Welcome Home: Palia's "Getting-Started" Guide

Image by tester Cosmic

Authors: GingerbreadWitch, AmeliaMarz

Oh Hello There, Gentle Palians!

Welcome to your very first public Patch Notes!

We start your journey with build 0.165 - we’re moving into Closed Beta! If you’re new here, welcome home! We’re so excited to meet you 🥰 If you’re a returning tester, an extra "welcome home"; we can’t wait for you to explore all the ways Palia has grown since you last visited.

To formally welcome you into Palia and help you hit the ground running, we asked our devs to tell you a little bit about their favorite ways to play. We also asked them for tips and tricks and little surprises to watch out for, so feel free to take a look if you’re wondering where to go next.

We can’t wait to see the wonderful homes you build, so be sure to join our Discord community server if you haven’t yet! Otherwise, we’ll see you on the other side of the shimmery purple void in Kilima Village! 🎉

For this - our very first public patch notes - we’re excited to highlight some of our devs’ favorite features for you! Be sure to check these out as you start to explore Palia!

From ziE, Director of Publishing

Insect Catching I had a lot of great laughs throwing smoke bombs together with my partner, especially the harder ones that fly and zip around so fast! The mix of excitement and chaos, coupled with hoping to catch a new rare bug, made it so fun for us!

From EmbrasAshes, Lead Narrative Designer

Friendship Storylines It’s really fun to see how the characters' dialogue, VO, and even animations evolve as they get to know you better. You can also unlock their rooms and find fun items like books or shopping lists.

From FancyPantsMcGee, Director of QA

Hunting Hunting feels incredibly cool! Long distance hunting leads to some super satisfying shots. Calculating arrow drop across ever bigger distances while predicting the retreat path of a Sernuk leads to some real Legolas moments!

From Illyria, Senior Technical Product Manager

Gardening I’m a min-maxer, so I love figuring out the optimal ways to plot out my garden for the most boosts. I was so appreciative of Alpha testers who made charts and resources to help me do this!

From Omnomnomnom, Lead Producer

The Writing The amount of amazing puns, dad jokes, & silliness still makes me laugh and I’ve read them a million times. Boil em’ mash em’ stick em’ in a stew. :chefskiss:

From EggoMcLego Senior Director, Production

Gliding and Exploration One of my favorite things to do is run around the world of Palia seeing what fun hidden spots I can reach with my glider - bonus points if there’s hidden treasure!!

From Eris, Senior Producer

Housing Customization I have SO MUCH fun running through and getting new furniture, decor, bugs and fish to fill out my home and make it my own. It’s been a blast working to create all of those beautiful assets.

From MoonOpal, Player Support Lead

Tracking NPC’s I really enjoy being able to middle-mouse button click on an NPC in the world map to track their location on my compass. It makes it so much easier to find them, especially when they’re walking from place to place!

From AmeliaMarz, Senior Community Lead

Fishing Encouragement If you’re ever out fishing with friends, keep an eye out for anyone who might be having a hard time keeping their fish on the line. Standing near them will bring up an “Encouragement” prompt! Your encouragement will help them get their fish back on the line! 🎉

Image by tester Sukina

From Asherelle, Community Manager

Get in Your Element! You might have noticed some elemental icons next to various dialogue choices when talking to villagers. In Palia, you can have four personalities: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. For now they don’t seem to play much of a role…but I’ll leave you to discover what each one means. 🤭

From Melbelle, Community Lead, Content Creators

Gardening Strategy I love how in-depth our gardening system is, and how it really pushes you to think about where to place your crops, what has good synergy, and what will help your crops grow better. I love min/maxing crops in other games, and Palia’s scratches my itch. 🕺

From GingerbreadWitch, Community Lead, Trust & Safety

Gift of the Week If you’ve been busy making friends in Kilima Village, you’ve surely noticed the Weekly Requests that villagers might ask you to fulfill. It might seem tough to keep all those requests organized, but don’t worry! It’s easy to keep track of who wants Sundrop Lillies instead of Copper by heading over to your relationship menu!

Feeling a little stuck or looking for an extra boost to your Palia exploration? Check out this section for some gameplay tips and tricks from our very own developer teams!

