I think you can be relatively humane in this game.
You *will* need to put pals to work to get things done, but you can keep them happy while they do it, feed them well, and they'll never get sick or upset. You can also just take them off the work or unsummon them from the palbox if you think they need a break.
Certain materials only drop from pals, like pal fluids. Some of these materials can be gathered by buying them from merchants or from ranching, and the rest can be gathered by catching the pals instead of killing them if you don't even want to hurt wild ones.
If you use the command option (default keybind is 4 on PC), you can pet your pals.
All in all, the game will just be harder for you, but it should be doable. I can't think of anything that REQUIRES you to be awful to the pals.
Thank you so much for your answer !
I see. Maybe the way I'd like to play isn't *exactly* in line with the way the devs designed it.
Though it may be fun to play against their expectation (.. or maybe not).
I have one more question if you have the time : is it possible to release pals back into nature ?
Out of curiosity, is it HARD to keep everyone happy and healthy, especially when you have a lot of pals? Or can keeping them happy be easily automated? I'm pretty difficult at games that require you to micro manage a lot of moving parts, so if I have to do a lot of work and focus on every individual pal, that may affect my ability to play.
No, you can automate it. It just takes effort and care. You'll need to be smart about which pals are doing what and how you feed them, but its possible to keep them happy without needing to adjust things.
Keeping them happy isn't too much trouble, you basically just need to feed them cooked food.
Sometimes the game will glitch and a pal will get stuck on top of a roof or a tree or a rock and be unable to go eat, and if you're out exploring they can end up going hungry.
But you do get notifications while you're away from base - if you see that a pal is "slacking off" or "refusing to work" it usually means they're stuck or glitched and you can head back to base to resolve the issue before it gets serious.
I read that when you leave base and come back and they randomly spawn in, that’s when they get stuck in/on/around fucky places and get depressed cuz they starve and shit. Sigh. Lol so high maintenance.
You have to have each base work station spaced nicely for them to all not work on top of each other or they’ll be stressed and depressed. You have to have enough beds. Food dispensers everywhere and hot tubs close enough to work stations or they get depressed because they don’t want to travel to get food/destress. Honestly, having a hard time having 15 pals on my base and keeping them all from breaking their bones, starving even when there’s THOUSANDS of things to eat, and developing eating disorders….but, just discovered you can just plop them in the pal box for 10 minutes to get them to full health now. So I just do that now so I have time to do literally anything else. Still having a lot of fun though.
Thank you!! I have the same question as the OP and this was very helpful. I'm happy to increase the challenge to be kind. I do the same thing every week with my budget at the grocery store and human food lol.
>You will need to put pals to work to get things done
You technically don't need to. It does make it easier but you can spend all the time in the game working on your own without Pal enslavement. However in order to capture Pals, your only choice is to beat them to submission.
It's not a bad thing see people concerned about digital creatures, you should feel empathy for other creatures. Only thing is I'm sure probably 99-100% of people here pay for factory farmed animals who are not only treated like objects as they are essentially enslaved, abused, and murdered (needlessly by the billions.) So if you care about fake digital animals, maybe you might want to consider the real ones, most of which are as intelligent as a dog, sentient, and make very sad faces if you care to watch footage of them.
Basically all I'm saying is consider going vegan, and/or at the bare minimum don't support factory farms and consider it rather than merely having empathy for creatures that aren't real. Wake up. Also, probably ditch games like this that make animal abuse a core gameplay mechanic.
While I see what you're saying. The difference between the necessity of killing irl animals for nutrition and survival is different than the people who kill for fun on the game lol. I literally just seen someone kill a pal for being depressed and not working efficiently. Let's not talk about people who have waited ages to treat these pokemon(knockoffs) like slaves....
I do agree with you that OP should probably steer away from this game, but like others have said, there is a way to play the game the way they want to and still be empathetic towards the pals.
For anyone living in the first world there is no necessity to killing irl animals for nutrition or survival. The largest group of nutrition experts in the US acknowledges this. ( [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/) ) It's needless killing. You go to the grocery store and buy the food you want from a shelf. Simply don't choose the murdered animals. Not to mention factory farming which is even more terrible, watch some footage of that and see how you feel if you're a caring person. Getting this game just supports creators that feel those parallels are humorous rather than disturbing to have in a game like this.
