Palworld players turn to more honest work after a patch robs them of their nail grift: Dooming a merchant to a Greek mythology-tier punishment loop of burning to death forever

An image of two Palworld trainers seated by a campfire while their pal breaths a jet of flame onto the logs.

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Alas, Palworld's nail economy is in shambles as per its latest update. In case you missed that particular patch, nails used to sell for an obscene 160 gold a piece, making them a great way to grind money. That's been fixed, so players have had to turn to simpler labour. Like tilling fields, or setting up an infinite death trap their victims have no hopes of escaping—wait a second.

As spotted by GamesRadar, this trick's actually been around for a while, but has come into vogue since nails are no longer primo currency in the Palpagos Islands.

With nails nerfed, I guess the black marketeer is the way to make gold. from r/Palworld

Step one, find a Black Marketeer. Step two, set up a hanging trap. Step three, put a fire under it. This merchant's typically a difficult fight for new players, but the hanging trap renders him completely ineffective, allowing you to reap around 12,000 gold a pop from his slow-roasted corpse like some kind of horrifying loot pinata.

The fire does actually have a mechanical purpose beyond crimes against humanity—fire damage deals a percentage of max health, which is how a group of players took down a boss Pal like a bunch of hunter-gatherers cornering megafauna. It's a great way to punch above your weight, and lets low-level players kill the helpless sod without chewing through weapon durability.

The worst (financially-speaking, best) part of this? The Black Marketeer respawns every day. This farm traps a living, breathing soul in a horrifying loop of hanging upside down, roasting like a Lamball shank for all eternity. It's the kind of Greek-god tier punishment usually reserved for rulebreakers like Prometheus, who was forced to have his liver pecked out by an eagle once daily.

Heck, that's even preferable—since Heracles does eventually free the poor sod. I don't think anybody's coming for this creep, considering he is more than happy to buy captured humans from you. On second thought, maybe the sucker had it coming.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.