Enshrouded Difficulty Settings, Explained

Enshrouded offers varied difficulty settings ranging from newcomers to some veteran players in the genre. Let us give you a quick tour.

Managing difficulty can help players out (Source: Keen Games)

Keen Games added complex difficulty settings in Enshrouded to make the experience even better for the players. Despite not being fully released yet, the early access version already allows everyone to adjust Embervale according to their taste.

When the Back to the Shroud update came out on 29th July 2024, the game received several new features. A new difficulty system was also introduced right away. Flameborns now have the option to choose how difficult they want their world (or server) to be.

If you select one difficulty and wish to change it later, you can’t do so mid-game. Changing the difficulty would require one to restart the server instead. You can choose between the following difficulty presets:

  • The default difficulty allows everyone to enjoy the game as it is recommended to be played. However, note that this ‘recommendation’ is only for players new to the genre. If you wish for it, you can challenge yourself further.
  • Those looking to amp up the challenge can choose the hard preset instead. The amount of enemies will increase and they will also be more aggressive. The combat, overall, will be tough to handle.
  • You can further bathe yourself in difficulties if you choose the survival mode instead. Enemies will be more aggressive but the game will also add a hunger meter and will drop your backpack upon death.
  • Feel free to ease things out using the relaxed mode in the difficulty settings. Now, the amount of enemies will reduce and it will provide you with more resources and loot instead.
  • The last one is custom which is made for people looking to alter their experience as per their will.

The game has as many as 30 settings to mix things up in the custom difficulty. We will explore these below if you wish to have a ‘custom’ experience yourself.

Custom Difficulty Settings in Enshrouded

Granite on Albaneve Summits in Enshrouded
Altering the difficulty experience in Enshrouded (Source: Keen Games)

These gameplay settings can be configured via the enshrouded_server.json file. However, if you can’t find this file then a fresh file will be created with the start of the enshrouded_server exe. Players who wish to lead a custom experience in the game must modify the JSON file under the gamesetting section of the file.

The list of the available changes that we noticed goes as follows:

  • Player Health: Increase or decrease the maximum health of a player. The minimum value can be 0.25 and the maximum can be 4 while you are making changes.
  • Player Mana: Change the mana in a similar mana to health. This too, is represented by a percentage in the game. The minimum value is 0.25 while the maximum reaches 4.
  • Player Heat: Decide how effectively you can survive in cold weather before hypothermia catches up. The default is 1 but the lowest can be 0.5. You can also reach a high of 1.5 or tweak it to a maximum of 2.
  • Weapon Durability: You can either change it to true or false. When ‘true’ the weapons will break and ‘false’ will prevent them from breaking ever again.
  • Hunger and Starvation: When enabled ‘true’, starvation will set in when hungry and players will lose health periodically until they die or consume food or drink.
  • Food Buff Duration: The duration is at 1 by default but can either be brought to the lowest at 0.5 or the highest at 2.
  • Hungry State Duration: Before starvation, decide how long you can stay hungry. The unit in this setting is nanoseconds but the game displays the time in minutes. The minimum value is 5 while the maximum is 20 minutes.
  • Shroud Time Duration: Decide how long you can remain Enshrouded. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Air Turbulence While Gliding: You can turn it off with ‘false’ if you don’t want air turbulences affecting your glide.
  • Weather Phenomena Frequency: Decide how frequently weather phenomena appear. Options: Disabled/ Rare/ Normal/ Often.
  • Enemy Amount: Controls how many enemies are in your world. Options: Few/ Normal/ Many/ Extreme.
  • Mining Effectiveness: Increase or decrease terraforming via mining and change the amount of resources yielded per hit. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Plant Growth Speed: Change the growth rate of a plant seed. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Resources Gain Modifier: Change the amount of loot you gain from chests, defeated enemies, etc. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Workstation Effectiveness: Reduce production time for items you produce in workshops. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Weapon Recycling Yield Modifier: Change the amount of Runes returned to you when salvaging upgraded weapons. Min.: 0, Max.: 1.
  • Weapon Upgrading Costs: Change the amount of Runes needed to upgrade a weapon. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Combat Experience Modifier: Change the amount of XP gained after a combat. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Mining Experience Modifier: Change the amount of XP mining resources will give you. Min.: 0, Max.: 2.
  • Exploration Experience Modifier: Change XP gained by exploring and quest completion. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Modifier for Simultaneous Enemy Attacks: Change how many enemies can attack you at the same time. Options: Few/ Norma/ Many/ Extreme.
  • Enemy Damage: Change enemy damage except for bosses. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 5.
  • Enemy Health: Change an enemy’s maximum health except for bosses. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 4.
  • Enemy Stun Modifier: Change enemy stamina to stun them easily or with more difficulty. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Enemy Perception Modifier: Change how far enemies can see and hear the player, excluding bosses. Min.: 0.5, Max.: 2.
  • Boss Damage Modifier: Only tweak damage dealt by a boss. Min.: 0.2, Max.: 5.
  • Boss Health Modifier: Only tweak a boss’ health. Min.: 0.2, Max.: 5.
  • Enemy Attacks Modifier: Change the frequency of an enemy’s attacks but exclude bosses. Min.: 0.25, Max.: 4.
  • Pacified Enemies: When you change it to ‘true’, enemies won’t attack unless you attack first. Excludes bosses.
  • Taming Failure Repercussions: Change how the wildlife reacts when startled during the taming process. Options: KeepProgress/ LoseSomeProgress/ LoseAllProgress.
  • Daytime: Change the length of daytime. Setting changes in nanoseconds but displays in minutes within the game. Min.: 2 minutes, Max.: 60 minutes.
  • Nighttime: Change the duration of the night. Min.: 2 Minutes, Max.: 60 Minutes.
  • Tombstone Mode: Decide whether you keep or lose all items from the backpack upon death. By default, you will only lose materials and the items lost can be recovered from the tombstone. Options: AddBackpackMaterials/ Everything/ NoTombstone.

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