How to use Valheim World Modifiers

Valheim world modifiers let you customize combat difficulty, death penalties, resource rates, raid frequency, and portal rules. You can set them from the AleForge panel before the server starts, change them on existing worlds with the AleForge Valheim World Modifiers Editor, or change most of them in-game with admin commands.

Set modifiers in the AleForge panel

1. Go to the AleForge Panel
2. Stop your server
3. Go to Startup
4. Find the Modifiers variable and enter your modifiers. Enter the first modifier as category value, then add more with -modifier between each one. For example:

combat veryhard -modifier raids none -modifier portals casual

5. Go back to the Console page and start your server.
6. Press F2 in game to verify your modifiers. Any player can open this screen to check the active settings.

Modifier names and values must be entered exactly as shown below. They are case-sensitive and must stay in English.

Edit modifiers on an existing world

Startup modifiers in the panel apply when a world is first created. To change modifiers on a world that already exists, use the AleForge Valheim World Modifiers Editor:

1. Stop your server
2. In the AleForge Panel, open File Manager and go to home/container/saves/worlds_local
3. Download your world’s .fwl file (not the .db file)
4. Open the AleForge Valheim World Modifiers Editor and upload the .fwl file
5. Adjust modifiers using presets or individual settings, then download the modified file
6. Upload the modified .fwl back to home/container/saves/worlds_local, replacing the original
7. Start your server

World modifier reference

Modifier	Values	What it controls
combat	veryeasy, easy, normal, hard, veryhard	Enemy damage and player durability
deathpenalty	casual, veryeasy, easy, normal, hard, hardcore	Items and skill loss on death
resources	muchless, less, normal, more, muchmore, most	Resource drop and gather rates
raids	none, muchless, less, normal, more, muchmore	How often raid events occur
portals	casual, hard, veryhard	Whether ores and metals can travel through portals

normal is the default Valheim setting for combat, death penalty, resources, and raids. hard is the default for portals.

Combat

hard and veryhard make enemies hit harder and reduce player damage. easy and veryeasy do the opposite.

Death penalty

casual keeps equipped gear on death. hard increases skill loss and can destroy unequipped inventory items. hardcore permanently deletes all carried items and skills on death.

Resources

more, muchmore, and most increase how much you get from mining, chopping, and picking. less and muchless reduce it.

Raids

none disables raid events entirely. more and muchmore increase how often raids happen.

Portals

casual lets ores and metals pass through portals. hard is the default Valheim rule (no ores or metals through portals). veryhard blocks all items from passing through portals.

World presets

Presets apply a bundled difficulty profile across multiple modifiers at once. If your Startup page has a Preset variable, stop the server and enter one of these values:

Preset	Description
casual	Relaxed combat, lighter death penalty, more resources, fewer raids, relaxed portals
easy	Easier than default across most settings
normal	Default Valheim experience
hard	Harder combat and death penalty
hardcore	Very hard combat with permanent item loss on death
immersive	No map, harder portals, fewer raids
hammer	Creative-style building with no material cost

A preset overwrites individual modifier settings when the world is created. Set the preset first, then fine-tune with the Modifiers field if needed.

World keys (toggles)

World keys are on/off rules you can enable at startup. If your Startup page has a World Keys variable, enter keys the same way as modifiers. For example:

nobuildcost -setkey nomap

Key	Effect
nomap	Disables the map
nobuildcost	Building costs no materials (recipes still need to be discovered)
passivemobs	Enemies do not attack unless provoked
playerevents	Raid events trigger per player instead of globally

Change modifiers in-game

Most modifiers can be changed after your world is already running. Vanilla dedicated servers do not support this out of the box — you need the Server_devcommands mod installed on the server and your client. See How to use Dev/Cheat commands on your Valheim server for setup steps.

You must also be added as an admin on the server. Then press F5 in game and run commands like:

setworldmodifier combat hard
setworldmodifier raids none
setworldpreset hard
setworldpreset default

Use setworldpreset default to reset all modifiers back to normal.

Important notes

• Always stop the server before changing Startup variables.
• Startup modifiers are applied when the server loads the world. Changing them on an existing world may not behave the same as setting them on a brand-new world. To start fresh, see How to reset your Valheim server world.
• If you set both a preset and individual modifiers, the preset is applied first and individual modifiers can override specific categories afterward.
• Press F2 at any time to confirm which modifiers are active on the server.