Party Animals Player Q&A | Issue 8

Nemo

Greetings Party Animals! Your feedback is super important to us. We'll be regularly picking some of the most common questions and answering them right here on the forums. Hope this helps clear things up and makes your gaming experience even better!

1. "Can you add birthday-themed items to the Winter Cabin vending machine? We want to throw a birthday party for a friend there!"

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll try adding a cake first and see how it goes!

2. "Why Is the Poker Yurusa Outfit So Expensive?"

We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the Poker Yurusa outfit being too difficult or grindy to obtain, so I wanted to share some context on our side.
This outfit actually went through a lot of internal discussion. Originally, we had planned for it to be an achievement-based reward.
Previously, playing board and card games (like PAWS, Bluffalo, and Fishy Business) didn’t offer any long-term goals or progression. In contrast, Classic Mode has a lot of achievements and rewards. While it may not satisfy the most hardcore players, it's a clear goal for most of our player base.
For players who enjoy board games, we realized there’s nothing quite like that to work towards. So we wanted to create something that gives meaning to time spent in these modes.
Our first idea was to tie the outfit to a specific achievement. But with how much luck plays a role in card games, rewarding wins, win streaks, or spamming matches didn’t feel right. That’s why we decided to make it purchasable with treats. Whether you win or lose, or even if you don’t have a perfect win streak, you can still gradually earn enough treats to unlock it just by playing. We wanted it to reflect dedication and familiarity with the game mode. We hope this outfit reflects players’ dedication and love for these modes.
Most importantly, this outfit is not time-limited, so there’s no pressure to rush. Take your time and enjoy the mode at your own pace.

3. "Matchmaking takes too long. Can you improve the blocklist system?"

We're working on some updates to the block system, and a lot of these ideas were actually suggested by a player!
Currently, the plan is: in the future, blocking someone will not prevent you from being matched into the same game. Instead, their name, avatar, and profile info will be randomized and anonymous, so you won't know it's them, and they won't know it's you. As a player suggested, these players will also be permanently muted for you. They will also not be able to view your profiles, or any chat messages you send. That way, you won't recognize or be able to communicate with each other, but you'll still be able to queue into the same match.
Does anyone mind that? We're not sure how everyone will feel about this change and we'd love to hear everyone's feedback, but we hope it helps keep the purpose of the block system intact without increasing matchmaking times.
If you have better suggestions, please send them our way - we're listening!

4. "The AI is not very smart... Any improvements planned? "

We know that the current AI experience has been frustrating for many players.
To be blunt, the AI in its current form just isn't very smart. Their awkward behavior often breaks immersion, and when there aren’t enough real players in a match, player experience can really suffer.
In the short term, we’ve applied several workarounds, or band-aid fixes, such as: loosening MMR restrictions and allowing uneven team sizes to queue together. These changes reduce the need for AIs but come at the cost of (some) matchmaking fairness and consistency.
But the ultimate goal isn’t to patch around the problem.
We’re working on making AIs smarter, more human-like, and better at adapting to the unique mechanics of each map. Once those improvements are in place, we plan to gradually revert some of the temporary fixes and bring things back into a healthier balance.
If all goes according to plan, we're aiming for a full AI overhaul around June (tentatively).
A few updates we'd like to share with everyone regarding this:

We'd love to give more updates and timelines along the way, but development plans can shift quite a bit. This is part of the reason we are hesitant about releasing full roadmaps.
The new version of AI is nearly complete on one map, and we’re now working on adapting it across all maps and game modes.
The new AI are being trained to recognize and adapt to map-specific mechanics.
Some folks on our team have been quietly lurking and watching public matches to "study how real players move, fight, and make decisions."
As we work on these improvements, we'd love to hear your thoughts: what kind of behaviors would you want future AI teammates to have?
Our top priority isn't necessarily making bots stronger, it's making them behave more like real players, adjusting based on the selected difficulty level.
In the future, we also plan to scale bot behavior based on your matchmaking rating, so it feels like a fairer experience.
AI optimization is a very time-consuming process, but one we’re committed to getting right.