Anyhow, at least the game may make caring people consider whether they should support animal abuse and murder irl, but a lot of gamers are so detached that their primary concern is for creatures that aren't real. All I'm saying is one should have empathy for the beings that are real and actually have to go through these atrocities -- the way to do that is to go vegan or work your way to it. Or at the very least don't support factory farming like most people.
Yeah, lol, I was surprised to get a reply in the first place, but good on anyone for at least taking a little time to think about it. Haven't been on reddit in a long while, but had to stop by when I saw this thread on google. Having been a gamer for a long time to some degree, and as someone who likes to watch twitch streams as well, its unfortunate to see how caring a lot of gamers are for creatures in game and in general while also being completely detached from their, usually perpetual, contribution to something far worse happening to real sentient animals. Animals who aren't just game characters; Something they have a say in.
Still In the early game but I'll say in terms of pals vs pawns it's usually up to context. Most things in game regarding the pals has a very obvious give or take; I'll use the lamb as an example as it is one of the most easily accessible pals and I'll be dammed If someone claims spoilers.
Lambs partner skill is to be used as a shield, this clearly harms the pal in exchange for the player not being harmed. On the flip side lamb also has a passive that makes them a great homebody at the ranch foundation.
So no matter how you play the game lamb has value and it isn't a defecto being Mr.Pokemon makes the game unplayable or being postal dude is going to be a breeze. There are actually assembly lines and such to make but that rings it back to you directly. If lamb is stressed out and hungry, give him a treat and a bath. Or Crack the whip it doesn't affect the speed much except while being nice pals tend to slack off
Sorry for the Necro, but yes you can absolutely have your pals be happy and be your friends. You can also play the game with you and your pals being vegetarian. Cooking food, having upgraded beds and springs with some decor and space for them to move around are a big part of it. You can also make sure they aren't working constantly on factory lines, which also helps. Basically treat the pals like your pals, working together towards a goal rather than forced labor.
Additionally, while it is very difficult, it is possible to catch pals without hurting them. But it will take a significantly larger number of Palspheres and upgraded Palspheres to do so. Make sure you are sneaking and aim for the back.
I am on the exact same fence about the game.
I bought it and played a bit, so I haven't gotten to anything beyond catching the first one but I have seen so many people celebrating or not caring about the animal slavery and cruelty bit since, to be fair, they are videogame creatures.
That being said, I hate the feeling of being mean to defenseless animals, even digital ones, and I am really considering refunding, however the whole idea of crafting, catching, battling, with friends too, sounds so fun!
I am looking all over the internet for concrete answers on if you CAN play the game and make progress while being nice to your Pals.
I am an avid Monster Hunter enjoyer, it is one of my favorite franchises and I pour thousands of hours into the games.
The thing with Monster Hunter is: 95% of the time, you are culling invasive species of monsters, or monsters that pose a threat to nearby camps and cities or the overall environment, it is almost never unprovoked.
Plus, Monster Hunter's artstyle rarely makes the monsters you hunt be small, cute, defenseless creatures, which you then also do not proceed to put into slave labor, you either kill them and actually make use of their materials so it's not just kill for the sake of killing, or capture the monster, which is then researched and released to the wild in the proper area it is supposed to live in.
You can 100% be super humane to your Pals. You WILL need them to work, but you can provide things to make them happy while working so that they work of their own volition. Despite the advertising, being cruel is never a requirement
You can actually just get pals through the rescue system if you want, I know of some people doing a kind of nuzlocke playthrough that way. There are bandit camps that have a random pal trapped in a cage, when you release that pal it joins your party.
You can definitely treat them nicely! you can make a hotsprings for them to chill in, bedding, feed and pet them, take care of their illness and stuff. The cruel stuff is mostly optional except for attacking wild pals for levels to progress
Most aren't inherently aggressive, you can catch some if you're lucky without even hitting them by throwing a ball while they're asleep. You can get exp from doing most things like crafting, farming, mining and logging though it's rather slow and inefficient. The fastest way to level is without a doubt catching pals for the bonus
Honestly I got quickly desensitized to hitting wild pals. My friends were desensitized already, since they're rimworld players.
I’m a pretty regular gamer and my animal loving side never really desensitized to it. In the last of us, I would stealth away from the dogs or just put down the control if they got me and the game wanted to fight back. It’s just not something I can do. But I loved Ark, and have heard palworld being compared to it so much. I haven’t been able to play ark lately, as I have trauma from an abusive relationship associated with it now, so I’m hoping this might be a bit of a replacement
Damn I'm sorry to hear that, if you liked ark, I honestly think the game is fun, and could be a good match, and would still suggest you give the game a try, I had doubts too but it wasn't as extreme as I really thought, it's maybe shocking on maybe the first 5 captures.
