Palworld has been available in Early Access for barely a week and players are already battling cheaters in online mode. The issues are so severe that developer Pocket Pair has issued an apology on Steam and released a new patch immediately.
What problems are players facing? On several social media platforms, Palworld players are discussing their issues with cheaters. One major issue appears to be that some players seem to be able to steal other people’s Pals.
Reddit user Ironmeme420 posted a video in which two other players visit his camp. Their avatars attack the working Pals and throw black Pal spheres at them. More and more Pals disappear as Ironmeme420 helplessly watches. A similar fate befell redditor Atheist_Kitten, who writes about similar incidents in his own post.
Currently, there is no legally obtainable or craftable black Pal sphere in the game. However, one commentator suspects the so-called Radar Sphere
, which translates to Radarsphäre
. This item allows players to catch other players’ Pals, although the chances are low. The Radar Sphere is not yet implemented in the game and has only been discovered through data mining.
A second problem is players killing their teammates: Currently, Palworld does not support PvP. However, this is a feature that Pocket Pair intends to implement according to the current roadmap in the near future. On reddit, user Desperate-Painter152 reports having been killed by two other players on server EU 0101.
Another user, wigglin_harry, asks the community for help in his post: He is looking for hacks for Palworld so he can get back at the hackers on his server. According to him, a foreign player spawned in front of him and managed to make a huge number of items appear around him within seconds.
Players suffer and the developer responds
How did the developer respond? Pocket Pair, the company behind Palworld, addressed the problems on January 25, 2024. In a post on Steam, they reach out to players:
It has been confirmed that some players are cheating on official servers. We will deploy a patch as soon as it is ready. At the same time, it is difficult to prevent cheating immediately and completely.
We will focus even more on security and try to create a gaming environment where everyone can play with peace of mind.
We sincerely apologize to all players affected by this incident.
We thank you for your ongoing support of Palworld.
Pocket Pair via Steam, 25.01.2024
What are the chances of a timely patch? In fact, the developer already released Patch 0.1.3.0 during the day. It includes the following main changes:
- A bug that caused the loading screen to be displayed indefinitely has been fixed.
- A bug that caused the world end date to be incorrectly displayed has been fixed.
- Text errors have been corrected.
- Measures against various cheats and exploits have been introduced.
Presumably, the issues discussed on reddit (stolen Pals, unwanted PvP, etc.) are affected by the measures against cheats and exploits. However, it remains to be seen whether Pocket Pair’s measures will be sufficient to protect players from cheaters in the long run.
Generally, it is difficult to rein in cheaters or hackers in online games. However, the fact that the Palworld developers are responding so quickly speaks volumes of their commitment to making the game a pleasant experience for everyone. Many players also don’t need exploits to have fun in the game: Palworld: Players grill a difficult boss, and the developers find it “brilliant”