Settings, Menus, & UI

• Check out the Keybindings menu to look up all of your keyboard shortcuts - or change them around, if that’s your thing!
• Remember to check your H menu if you’re not sure where your tent just went or you can’t remember how to place a room in your house!
• You can click and drag the locations of your tools on the tool wheel to maximize your personal efficiency. This works for your emote wheel, too!
• If you’re training for a marathon, remember your Sprint button! Choose between tap, toggle, and hold-to-sprint in your Settings menu to best suit your own playing style.
• Manage your friend requests, parties, and more from your social menu - just press “O” to open it up and explore!
• Are your friends on another server? Send them a server sync request from your social menu to bring them over to yours!

Quests & General Gameplay

• If you’ve just joined and it looks like your friends aren’t around - don’t stress! You might still be in the tutorial! Just keep on keepin’ on and once you’ve gotten your housing plot set up, you’ll be in the clear.
• Keep an eye out for different quest markers or different reactions from the villagers in Kilima as you get to know them - they might give you clues as to how they feel about you or what they like!
• Running out of bag space? Check out Zeki’s General Store for an upgrade. Quick note that you won’t find this at his register - it’s a super special deal, so look around in the store for something that looks like a backpack!
• If you notice you’re not gaining any new experience while you’re completing skills, make sure to check your focus bar. If it’s empty - grab something to eat! Don’t work on an empty stomach!
• Want to mark a spot on your map? Drop a waypoint by clicking on the map with your middle mouse button and everyone in your party will be able to see it!
• Stuck on a quest? Keep forgetting to hand one in? Check out your quest log and pin it to the top of your list!
• Looking to try your luck with the Zeki Capsule machine? You can build up your Zeki Coins by shopping at Zeki’s general store. Make any purchase and Zeki will send you a coin the next day!
• Wondering how to get your glider? Don’t fret - you’ll get there! Maybe Jina can point you in the right direction…

Skills & Crafting

• Stuck on trying to find Emerald Carpet Moss or Spice Sprouts? Scout along the coast near Einar’s fishing pond for the moss or the Kilima Village ruins where Jina hangs out for the Spice Sprouts. Be patient - it may take a bit to find them, but they’re there!
• Furniture doesn’t take up any storage space in your chests, so don’t worry about tucking away older pieces!
• Some of the critters in Bahari Bay might look a little different - and they might take higher level equipment to hunt or catch!
• If a tree “heals” itself while you’re trying to chop it down - don’t freak out! You’ve found a rare, enchanted tree! Grab some friends to take it on together.
• Bug catching or foraging with friends? Don’t worry about having to split up your loot! The amount of resources you harvest isn’t affected by the number of people in your party. Palia’s just magical like that.

For even more tips and tricks, we've prepared this great primer of how to get started in Palia. Click the link below to download the full Palia Almanac, chock full of helpful notes from our villagers!

We’re so excited to share with you some of our highlighted items for sale in our premium store! These items can only be purchased with Palia Coins, but they’re never required for gameplay. As one of our testers put it - “Palia is free to play, but pay to slaaaay!”

The Soothsayer

The Sky Captain

The Rogue

Thanks so much for joining us, everyone! Continue on if you want to read more about our Bug Fixes. From here on out we’ll be returning to our standard style of Patch Notes, with new updates and adjustments.

We hope you have a wonderful time playing Palia. See you next patch!

🪂 Players who were not able to progress the quest "Like A Bird" can now move forward
🏡 Players who were stuck on their housing plot after completing the tutorial should now be able to leave.
▶️ The ENTER button can no longer be used to spam at the login screen.

💥 We've repaired more instances of crashing!
🗃️ We've pinpointed (and repaired!) the most frequently-reported Grey Box issues!
🪓 Tools no longer go missing after server crashes.
🍅 Stackable items are now stacking! Correctly!
👗 The premium store has had some updates:

• We fixed a bug where bundle discounts on the bundle purchase page may not have updated dynamically. If an individual outfit is purchased, the bundle price will now properly update to reflect the new amount.
  
• Our pricing structure hasn't changed, and all purchases made up to this point were charged correctly along that pricing structure.
• Bundle prices on the storefront cards will no longer show total pricing before discount.
  