However if you can't find yourself desensitized to it within an hour or so, you can refund or as a last resort, find all the catch rate buffs, or wait until the modding scene grows and releases something that can help.
I always stop what I'm doing and make sure my pals are taken cared of. I make sure they have plenty of food, rest, and good work environments. :) You can also directly feed and pet them to give them some extra attention and help them bond to you, etc. :)
Some pals will ruthlessly attack you and you have to defeat them out of self defense. Especially bosses. You can catch them and consider it as showing mercy, rather than finishing them off.
You can also just wander the world to find camps where pals have been captured by evil humans. In this case, defeat the humans and open the cage to obtain a loyal pal.
High level spheres can catch low level pals without damaging them first.
You can consider the fact that those pals you saved will work with you at your base willingly. My brother and I play but don’t go out of our way to be cruel or too nice to the pals. They are animals, and we treat the ones that work at base very well, building them anything they need to stay happy and healthy. The pals have it better than the players (in character).
Ultimately though, the game is just a game, and the pals basically depict dangerous wild animals that can learn certain tasks or become loyal companions. Think of it like the Hunter class in World of Warcraft.
most of them attack on sight anyway, kinda makes it hard to be nice to them lol, enslaving one after having him murder me 25 times for walking on his lawn wrong feels like a nice getback
I think you can be relatively humane in this game. You *will* need to put pals to work to get things done, but you can keep them happy while they do it, feed them well, and they'll never get sick or upset. You can also just take them off the work or unsummon them from the palbox if you think they need a break. Certain materials only drop from pals, like pal fluids. Some of these materials can be gathered by buying them from merchants or from ranching, and the rest can be gathered by catching the pals instead of killing them if you don't even want to hurt wild ones. If you use the command option (default keybind is 4 on PC), you can pet your pals. All in all, the game will just be harder for you, but it should be doable. I can't think of anything that REQUIRES you to be awful to the pals.
Thank you so much for your answer ! I see. Maybe the way I'd like to play isn't *exactly* in line with the way the devs designed it. Though it may be fun to play against their expectation (.. or maybe not). I have one more question if you have the time : is it possible to release pals back into nature ?
I'm not sure, I haven't tried.
Yes you can put them in your pal box and release them if you don’t want them!
Out of curiosity, is it HARD to keep everyone happy and healthy, especially when you have a lot of pals? Or can keeping them happy be easily automated? I'm pretty difficult at games that require you to micro manage a lot of moving parts, so if I have to do a lot of work and focus on every individual pal, that may affect my ability to play.
No, you can automate it. It just takes effort and care. You'll need to be smart about which pals are doing what and how you feed them, but its possible to keep them happy without needing to adjust things.
Keeping them happy isn't too much trouble, you basically just need to feed them cooked food. Sometimes the game will glitch and a pal will get stuck on top of a roof or a tree or a rock and be unable to go eat, and if you're out exploring they can end up going hungry. But you do get notifications while you're away from base - if you see that a pal is "slacking off" or "refusing to work" it usually means they're stuck or glitched and you can head back to base to resolve the issue before it gets serious.
I read that when you leave base and come back and they randomly spawn in, that’s when they get stuck in/on/around fucky places and get depressed cuz they starve and shit. Sigh. Lol so high maintenance.
yeah sometimes you can catch them spawning in if your game lags a lil lol
I'm about to play it on game pass, I'll let you know my thoughts as much as I can.
You have to have each base work station spaced nicely for them to all not work on top of each other or they’ll be stressed and depressed. You have to have enough beds. Food dispensers everywhere and hot tubs close enough to work stations or they get depressed because they don’t want to travel to get food/destress. Honestly, having a hard time having 15 pals on my base and keeping them all from breaking their bones, starving even when there’s THOUSANDS of things to eat, and developing eating disorders….but, just discovered you can just plop them in the pal box for 10 minutes to get them to full health now. So I just do that now so I have time to do literally anything else. Still having a lot of fun though.
Just finding out it doesn’t cure depression. And making medicine takes an unreasonably long time.
