In Palworld, Pals assigned to the base will work on tasks and help you produce all of the items you need. If they’re slacking off or upset, however, then they won’t work at all, even if you try to force them. We can’t have that, now, can we?
What does it mean when a Pal is slacking off or upset in Palworld?
In Palworld, captured Pals assigned to a base will happily go around and start performing tasks that they’re able to do. With food and a bed, these Pals will be happy for a while doing all the jobs you can’t be bothered to do.
However, you will soon come across Pals that are slacking off and moping around the base. Or worse — Pals that are upset and have sent themselves to bed. When this happens, they’ll stop working, even if you try to force-assign them to a task. Pals who are slacking off or upset will show it on their faces.
Pals that are suffering from this will soon develop much worse conditions, which you want to look out for. They can go from slacking, to being upset, to eating your Feed Box empty.
These Pals become a huge liability as not only are they not working, but they will continue to eat your food.
Don’t worry, though, all Pals in a base will rush to defend it should the occasion arise.
How Sanity works in Palworld
To know how to deal with unproductive Pals in Palworld, you’ll need to understand why they’re slacking off or upset. The best way to deal with this issue is by curbing the problem before it starts.
The only reason Pals will become upset and slack off is if their Sanity is low. Their Sanity will drop slowly over time, as they work harder and harder. Being hungry and having medical issues can also cause their Sanity to make a sharp decline.
The moment their Sanity drops to a critical level is the moment they’ll start to slack off or go to bed upset, not doing any work at all. Before it hits a critical level, you’ll be told that they’re working slower than usual, which is a warning sign that you need to do something, and soon.
If you’ve got one or a couple of Pals who are upset and unwilling to do any tasks, that’s an indicator that Sanity and life around the base aren’t so good. Typically, others will follow suit, their Sanity dropping in tandem. If this happens, then there is a core problem with your base.
You’ll need to make sure their Sanity stays high, and there are a few things you can do to keep it that way.
How to Improve Sanity in Palworld
Several things will keep the Sanity level of your working Pals in top condition. The best way to do this is to build a Hot Spring for them to relax in. The Hot Spring gets unlocked at level five and costs 30 Wood, 15 Stone, 10 Paldium Fragments, and 10 Pal Fluid.
In the early game, you can easily get Pal Fluids by catching or defeating Pengullets that you’ll find a little further north of the starting location.
You will have to build a Hot Spring to advance one of the early Palbox Base missions, anyway. Once built, for the most part, a Pal will hop in the Hot Spring and relax during their short break. In some cases, you may need to force a Pal to take a break by throwing them into the Hot Spring.
Eventually, you’ll gain access to a High Quality Hot Spring, which is useful if you’ve used the Monitoring Stand to instruct them to work harder, which decreases Sanity at a higher rate.
Good food also goes a long way to improving their Sanity. Giving your Pals good Hot Springs and good food will allow them to work harder while maintaining their Sanity. Higher Quality Pal beds and other amenities that you’ll unlock will also contribute to a good Sanity level.
In larger bases, you’ll want a few Hot Springs to satisfy more Pals at once. If a Pal needs the Hot Spring but there’s already someone in there, then they’ll miss out and their Sanity will continue to decline.
Make sure to pet them every now and then, too.
Dealing with upset and slacking Pals in Palworld
In the early game, or before you can properly accommodate for Sanity in Palworld, you will simply have to tolerate the slackers and mood swings. Slacking Pals will eventually go back to work, anyway. It’s the upset Pals that you’ll have to look out for, though, as they won’t simply go back to work. Their Sanity needs to improve.
A Pal with low Sanity for too long will not only impact production but may also cause them to develop stress-related conditions like stress eating or depression. If it’s not curbed immediately, the effects will bleed into all aspects of your base.
First, treat any medical issues that the Pal may be suffering from, using any Medicine Workbench to produce medicine. The description of the medicines will tell you what problems they treat. Note that medications won’t fix problems like stress eating, you’ll just have to improve Sanity to get rid of that.
Over time, medical issues do heal themselves, but if they’re disrupting Base life, then it’ll be well worth helping them with their issues.
Alternatively, you can banish them to the Box through your Pal Base and replace them with another Pal of their species. I’ve had to do this with a rather troublesome Pengullet that kept stress eating all the Berries.
To force Sanity to improve, you can pet them and feed them good quality foods directly by interacting with them or forcing them into a Hot Spring.
How to heal Pals with medicine in Palworld
As aforementioned, some Pals will be slacking off due to injuries or will develop injuries when working with low sanity. These do eventually go away in time, but it’s certainly worthwhile treating instantly. Curing Pals is great, but make sure to raise the quality of life of your Pals to prevent this from happening again due to stress.
The Recovery Meds heal the health of you and your Pals, but won’t treat and cure illnesses, neither will the Strange and Suspicious Juices.
Here are all the medicines in Palworld, what they cure, and what they cost.
| Medicine Item | Cures | Cost | Workload |
| Low Grade Medical Supplies | – Colds – Sprains | – 5 Red Berries – 2 Horns | 50 |
| Medical Supplies | – Ulcers – Fractures | – 3 Ingots – 3 Horns – 1 Bone | 150 |
| High Grade Medical Supplies | – Weakened – Depressed | – 5 Ingots – 5 Horns – 2 Bones | 500 |
Note that all medicine in Palworld needs to be built on the Medieval Medicine Workbench. This gets unlocked at level 12, and costs 30 Wood, 5 Nails, and 10 Paldium Fragments. A Pal with the Medicine Production skill can help you produce the medicines, also, which is useful as they take a while to make.
Bones are dropped from Rushoar when capturing or defeating one, and Horns are acquired from Eikthyrdeer in the same way.
Note that some of these medicines can also be dropped by Pals and enemies. Some Pals, like Lifmunk, drop Low Grade Medical Supplies, and Medical Supplies are often dropped by Free Pal Alliance enemies. High Grade Medical Supplies can be bought from a Wandering Trader for 3,000 Gold each.
To feed medicine to a Pal, run over to them and press the button to “Open their menu.” Click on the “Feed” option, and select the appropriate medicine from your inventory.
Make sure they don’t wander too far whilst you’re selecting the medicine you want, or they’ll get distracted and run away. The best way to feed a Pal is to throw them into a Hot Spring so they’ll be stationary, and their Sanity levels will improve, helping the cause. With the application of the medicine, their illnesses or debilitations will go away.
Now that you know all about dealing with Slackers in Palworld, why don’t you find out how to defeat the first Rayne Syndicate Tower?
