Palia is a cozy sim MMO that has players explore and discover a world filled with great characters, quests, and places to find. With so much to uncover it can be a bit overwhelming at first. There are a lot of skills that involve different approaches and tools, loads of characters with various wants, and numerous tasks to do, and it’s natural to feel a bit unsure of where to start or what to do first.
To help with your Palia adventures, we’ve put together this guide with some early game tips to help you get started the right way in Palia.
Related: Palia Complete Guide – Romance, Tools, Crafters, & Tips
Palia Beginner’s Guide
These helpful tips will get you started in Palia and let you know a few things about what you should focus on in the game first.
Follow the Main Questline
While it can be tempting to jump right into running around and exploring, we recommend you follow the main questline first to unlock all of the game’s skills, as you will need to complete several tutorial-style quests to unlock them and get the tools you need. Additionally, it allows you to meet the villagers along the way and get to know them a bit better, and most will provide you with rewards like Renown, Gold, or the occasional recipe or item.
The quests you should focus on when you unlock them are Learning the Ropes, Strong Foundations, Like a Bird, and the Ancient Battery, as these should have you unlock most of, if not all, the games skills and set you up with your plot, glider, and get into the meat of the game.
Upgrade Your Tools ASAP
It may seem obvious, but like most cozy games, you have tools you’ll be using constantly to gather resources or perform tasks, and the first ones you get aren’t the best. Thankfully, these can be upgraded and let you gather greater yields and new materials as you upgrade them, making it worthwhile to upgrade your tools as soon as they become available.
Most tools have upgrades at levels three, six, and nine, with Gardening and Cooking having a few exceptions and extras. So you’ll want to get them once you hit those levels in their respective skill.
It is worth noting that upgraded tools break down over time, so you will need to use repair kits at a Repair Station to keep them in good condition.
Find the Dragon and Phoenix Shrines
If, like me, you weren’t sure what to do with Renown, this will provide the answer. In Palia, players have a mechanic called Focus, which increases your exp gain from performing skills, which you top up by eating. At first, you have a 20% bonus and can have 200 Focus maximum. These can be upgraded.
There are two shrines, the Phoenix Shrine and the Dragon Shrine, which both provide ways to increase the amount and effectiveness of Focus, and they are relatively easy to miss if you aren’t sure how to unlock them early.
The Phoenix Shrine will increase your Focus effectiveness by 5%, and you unlock the ability to use this by following along the main questlines until Jina gives you the quest of the same name. She will ask you to investigate where you first appeared in the world, which will take you to the shrine and unlock the ability to use it.
The Dragon Shrine will increase your maximum Focus amount by 50, and is unlocked when Chayne sends you a letter after meeting all the villagers, saying to meet the “final” villager in the shrine area in the northwest of the map.
Both will cost you 100 Renown each time, and is well worth doing as soon as you can. It may not seem like a lot, but these can be very helpful for speeding up progression, especially early game, so it’s worth the detour.
Divide Your Time
You may be tempted to focus on a particular skill early on or have your eyes set on a certain NPC to romance, but I recommend you spend some time dividing your attention between all the game mechanics and skills.
By taking some time to level up each skill, you will avoid pitfalls like needing to find certain materials and recipes or having to circle back to level something you have neglected. This is especially true since certain quests with villagers or during the main story may require you to use these skills, and not having them up to scratch can make the game slow down as you try to catch up.
The same can be said for villagers. Of course, you should and will have favorites, but taking the time to talk with them all when you can will get your friendship points with them and help you find ways to improve other villagers’ friendships with weekly wants and gifts.
Tackle them all equally, use your Focus, and you’ll find it a much smoother experience.
Upgrade Your Inventory
At the start of the game, you will have 16 inventory slots on your character. This will be filled up very quickly, so you should invest in upgrading your inventory as soon as possible.
Upgrading your inventory will give you an additional eight slots with each upgrade, and three upgrades are available. Doing this will ensure you can carry around and loot the hefty amount of items you will find in Palia. You can find the backpack upgrade in Zeki’s shop to the left of the counter, and the first upgrade will set you back 500 gold.
After that, it gets pricey, but even having a little extra space early on will go a long way.