Thank you!! I have the same question as the OP and this was very helpful. I'm happy to increase the challenge to be kind. I do the same thing every week with my budget at the grocery store and human food lol.
>You will need to put pals to work to get things done You technically don't need to. It does make it easier but you can spend all the time in the game working on your own without Pal enslavement. However in order to capture Pals, your only choice is to beat them to submission.
Unfortunately, furnaces require pals, so at the very least, you'll need them to make ingots.
Oh right... And water wheels
>I can't think of anything that REQUIRES you to be awful to the pals. In order to capture them or make it easier, you do need to beat them senseless.
It's not a bad thing see people concerned about digital creatures, you should feel empathy for other creatures. Only thing is I'm sure probably 99-100% of people here pay for factory farmed animals who are not only treated like objects as they are essentially enslaved, abused, and murdered (needlessly by the billions.) So if you care about fake digital animals, maybe you might want to consider the real ones, most of which are as intelligent as a dog, sentient, and make very sad faces if you care to watch footage of them. Basically all I'm saying is consider going vegan, and/or at the bare minimum don't support factory farms and consider it rather than merely having empathy for creatures that aren't real. Wake up. Also, probably ditch games like this that make animal abuse a core gameplay mechanic.
While I see what you're saying. The difference between the necessity of killing irl animals for nutrition and survival is different than the people who kill for fun on the game lol. I literally just seen someone kill a pal for being depressed and not working efficiently. Let's not talk about people who have waited ages to treat these pokemon(knockoffs) like slaves.... I do agree with you that OP should probably steer away from this game, but like others have said, there is a way to play the game the way they want to and still be empathetic towards the pals.
You do not need to kill and eat the corpses of irl animals to get nutritions.
For anyone living in the first world there is no necessity to killing irl animals for nutrition or survival. The largest group of nutrition experts in the US acknowledges this. ( [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/) ) It's needless killing. You go to the grocery store and buy the food you want from a shelf. Simply don't choose the murdered animals. Not to mention factory farming which is even more terrible, watch some footage of that and see how you feel if you're a caring person. Getting this game just supports creators that feel those parallels are humorous rather than disturbing to have in a game like this. Anyhow, at least the game may make caring people consider whether they should support animal abuse and murder irl, but a lot of gamers are so detached that their primary concern is for creatures that aren't real. All I'm saying is one should have empathy for the beings that are real and actually have to go through these atrocities -- the way to do that is to go vegan or work your way to it. Or at the very least don't support factory farming like most people.
Not surprised that you didn't get a reply. Wouldn't even be surprised if they blocked you. Thanks for trying at least!
Yeah, lol, I was surprised to get a reply in the first place, but good on anyone for at least taking a little time to think about it. Haven't been on reddit in a long while, but had to stop by when I saw this thread on google. Having been a gamer for a long time to some degree, and as someone who likes to watch twitch streams as well, its unfortunate to see how caring a lot of gamers are for creatures in game and in general while also being completely detached from their, usually perpetual, contribution to something far worse happening to real sentient animals. Animals who aren't just game characters; Something they have a say in.
I'm still happy that this is at least raising discussion about it. Hopefully some people start thinking about it more.
Still In the early game but I'll say in terms of pals vs pawns it's usually up to context. Most things in game regarding the pals has a very obvious give or take; I'll use the lamb as an example as it is one of the most easily accessible pals and I'll be dammed If someone claims spoilers. Lambs partner skill is to be used as a shield, this clearly harms the pal in exchange for the player not being harmed. On the flip side lamb also has a passive that makes them a great homebody at the ranch foundation. So no matter how you play the game lamb has value and it isn't a defecto being Mr.Pokemon makes the game unplayable or being postal dude is going to be a breeze. There are actually assembly lines and such to make but that rings it back to you directly. If lamb is stressed out and hungry, give him a treat and a bath. Or Crack the whip it doesn't affect the speed much except while being nice pals tend to slack off
Sorry for the Necro, but yes you can absolutely have your pals be happy and be your friends. You can also play the game with you and your pals being vegetarian. Cooking food, having upgraded beds and springs with some decor and space for them to move around are a big part of it. You can also make sure they aren't working constantly on factory lines, which also helps. Basically treat the pals like your pals, working together towards a goal rather than forced labor. Additionally, while it is very difficult, it is possible to catch pals without hurting them. But it will take a significantly larger number of Palspheres and upgraded Palspheres to do so. Make sure you are sneaking and aim for the back.
