Those jumping into Palworld for the first time may want to look at some of the best settings changes they can make for catering their server (or world) to how they want to play.
The long-awaited Pokémon-like game from developer Pocket Pair was released into early access on Steam and Xbox, offering players deep survival gameplay mixed with adorable monsters akin to Nintendo's beloved creature-collecting franchise.
While gamers can play in a world all on their own, they also can pal around with other players, starting servers or smaller multiplayer worlds to collect, craft, and train with other players from across the world.
The Best World/Server Settings for Starting Palworld
Starting a server or new world in Palworld can be a confusing affair.
While Pocket Pair included several pre-set difficulty templates, gamers wanting to fine-tune their experience are offered a swatch of settings to fiddle with to make their Palworld world perfect for them (and their friends).
Here are three settings templates for various experience levels to start with in Palworld:
Your First Survival Game
Jumping into the survival genre for the first time can be an intimidating experience. And given many will be booting up Palworld because of its deceptively Pokémon-esque creature-collecting, there are going to be plenty of gamers looking for a less abrasive survival experience.
If Palworld is one's first survival game, then the 'Casual' difficulty level is highly recommended. One can further cater this experience to a survival newbie by adjusting the various sliders.
To make things a bit easier, try raising the rate at which players get experience points (bumping it up to 2x is recommended) and the damage the player character does while lowering incoming damage and the depletion of player resources like stamina and hunger.
For a great beginner Palworld world (or server), use these settings (screenshot below):
- Day Time Speed: 1
- Night Time Speed: 1
- EXP Rate: 2
- Pal Capture Rate: 2
- Pal Appearance Rate: 1
- Damage from Pals multiplier: 0.3
- Damage to Pals multiplier 0.5
- Pal Hunger Depletion Rate: 0.3
- Pal Stamina Reduction Rate: 0.5
- Pal Auto HP Regeneration Rate: 1.5
- Pal Sleep Health Regeneration Rate: 1.5
- Damage from Player multiplier: 2
- Damage to Player multiplier: 0.5
- Player Hunger Depletion Rate: 0.5
- Player Stamina Reduction Rate: 0.5
A Bit of Survival Experience
The 'Normal' difficulty template provides the middle-of-the-road 'developer intended' Palworld level of difficulty.
Most gamers who have tried and succeeded in the world of survival games before will do just fine using this 'Normal' settings preset.
Other changes to add a bit of challenge (but not too much) include making it slightly harder to catch the Pals found throughout the world and reducing item drop rates.
Upping the Pal appearance rate to make sure players have ample opportunity to take on these adorable yet dangerous creatures and are never too far from a confrontation is another adjustment that can be made. This allows for a best-of-both-worlds gameplay experience, letting players engage with the survival side of Palworld and plenty of catching and training of Pals.
For a standard level of difficulty in a Palworld world (or server), use these settings (screenshot below):
- Day Time Speed: 1
- Night Time Speed: 1
- EXP Rate: 1
- Pal Capture Rate: 1
- Pal Appearance Rate: 2
- Damage from Pals multiplier: 1
- Damage to Pals multiplier 1
- Pal Hunger Depletion Rate: 1
- Pal Stamina Reduction Rate: 1
- Pal Auto HP Regeneration Rate: 1
- Pal Sleep Health Regeneration Rate: 1
- Damage from Player multiplier: 1
- Damage to Player multiplier: 1
- Player Hunger Depletion Rate: 1
- Player Stamina Reduction Rate: 1
A Veteran of the Survival Genre
Those looking for the hardest of the hard when it comes to starting up a Palworld server, look no further!
Of course, there is always the 'Hard' difficulty preset for gamers not wanting to fiddle around with any sliders in the menu, but a couple of small tweaks can amp the experience up.
This can be done by slowing the Gatherable Objects Respawn Interval, so resources used for crafting, cooking, and the game's various survival systems do not respawn after collection as quickly. This change forces players to constantly be on the move if they want to survive.
Also changing the incoming/outgoing damage makes it so items disappear upon death, days move slower, and stamina and hunger drain faster, providing the most hardcore Palworld experience. Players must rely on their wits, team of Pals, and understanding of the environment to survive.
A solid hardcore settings template for Palworld can be seen below (screenshot below):
- Day Time Speed: 0.5
- Night Time Speed: 0.5
- EXP Rate: 0.8
- Pal Capture Rate: 0.5
- Pal Appearance Rate: 1
- Damage from Pals multiplier: 1
- Damage to Pals multiplier 1
- Pal Hunger Depletion Rate: 1.2
- Pal Stamina Reduction Rate: 1.2
- Pal Auto HP Regeneration Rate: 0.5
- Pal Sleep Health Regeneration Rate: 1
- Damage from Player multiplier: 0.5
- Damage to Player multiplier: 4
- Player Hunger Depletion Rate: 1.5
- Player Stamina Reduction Rate: 1.5
Palworld is available in early access on Xbox and PC.
