Valheim world modifiers on your server: set difficulty, raids and portals

Valheim world modifiers change the rules of a world: fights (Combat), the penalty for dying (Death penalty), loot (Resources), attacks on your base (Raids) and portals (Portals), plus switches such as free building or playing without a map. You pick a preset, such as Casual, Hard or Hammer, or set everything yourself. On a dedicated server you do this as an admin in the console with setworldpreset and setworldmodifier, or you upload a world you created at home with modifiers. Checked for Valheim 1.0.20, as of 20 October 2026.

Which world modifiers does Valheim have?

There are five sliders. The values come from Iron Gate's official server guide; Normal is the default.

There are also switches:

• No build cost (nobuildcost): build without materials. You still discover recipes yourself.
• Passive enemies (passivemobs): enemies only attack once you attack them.
• No map (nomap): nobody has a map or minimap.
• Player based raids (playerevents): raids follow each player's own progress, not the world's.
• Fire hazards: fire spreads everywhere, not just in the Ashlands.

Which presets can you choose?

A preset sets everything in one go. Iron Gate lists seven: Normal (default), Casual and Easy (easier), Hard and Hardcore (harder), Immersive (with Fire hazards, among other things) and Hammer. In Hammer mode, building with the hammer is free, but crafting at a workbench still costs materials. If you dismantle a log pile or stone pile in that mode, you don't get the 50 pieces back.

The world modifiers menu shows which settings a preset picks. Note: a preset overwrites all earlier modifiers.

How do you change the difficulty on a dedicated server?

Self-hosters can use the launch options -preset, -modifier and -setkey. Since patch 0.217.22 admins can also do it in the console, without devcommands.

1. Make a backup, see Create and restore a backup.
2. Become an admin: put your player ID on its own line in adminlist.txt in the saves folder and restart your server. F2 in the game shows your ID.
3. Open the console with F5. If it's off, turn it on in the settings or start Valheim with -console.
4. Type the preset first, for example setworldpreset hard, and then individual sliders, such as setworldmodifier raids none.
5. Type save, restart your server and have everyone reconnect. Iron Gate doesn't say whether every change applies straight away; this way you know for sure.

Switches go on with, for example, setkey nomap and off with removekey nomap. The wiki lists setkey among the cheat commands. If you care about achievements, pick switches when you create the world instead. To reset everything to default, use resetworldkeys; defeated bosses stay defeated. You can't reset a single slider with setworldmodifier, because normal isn't a valid value.

Can you upload a world with modifiers?

Yes. According to the Valheim Wiki, the game stores modifiers as global keys, just like a world's progress. So they travel with the world files. Create the world at home, pick the modifiers before you start it, play it once and upload the whole world folder to saves/worlds_local. Then set World Name to that folder's name. See Valheim seed map.

What do players notice?

• It applies to everyone in the world, on consoles too. The server list shows a summary of the modifiers for your server.
• Combat: on hard, enemies deal 150 percent damage and are 10 percent bigger and faster. You deal 85 percent, although you won't see that in the numbers.
• Death penalty: your character is stored with you, not on the server. Anyone who dies on hardcore loses their items and skills in other worlds too. A server backup won't bring that back.

What do world modifiers do to achievements?

According to the Valheim Wiki, usually nothing. The exceptions: Hammer mode counts as a temporary cheat according to Iron Gate and blocks certain achievements. The Tough Viking requires all bosses on normal or harder, while The Toughest Viking and The Master Hunter require hard or harder. You only get The Pathfinder with No map on.

Server corner: world modifiers on your CakeHosting server

• Startup: you can only view the startup command in the Startup tab. It contains no -preset, -modifier or -setkey. See Change your server settings under Startup.
• Test world: a new World Name creates a new world for testing modifiers. The old one is kept.
• Files: adminlist.txt and worlds_local are in the saves folder, reachable through the file manager or SFTP.
• Backups and Schedules: make backups in the Backups tab and use Schedules for things like a regular restart.
• Crossplay: if friends on a console play along, typing the commands is easiest on PC; see Valheim crossplay server.