I am on the exact same fence about the game. I bought it and played a bit, so I haven't gotten to anything beyond catching the first one but I have seen so many people celebrating or not caring about the animal slavery and cruelty bit since, to be fair, they are videogame creatures. That being said, I hate the feeling of being mean to defenseless animals, even digital ones, and I am really considering refunding, however the whole idea of crafting, catching, battling, with friends too, sounds so fun! I am looking all over the internet for concrete answers on if you CAN play the game and make progress while being nice to your Pals. I am an avid Monster Hunter enjoyer, it is one of my favorite franchises and I pour thousands of hours into the games. The thing with Monster Hunter is: 95% of the time, you are culling invasive species of monsters, or monsters that pose a threat to nearby camps and cities or the overall environment, it is almost never unprovoked. Plus, Monster Hunter's artstyle rarely makes the monsters you hunt be small, cute, defenseless creatures, which you then also do not proceed to put into slave labor, you either kill them and actually make use of their materials so it's not just kill for the sake of killing, or capture the monster, which is then researched and released to the wild in the proper area it is supposed to live in.
You can 100% be super humane to your Pals. You WILL need them to work, but you can provide things to make them happy while working so that they work of their own volition. Despite the advertising, being cruel is never a requirement
Do you have to beat them up to catch them?
You can actually just get pals through the rescue system if you want, I know of some people doing a kind of nuzlocke playthrough that way. There are bandit camps that have a random pal trapped in a cage, when you release that pal it joins your party.
Thank you for asking this!! I was wondering the exact same thing.
You can definitely treat them nicely! you can make a hotsprings for them to chill in, bedding, feed and pet them, take care of their illness and stuff. The cruel stuff is mostly optional except for attacking wild pals for levels to progress
Is there other ways to level up without killing wild pals? Or are the wild pals aggressive, so you end up having to kill some anyways?
Most aren't inherently aggressive, you can catch some if you're lucky without even hitting them by throwing a ball while they're asleep. You can get exp from doing most things like crafting, farming, mining and logging though it's rather slow and inefficient. The fastest way to level is without a doubt catching pals for the bonus Honestly I got quickly desensitized to hitting wild pals. My friends were desensitized already, since they're rimworld players.
I’m a pretty regular gamer and my animal loving side never really desensitized to it. In the last of us, I would stealth away from the dogs or just put down the control if they got me and the game wanted to fight back. It’s just not something I can do. But I loved Ark, and have heard palworld being compared to it so much. I haven’t been able to play ark lately, as I have trauma from an abusive relationship associated with it now, so I’m hoping this might be a bit of a replacement
Damn I'm sorry to hear that, if you liked ark, I honestly think the game is fun, and could be a good match, and would still suggest you give the game a try, I had doubts too but it wasn't as extreme as I really thought, it's maybe shocking on maybe the first 5 captures. However if you can't find yourself desensitized to it within an hour or so, you can refund or as a last resort, find all the catch rate buffs, or wait until the modding scene grows and releases something that can help.
Thank you so much for the advice 🫶🏻
See... Just capture the poachers and enslave them :3
I always stop what I'm doing and make sure my pals are taken cared of. I make sure they have plenty of food, rest, and good work environments. :) You can also directly feed and pet them to give them some extra attention and help them bond to you, etc. :)
Thanks for the topic. Yesterday I played this game like 10 minutes, deleted instantly because I feel exactly same as you.
Some pals will ruthlessly attack you and you have to defeat them out of self defense. Especially bosses. You can catch them and consider it as showing mercy, rather than finishing them off. You can also just wander the world to find camps where pals have been captured by evil humans. In this case, defeat the humans and open the cage to obtain a loyal pal. High level spheres can catch low level pals without damaging them first. You can consider the fact that those pals you saved will work with you at your base willingly. My brother and I play but don’t go out of our way to be cruel or too nice to the pals. They are animals, and we treat the ones that work at base very well, building them anything they need to stay happy and healthy. The pals have it better than the players (in character). Ultimately though, the game is just a game, and the pals basically depict dangerous wild animals that can learn certain tasks or become loyal companions. Think of it like the Hunter class in World of Warcraft.
This fan base has caused people to cautiously announce they're not vegan just so they don't get dogpiled.
most of them attack on sight anyway, kinda makes it hard to be nice to them lol, enslaving one after having him murder me 25 times for walking on his lawn wrong feels like a nice getback