• We would like to thank all of the testers that reached out to let us know that our original dynamic pricing UI was not displaying correctly to players, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion this has caused.

Further clarification of our pricing structure and breakdown will come in future updates due to localization.

💻 The 404 error message now has clearer language.
😊 You no longer need to relog to receive your referral bonuses.
💬 We have adjusted the chat filter for a better player experience.
🧰 You can now pick up and move ancient treasure chests!*

💥 Fixed some instances of crashing.
🔄 The Shipping bin is now providing accurate guidance on when you will receive your gold - you must visit your housing plot to receive gold from shipped items!
💬 Special items like the Founder's Windmill and Plushes can no longer be accidentally gifted to NPC's.
📝 Fishing and gardening accomplishments are now tracking correctly.
🍅 You can now harvest tomatoes as expected.

🧽 Fixed a bug that was causing players to lose their progress.

⌛ Increased timeout durations.

Holy smokes! Our devs fixed over 540 known issues this patch cycle - that’s a LOT of bugs! 🐞 Here are some worth celebrating listed below.

• The Whisper and Server Chat are now working as expected. Thank you to everyone who reported this!

• Foliage in Phoenix Shrine, cave leading to the Phoenix Shrine, and the Housing Plot no longer appear white and textureless.

• There is no longer significant hitching after climbing the starter vines.

• The Tent will no longer get into a state where it can not be picked up.

• When leaving your plot and returning, planted crops are no longer invisible. We hope this didn’t alarm too many folks!

• Players no longer fall through the world when traveling from Housing Plot to Kilima Village. We thank all players who created amazing memes around this error. 🍂

• Characters no longer visually reset to a default when between changing servers.

• In Kilima Village, Large and Medium Oak trees now respawn at the intended rate.

• There are no longer green textures stretched across the background in some areas of Kilima Village.

• Ashura no longer rushes to begin his workout routine, beginning his push ups and slide-teleporting across the room into his expected “arm day” spot.

• Multiple forageable plants are no longer missing textures. We’ll miss you, Goth Crystal Lake Lotus.

• Players no longer occasionally experience freezing after planting several seeds rapidly.

• Sub-recipe icons no longer disappear after starting a recipe.

• Writs are now recognized from your inventory or storage when trying to unlock an area on the housing plot.

• It no longer takes more than 4 minutes for a player to load into a private space.

• There is no longer a visual “pop-in” of the Fire Temple Door in the Bahari Bay Sunken Ancient City.

• The Bahari Bay server no longer crashes when standing next to a heat root for a long period of time. We applaud everyone who discovered this.

• Item drops no longer spawn underground in Bahari Bay.

• Geysers are now erupting when players stand on them.

• The Y-Axis of the Camera mode now functions as expected.

Key

💔 Could interfere with strategy or gameplay
👍 Not-good, but playable
🤷‍♀️ Might not even notice if you don’t do this very specific thing

💔Localization Our localization work is ongoing - you may notice some mismatch of dialogue, some areas of the game that are only available in English, or small errors in certain languages. We aim to improve this with every update in the near future! Please note: Our Launcher uses the language settings of your computer, if supported. We will be adding ways to select a dedicated language for the Launcher in the future!

💔 Quest Progression Blockers We continue our work to unblock quests due to early Beta progress reset issues.

💔 Gifting When selecting the button to gift an NPC, sometimes the menu will not pop up as expected. Instead, you will see a small menu showing only gold and renown. Relogging, or allowing a full Palian day to cycle, can fix this issue.

👍 Star quality items gifted through Requests turn into regular quality items.

Chat

💔 Server Chat can break when moving from server-to-server (such as your housing plot to Kilima Village).

Localization

💔 Our localization work is ongoing - you may notice some mismatch of dialogue, some areas of the game that are only available in English, and other errors in certain languages. We are actively working on getting these fixed ASAP and up to the quality bar we all expect in Palia.

• Please note: Our Launcher uses the language settings of your computer, if supported. We will be adding ways to select a dedicated language for the Launcher in the future!

