What to do when Palworld Pals won’t listen to you or work

Palworld is all about capturing monsters, known as Pals, and putting them to work at your base or as your vanguard. But what happens when Pals don’t want to listen or work in Palworld? Well, there are a few things you can try.

Typically, Pals tend to perform as expected while out in the world. Most times, you can toss a Pal Sphere to summon a friend to aid you in a fight or help you cross great distances with ease as a mount. You won’t run into many issues out in the wilds.

No, the place in which most Pals tend to rise against the bourgeoisie is in their owners’ base. A Pal may refuse to work for one reason or another. Let’s go over some situations and possible solutions.

Palworld: What to do when a Pal gets stuck

Pals get easily stuck while trying to work in a base. They may be unable to maneuver around an area, or you’ll find them somehow on top of a tree or cupboard like cat with fresh regrets. You don’t know how they got up there, and you sure as hell don’t know how to get them back down.

Here are a couple of things you can try when your Pal gets stuck:

• Get close, if you can, and press the 4 Key on your keyboard to pick up your Pal. Press it again to drop them
• Put them back in the Palbox inventory and then respawn them back into the base

Pals can also get stuck on objects. If you see a Pal or even a group of Pals all smashed up together and not moving, look around to determine if they’re stuck on an object. In my case, I had a few Pals that couldn’t get past a storage box. Removing the box and building it further away helped:

Your Pals may also be getting stuck because your base is too cramped. Pal pathing really isn’t great, which is something developer Pocketpair is aware of and working to improve. Until they can figure out a better way around boxes, you should try and organize your base with more space for your worker Pals to move around. Keep in mind that Pals can be very big, especially the Alphas. If you want their strength for your weapon-manufacturing plant, make sure they have room to move. It might also be wise to build a second base instead of trying to fit everything in one place.

What to do when Pals or sick or upset

The care and upkeep of your Pals is important, but some of them will get sick or depressed on the job and their work suffers. Pals have a ‘sanity’ attribute, shown as SAN in their details, that dictates their health and happiness. Low SAN could cause your Pals to become upset or sick in Palworld, but there are ways to prevent and fix it.

Here are some steps to take to keep your Pal’s SAN raised:

• Build a Straw Pal Bed once you reach level 3, that way your Pal recovers SAN while sleeping
• Build a Feed Box at level 4 and keep it stocked. Hungry Pals lose SAN quickly
• Build a Hot Spring at level 9, which allows Pals to use to recover SAN

If one of your Pals gets upset, they may need to take a break and sleep it off. This is okay, and the Pal will eventually recover soon. Some Pals will slack off on the job if their SAN is too low. If this is happening, follow the prior steps to make sure their needs are met. You may have to pick up a Pal with low SAN and toss it in the Hot Spring for a quick dip.

But what do you do with an injured or sick Pal? If it’s something like a muscle sprain or depression, you can give them medicine. Build a Medieval Medicine Workbench once you reach level 12. With it, you can craft several types of medicine that can help your Pal recover from these ailments and statuses:

• Cold
• Sprain
• Ulcer
• Fracture
• Weakened
• Depressed

You may also consider replacing a Pal. Capture more than one type for your Palbox and swap out a sick or injured Pal for a healthy one. It’s a bit messed up, but this is what happens when you don’t support Pal unions.

Pals too injured for work will become incapacitated. When this happens, you’ll need to return them to the Palbox to let them recover. This takes 10 real-world minutes.

Palworld: What to do if your Pals don’t listen to you

Now, we’re going to cover some of the hard-to-answer questions. What do you do if your Pals just flat-out refuse to work in Palworld? Here are some things to consider:

• Press the action key (F Key) or button near a Pal to pick it up. Press it again near a work station to assign it a job
• Check the Pal’s attributes to see if it can do the job you want done. Some Pals can mine or chop wood, so don’t set a Pal to perform work outside of its abilities

Again, make sure you have the correct Pals for the job. Tossing a Pal that can only mine ore or plant seeds onto a grove of trees won’t force them to start chopping away. Place the best Pals on the right jobs.

If your Pals aren’t defending your base during raids, check to see if you have an Alarm Bell built. At level 4, you can create an Alarm Bell that lets you set your Pal behavior. You can set them to focus on work or defend the base from attackers. Be sure to use the bell during a raid, that way your Pals will drop whatever they’re doing and fight as enemies get close enough. You can change their behavior back afterward.

But what if you’ve done everything above and the Pal still won’t work? Well, the Pal could be bugged. Since Palworld is in early access, you should expect bugs or glitches. When this happens, try these steps:

• Quit the game and reload your save world
• Verify/repair the game on Steam or PC Game Pass
• Restart your PC and internet connection
• Reinstall the game

Keep in mind that there may not be any immediate fix. Pocketpair will release new patches and updates over time. You may have to wait for a fix. Such is the case when it comes to playing games still in active development. But stay patient, and hopefully, your Pals will be back in working condition.