

[MadDawg2552]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

People are saying that there is no point to doing group play.. but have failed to mention that everyone gets the same resources from the same gathered or harvested node. This is the reason why many people call out flow trees and large palium veins; each person that taps it gets the same amount of resources when it finally breaks..

That's not 100% accurate.

While everyone that participates gets loot, not everyone gets the SAME loot.

I was playing with my friend, and he needed a Proudhorned Sernuk horn for a quest (I don't even remember what quest that is any more). We hunted 2 of them, and I got the horn as a drop and said "there, your quest should be done." He said he didn't get a horn. We hunted 2 more, and a horn finally dropped for him. I still only had the 1 from the first drop.

We decided to test this and went looking for a large palium deposit. Once we broke it, I got 6 palium ore and he got 11.

As far as I know, this hasn't been changed. You can easily test this in the game just by asking people how much of a resource they got when it's harvested.

[arielwyndwalker]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

Originally posted by Fenrir:

People are saying that there is no point to doing group play.. but have failed to mention that everyone gets the same resources from the same gathered or harvested node. This is the reason why many people call out flow trees and large palium veins; each person that taps it gets the same amount of resources when it finally breaks..

That's not 100% accurate.

While everyone that participates gets loot, not everyone gets the SAME loot.

I was playing with my friend, and he needed a Proudhorned Sernuk horn for a quest (I don't even remember what quest that is any more). We hunted 2 of them, and I got the horn as a drop and said "there, your quest should be done." He said he didn't get a horn. We hunted 2 more, and a horn finally dropped for him. I still only had the 1 from the first drop.

We decided to test this and went looking for a large palium deposit. Once we broke it, I got 6 palium ore and he got 11.

As far as I know, this hasn't been changed. You can easily test this in the game just by asking people how much of a resource they got when it's harvested.

What you say is true! Everyone gets 'loot' but not the 'same' loot. That is why you see people hit the flow trees in the groves more than once. You don't need to 'group' to get loot from the same node or tree. You can hit the same node as a stranger & get loot. It does tend to upset new players at times when they do not realize they still get loot. I think they believe you are stealing their nodes heh. Same for those together weeklies, some folks don't like you hunting or catching bugs by them.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

While everyone that participates gets loot, not everyone gets the SAME loot.

The only things I can say in this case are; 1) when did you perform the test and 2) my results have been different from yours.

A few nights ago my wife, our mutual friends and I were running around Bahari Bay breaking Palium and Flow Trees, and when I asked how much ore they got from a large Palium vein, we had each received 9 ore.. and this repeated several times over (we'd get the same reward, not 9 ore all the time, mind you).. so either we were just really lucky or it is a consistent thing.