Gifting

💔 When selecting the button to gift an NPC, sometimes the menu will not pop up as expected. Instead, you will see a small menu showing only gold and renown. Relogging, or allowing a full Palian day to cycle, can fix this issue.

Gardening

👍 You may find it difficult to plant a seed. Please try standing fairly close to your plot, and face it directly.

Performance

💔 There is performance “hitching” for some players. If you experience stuttering or glitching, please share the details of your experience, including where in the game it is happening, with Player Support.

Friends

💔 Server sync is sending a “Friend is not currently on plot” error message when a fellow player accepts an invite. A workaround is for both players to visit their home plots, then add as friend.

Server Crash

👍 After a crash, you might receive a message that says “You weren’t accepted into the server.” This should not prevent you from logging in successfully.

Disclaimer: These are only a select few issues of many we’re aware of! For troubleshooting on common issues, please visit: https://palia.info/psknown

New to 0.165

💔 Some Accomplishments for Fishing and Gardening are not giving rewards when reaching their milestones. Additionally, Accomplishments may not reflect your actual level.
👍 Terrain and foliage pop in and out during Welcome To Palia Cinematic.
👍 There are a collection of visual errors where items or environments will “pop” in and out of view as you approach.
👍 Periodically, finishing a cooking minigame will make the UI that appears over other stations disappear.
👍 The casting VFX appears red in the fishing pond south of Mirror Fields in Bahari Bay, despite being a valid fishing spot.
👍 There is a floating tassel and collision on the front deck outside the General Store.

The Community and Player Support teams thought it was a broom; upon further inspection, it is a wayward tassel.

Chat

🤷‍♀️ Players are unable to send messages in the Community channel if they rejoin after leaving.

Friends, Parties, & Communities

💔Players suddenly exiting the game (using Alt+F4 or crashing, for example), may still appear active and in a party despite no longer being online.
💔 Unfriending someone sends you an unexpected Friend Request.
💔 When a player blocks another player, the blocker is not removed from the blockee’s Social Panel Server section.
👍 When in the Lobby screen, the ESC key and O shortcuts to access the social panel does not bring up the settings menu or toggle the state of the social panel.
👍 Player’s list of “Offline” friends is not minimized or collapsed by default.
👍 When in the Lobby screen, the Friend Request notification does not appear when receiving a friend request.
👍 Players are allowed to send Community invitations, even if their Community is full.
👍 Clicking "Dismiss" when receiving a friend or party request will not dismiss the request.
👍 Your Party does not disband when there is one Party Member left after the Party Leader, or Member, leaves the game.
👍 Players do not receive a chat notification message when someone joins a party.
👍 Players do not receive a chat notification message when another player joins their neighborhood.
👍 Players who are in the same community OR in the same server, who send each other friend requests, may see location information (such as where one player is currently located in the world) in the social panel.
🤷‍♀️ Party invitations do not expire when a Party becomes full.

Housing & Furniture

🤷‍♀️ There is some minor clipping from the environment through the furniture, such as grass and trees.

Photo Mode

👍 Photo Mode’s recent photos and album menu buttons are behaving inconsistently. The “Back” button does not work, but the “Close” button will take you back.
👍 Party UI does not appear/disappear if a player takes a photo in-game before joining or leaving a party.

Skills

👍 Players lose axe and pick durability if striking a tree or node too high a level for your tools. This is not intended!

Visual Bugs & Animation

👍 The “Emote Collection” button appears as a white box until it is clicked.
👍 Text in the “Report” and “Kudos” boxes is difficult to read.
👍 UI buttons animate correctly but do not respond when clicked on their edges.
👍 A visual issue where when playing with a smaller screen size, or in windowed mode, the clothing icons in the wardrobe display covers the “continue” button.
🤷‍♀️ The wrong title and description is displayed for certain small Community Activities.
🤷‍♀️ The Honey Lure animation does not loop properly.
🤷‍♀️ Jel’s clothing detail pops in and out when approaching him, or walking away from him.

Around The World

👍 There are a collection of visual errors where items will “pop” in and out of view as you approach.
👍 There are areas where you might fall through the world, or get stuck in an unexpected corner.

• Typing /unstuck, or using the Return Home button on your map, will free you.

Have you read this far? You deserve this! 🏆