Palia's "Chapaa Chase" Minigame is Ruining The Maji Market Event

Palia developer Singularity 6 recently released a blog update on the Maji Market, which was to be the first ever community event in the game. Many people including me were extremely excited and have been eagerly waiting for its release. Tonight, following a whopping 8-hour server downtime which was initially intended to be only 2 hours, the update is finally here for us to play.

There is only one quest line in the event and it's a nice quest even though it involves a lot of going back and forth; but the main problem with this event is the Chapaa chase minigame which was marketed as a community event even though it's anything but.

The chapaa chase minigame has you chasing after chapaas, an adorable furry animal in Palia, catching them and returning them to the designated area. You are awarded 10 tickets per catch. When this event was first mentioned I was quite concerned that it would turn out to be a big competition and everyone would compete to catch the chapaas rather than collectively working together. And my fears came true.

I just did the minigame twice now and I am left feeling utterly angry and frustrated at the injustice of the event. It isn't a community event at all. Everyone is competing and you may as well miss out on catching a single chapaa which means you aren't awarded any tickets at all. And this minigame only happens once per in-game day which is 1-hour in real time and it lasts only for 5 minutes. So you have a very limited window too. Lag also plays a big part. There were many times someone that was way behind me caught a chapaa in front of me before I could even though I was much closer to it in my screen.

The Chapaa chase is the only minigame available that rewards tickets. Some event related accomplishments also reward tickets but they require you to catch chapaas either solo or in a group. There is even an accomplishment for catching 15 chapaas in one game, only around 100 or so chapaas are released per game so how are you supposed to do that while the entire server is also chasing after them? There should have been more chances to earn tickets, more minigames. Catching chapaas as a group doesn't really mean anything either cause the rewards are for solo catches.

Ticket items cost a lot too. There are plushies and pillows that cost 1000 to 1500 tickets each and a wallpaper that costs 2000 tickets. Plushies and pillows have multiple colours so if you are a true completionist and you want one of each colour, good luck catching more than a thousand chapaas while competing with 24 other players within a limited time frame. It's extremely frustrating. Just to get the wallpaper, which is the most expensive item in the ticket store, you need to catch 200 chapaas in a heavily competitive environment. 

How could this be fixed? Randomize the spawn points of chapaas so people won't camp them. Add multiple chapaas per spawn because currently there are times when only one chapaa spawns at a location and if someone grabs it, there aren't any extra for the person/people around. Increate the rate of chapaa spawn. Right now everyone learned the designated spawn locations and everyone, including myself, are camping these locations. I hate camping but if I don't do it, I won't catch any since people grab chapaas literally the second they spawn. And the spawn rate is so slow that you have lots of time to return to camping for the next spawn after you return the chapaa you caught previously. There should be more chapaa spawns as people are returning their caught chapaas to the pen, there should be no downtime. 

This is just off the top of my head too, I'm sure these ideas can be vastly improved for a better gameplay experience. Reward everyone for taking part in this. Don't turn it into a competition, don't encourage people to camp spawn locations so people can snatch them the second chapaas spawn, don't make people lose out. Don't make people hate each other for "stealing" the chapaas they chase.

Palia official Discord general chat is also full of similar complaints. I even know some people stopped trying completely and are waiting for a fix. I myself will stop participating once I get the wallpaper. I hope the overwhelming rage players feel about this minigame will push Singularity 6 release a patch to optimise the event in some way to make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. 

Update: Singularity 6 just released a statement about the Chapaa chase minigame on their official Discord.

"Hi everyone!

It hasn’t even been a week since Maji Market has landed in Palia, yet we’ve received so much feedback and information from our community. We count ourselves so lucky to have such dedicated and passionate players supporting us throughout this stage of Palia’s development journey.

Based on information from our players, we’re taking a closer look at the Chapaa Chase and some other issues reported to us for the Maji Market overall. We’ll share some more with you when we can! 

Thank you so much, as always. We hope you have a happy timezone!"

I'm glad they heard us and I hope the update will fix our issues.