Valheim World Modifiers: Difficulty, Portals, Raids and Map on a Dedicated Server

What world modifiers are

They're a world's difficulty settings: how much damage enemies do, what you lose when you die, how many materials things drop, how often your base gets attacked, what goes through portals and whether there's a map. They arrived with patch 0.217.14 (Hildir's Request, August 2023) and are still the same in 1.0.

In your own game you choose them when creating the world, with the modifiers button. On a dedicated server nobody sees that screen: since patch 0.217.22 (October 2023) they're set as startup options, and they apply to everyone who joins.

Presets: -preset

A preset changes several modifiers at once, like the difficulty buttons when creating a world. The values the server accepts are normal, casual, easy, hard, hardcore, immersive and hammer (in the game, Normal, Casual, Easy, Hard, Hardcore, Immersive and Hammer).

A -preset wipes whatever was there before. That's why it always goes first, with the individual -modifier options after it to fine-tune on top.

Hammer is the mode for building at no cost. Since 1.0 it counts as a temporary cheat and blocks some achievements, according to the official 1.0 FAQ (achievements and cheats).

Individual modifiers: -modifier

Each one is written as -modifier, the name and the value. The ones you leave out stay as they are in the world (in a new one, on normal).

combat: veryeasy, easy, hard or veryhard. Changes the damage you deal and the damage you take.

deathpenalty: casual, veryeasy, easy, hard or hardcore. On the easy ones you lose less when you die; on hardcore, you lose almost everything.

resources: muchless, less, more, muchmore or most. It's how much creatures and objects drop; more is ×1.5, muchmore ×2 and most ×3.

raids: none, muchless, less, more or muchmore. It's how often your base gets attacked (when and why they attack).

portals: casual, hard or veryhard. With casual everything goes through portals, metals included. hard stops you using them while a boss is active, and veryhard removes them entirely.

The toggles: -setkey

They're switches: if they're there, they're on. The official manual allows four.

nobuildcost: building doesn't use up materials. playerevents: raids depend on how far each player has progressed, not on the bosses defeated in the world; handy if someone joins late (why bosses decide the raids). passivemobs: enemies don't attack until you attack them. nomap: nobody has a map or minimap.

How to set them on your own dedicated server

They go on the same startup line as the name and password (on Windows, your copy of start_headless_server.bat; on Linux, your copy of start_server.sh), after what's already there. If you don't have a server yet, start with setting up a Valheim dedicated server on your PC. This example makes a hard world, but with metals going through portals and no map:

start valheim_server -nographics -batchmode -name "Vikings" -port 2456 -world "Vikings" -password "mead42" -crossplay -preset hard -modifier portals casual -setkey nomap

1. Stop the server

   With Ctrl+C in its window, not with the X: that way it saves the world before closing.

2. Add the modifiers

   First the -preset, then the -modifier options and finally the -setkey ones. All in lowercase.

3. Start it and join

   In the join menu, the server shows a summary of its modifiers. If one isn't applied, check it's spelled correctly: the game ignores anything it doesn't understand.

The catch: the world keeps the modifiers

The game stores the modifiers inside the world. Startup options only change them or add to them: if one day you remove -modifier combat hard from the line, the world stays on hard combat.

To go back you have three ways. Start with a -preset (any one, -preset normal included): the official manual says a preset wipes the previous modifiers, so the world ends up exactly as the line says. Start with -resetmodifiers, which wipes them all (it exists since patch 0.217.22). Or, inside the game, have an admin type resetworldkeys in the console (F5).

That's why the easiest thing is to always put a -preset first, even if it's normal: that way what you see on the line is what the world has.

The same goes the other way: a world created on your PC with modifiers carries them with it. If you upload it to a server, it keeps them without anything on the startup line; if the startup line has a -preset, the line wins.

Changing them from the console, without restarting

A server admin (with their ID in adminlist.txt; how to add yourself is in Valheim server admin) can change them with the game console (F5): setworldpreset hard sets a preset, setworldmodifier combat veryhard changes a single one and resetworldkeys puts them back to default. You don't need the devcommands cheats.

Whatever you change this way lasts until the next start. If the startup line has a -preset, on restart it wipes the console changes and leaves what's on the line; if it only has -modifier or -setkey, those get put back on top.

With NapNodes

1. Open “Settings”

   On your Valheim server, the “World difficulty and modifiers” block has everything: “World difficulty” (the preset), “Combat”, “Death penalty”, “Resources”, “Raids” and “Portals”, plus the “No build cost”, “Player based raids”, “Passive enemies” and “No map” toggles.

2. Choose

   It saves automatically when you change something. Behind the scenes, the panel writes -preset, -modifier and -setkey into the startup line, in the right order, and as soon as you've chosen something, always with a preset first (even if it's “Normal”).

3. Restart

   Modifiers are applied at startup. Join and check the server summary in the join menu.

4. To undo them

   Set the setting back to “Normal” and restart. Since the panel always puts a preset first, and a preset wipes what came before, the world ends up exactly as you see it in “Settings”.

5. If the world brings its own

   A world uploaded from your PC with modifiers, or one whose modifiers you changed through the console, keeps them as long as you don't touch this block. As soon as you choose something here, the panel wins on restart. If you've never touched it and want to remove them, type resetworldkeys in the game console (F5) as an admin.

Frequently asked questions