Thanks again for your patience! We’ll keep working hard to make things better.

5. "Why do I always wake up slower than everyone else?"

The duration of being knocked out is determined by factors such as your opponent's stamina, the type of hit, and where the hit lands. In theory, under the same conditions, you shouldn't be waking up slower than others. However, because so many variables influence stun time and recovery speed, it has understandably led to confusion about "when exactly will I wake up?"
To help reduce confusion and give players a clearer sense of when they'll recover, we recently added a "stun time remaining" indicator.
Here’s how the feature works:

When you're knocked out, your stamina bar will temporarily serve as a "stun indicator".
The moment you're stunned, the bar will be emptied.
It will then gradually refill over time.
Once the bar is fully restored, your character will wake up.
Rapidly pressing the action key still helps you wake up faster, just like before. It speeds up the stun bar's refill rate.
The refill speed of the stun bar may vary based on factors like your opponent's stamina, the type of hit, and where it landed.

We hope this change will reduce frustration and confusion around the "wake-up timing."
This is not the final version of this feature. We have further improvements planned that will be rolled out in future updates.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

6. "How do I play local split-screen with multiple players?"

When a controller is connected on PC, or when at least two controllers are connected on a PS/Xbox console, you can press “LB + RB” (or “L1 + R1” on a PlayStation controller) while in the team-up screen or a custom game lobby (with open slots) to add a new local player. The controller used to press the button combo will become the controller for that new local player.
Once a controller has been assigned to a new local player using the button combo, it cannot be used to navigate the menus until the game starts. All menu navigation outside of gameplay must be done using Player 1’s keyboard/mouse or controller.
If you want to remove a local player, simply press the same button combo again on their controller.
The number of players supported in local split-screen may vary depending on the platform and game mode. Please refer to this article for details!

Previous Issues

Igor

Nemo 1. "Can you add birthday-themed items to the Winter Cabin vending machine? We want to throw a birthday party for a friend there!"
Thanks for the suggestion! We'll try adding a cake first and see how it goes!

great idea

Nemo 3. "Matchmaking takes too long. Can you improve the blocklist system?"
We're working on some updates to the block system, and a lot of these ideas were actually suggested by a player!
Currently, the plan is: in the future, blocking someone will not prevent you from being matched into the same game. Instead, their name, avatar, and profile info will be randomized and anonymous, so you won't know it's them, and they won't know it's you. As a player suggested, these players will also be permanently muted for you. They will also not be able to view your profiles, or any chat messages you send. That way, you won't recognize or be able to communicate with each other, but you'll still be able to queue into the same match.
Does anyone mind that?

i do. this is just stupid. it feels like it was suggested by a player with mental health problems. why is there a need to make his name and profile anonymous? if someone doesnt like a player because of communications, then muting is enough. you dont even need to block those people, you could instead make muting permanent. once you press mute button, the player will stay muted next game and every other game until muting is in effect. mute button can also prevent the player from sending personal chat messages. randomizing someone's profile just because someone doesnt like a person is crazy

blocking players is needed to not match with players, who play unfair or keep unwanted players from your custom game lobby. if "combos" were patched from the game, then there would be no need to block people who abuse game mechanics. it would also reduce the amount of work for technicians checking if "combos" were executed manually or by macro commands. your decision to keep "combos" in game was your biggest mistake, you shouldnt always listen to players who cry the loudest, it doesnt mean they know what's good for this game. now technicians will have more work and now we will need to block more players who play unfair.

Candy

Nemo in the future, blocking someone will not prevent you from being matched into the same game. Instead, their name, avatar, and profile info will be randomized and anonymous, so you won't know it's them, and they won't know it's you.

I only block people because I don't want to play with them again in the future. There's no point in blocking if there is still an interaction with them later, randomized or not.

Monke123

I have responses to these answers

Like the party animals anniversary
2.its fine i only use space nemo anyway
3.thanks
4.thank goodness
Thanks for clarifying
6.isn’t important to me