It's bad enough that Palworld players have to deal with Syndicate thugs raiding their base now and then, but rampant cheaters have rendered the game unplayable for some. Thankfully, developer Pocketpair has announced plans to address these issues.
As an indie game in early access, Palworld has been riddled with game-breaking glitches since the start. In addition to typical hacks like invincibility or increased flight speed, some players have gained access to unreleased items. Some cheaters have even figured out how to configure admin access to a Palworld server, essentially making them an in-universe god capable of — according to one redditor — "deleting characters, inventories, and pals, forcing people to lose hours of progress." Other cheaters have reportedly inflicted negative status effects, filled inventories with rocks, forced respawns underground, and various other forms of pointless trolling. Cheaters can forcibly join a guild/clan and gain full control over a server, annihilating other players who have no recourse.
Because of all this, some players cannot even connect to official servers where cheating has occurred. "We have confirmed that some players are unable to play the game properly," Pocketpair wrote in a tweet from the official Palworld account promising swift action before the end of the month.
"First of all, we plan to release a player list function for servers in an update at the end of February," the tweet reads. "Through this, we will strengthen the identification of players who engage in cheating and the suspension of their use by the development team." Following that, Pocketpair will introduce an external anti-cheat solution to tackle specific frequent forms of cheating. Since it's a relatively small team, however, Pocketpair admits that it can barely keep up with the explosive growth of cheating within the game.
Perhaps the biggest issue at play here, according to an IGN interview with anti-cheat organization Xyrem is that most of the game's data is not stored in the servers. "Everything is client-authoritative,” Xyrem said. “Meaning most things you do inside the game are done via the client, the server does not check for any of these things. So for example, you can spawn items, manipulate your player's speed, damage, health, etc." The "client" refers to the installed game files, so someone who gains admin access can manually alter data without the servers interacting in any way.
Considering the game's fading player base, these improvements can't come fast enough. The full announcement is below:
<Regarding official server access issues and future countermeasures against cheating>
Currently, some users are unable to connect to official servers due to cheating and the influence of fraudulent activities. We have confirmed that some players are unable to play the game properly.
As a company, we do not tolerate any fraudulent activity or cheating, and we are working on measures to deal with it strictly and as a priority.
First of all, we plan to release a player list function for servers in an update at the end of February. Through this, we will strengthen the identification of players who engage in cheating and the suspension of their use by the development team.
Following this, we plan to introduce an external anti-cheat solution to take measures against particularly frequent fraudulent activities and cheating.
*Please note: In the case of community servers, single player, and co-op, the use of this function is optional.In addition to the above measures, we will continue to take thorough measures against further cheating and fraudulent activities.
Although the development team is dealing with each issue on a daily basis and taking measures, there are many cases where we are not able to keep up, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Our entire team is working hard to get everyone back to a state where they can enjoy the game comfortably and with peace of mind as soon as possible.
Thank you for your continued support.
