Description

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Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.1 | NeoForge 21.1.x
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"What if Mojang actually expanded Hardcore Mode?"
I made this mod because I felt like Hardcore was missing something. Not
more content but more pressure, more depth, more reason to actually care
about every decision. No new dimensions, no custom ore, no complex magic
systems. Just vanilla Minecraft pushed to be a lot harder.
Everything you see in this mod — every mob, every item, every sound —
is something already in the game. Hardcore Plus just makes far more use
of it and expands upon it to give you a better hardcore experience while playing Vanilla.
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THREE DIFFICULTY PRESETS — ALL FULLY CUSTOMISABLE
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Choose a preset when creating your world. Every single value can then be
adjusted on the Hardcore Plus Rules screen before you hit Create, or any
time in-game with /hardcoreplus preset.
◆ HARDCORE PAIN
A proper step up from vanilla Hardcore without going overboard. Rare
mobs show up roughly 10% of the time, epics around 2%, legendaries
at about 0.25%. Loot is the same as normal, armour and tools wear at
the usual rate, hunger is unchanged. Each Dragon or Wither kill makes
the next one about 15-20% tougher. Multiplayer bleedout window is
90 seconds. Good starting point if you're new to the mod.
◆ HARDCORE HELL (where most people should start)
This is the full experience. Rare mobs at 18%, epics at 6%,
legendaries at 1%. Loot drops are about 15% thinner, armour wears
25% faster, tools 15% faster, and you burn through food 25% quicker
than usual. Boss scaling kicks up to +25% health per kill. Revive
window is 60 seconds. Expect it to matter.
◆ HARDCORE APOCALYPSE
Built for people who have already survived Hardcore Hell and want
something worse. Rare mobs at 25%, epics at 12%, legendaries at 3%.
Loot is 30% scarcer. Armour wears out 50% faster. Tools 30% faster.
Hunger drains at 1.5x the normal rate. Bosses scale at +35% health
per kill. You get 35 seconds to be revived, and that window shrinks
as your world gets older.
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WORLD RULES — EVERY VALUE IS A SLIDER
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Hit the "Hardcore Plus Rules..." button on the Create New World screen —
it sits on the Game tab, just below Allow Commands — or run
/hardcoreplus rules at any point in-game. The screen looks and works
exactly like vanilla's Edit Game Rules, so nothing feels out of place.
Here's every slider you can change:
GENERAL
▸ Preset
▸ Require Hardcore World (ON/OFF)
▸ World Age Pressure — how much the world scales up over time (%)
▸ Threat Rarity Bonus Cap — how far extra threat can push rarity
chances before hitting the ceiling (%)
MOB RARITY
▸ Rare Mob Chance (%)
▸ Epic Mob Chance (%)
▸ Legendary Mob Chance (%)
▸ Max Affixes per mob (1–4)
ITEM RARITY
▸ Item Rarity Loot Chance — how often gear from chests and drops
gets a rarity roll (%)
▸ Elite Drop Rarity Chance — how often elite mob drops roll a
rarity (%)
▸ Mythic Elite Drop Chance — the very small chance for a Legendary
elite to drop a Mythic item (%)
LOOT & SURVIVAL
▸ Loot Multiplier — scales how much ordinary loot drops
▸ Armour Durability Multiplier
▸ Tool Durability Multiplier
▸ Hunger Multiplier
BOSSES
▸ Boss Health per Kill — how much stronger the next dragon/wither
becomes after each kill (%)
▸ Boss Damage per Kill (%)
▸ Mythic Dragon Chance (%)
▸ Mythic Wither Chance (%)
PETS
▸ Pet Recovery Time — how long before a downed companion can be
recalled again (seconds)
MULTIPLAYER RECOVERY
▸ Downed System (ON/OFF)
▸ Bleedout Timer (seconds)
SPECIAL MOBS
▸ Spawner Pickup (ON/OFF)
Every slider has a tooltip that shows its current preset value and a
plain explanation of what it actually does. "Reset to Preset" pulls
everything back to the defaults for whichever preset is selected.
Changes to rules on an existing world take effect straight away.
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MOB RARITY
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When a hostile mob spawns, the server rolls its rarity once and that is
that. No rerolls on reload, no rerolls on dimension change, no rerolls
ever. The result is permanent.
Tiers: Common → Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythic (bosses only)
Common mobs look and act completely normal. Rare, Epic and Legendary
mobs show their tier and modifiers in their name so you know what you
are dealing with before you engage.
[Rare] Armored Zombie
[Epic] Vampiric Swift Skeleton
[Legendary] Hardened Berserker Piglin Brute
MYTHIC ENDER DRAGON
The roll is influenced by your chosen preset, how old the world is, which
dimension you are in, and the world's current threat level.
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MOB AFFIXES — 20 MODIFIERS
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Elite mobs roll affixes from a pool that respects their type. A fish
won't roll Berserker. A Creeper won't roll Sniper. All values are in
data files, so modpack authors can tune them without touching any code.
ARMORED — Extra armour and toughness, often with stronger gear.
BRUTAL — Hits harder.
HARDENED — Much higher health pool.
SWIFT — Moves faster, capped per mob type so nothing gets absurd.
STALWART — Hard to knock around.
REGENERATING — Slowly recovers health if you give it breathing room.
BERSERKER — Gets dangerous when low on health.
VAMPIRIC — Heals a small amount from hits.
THORNED — Hitting it in melee hurts you back.
BURNING — Fire-immune, and hitting it may set you alight.
VENOMOUS — Applies Poison on hit.
WITHERING — Applies Wither for a short time. Common in the Nether.
REINFORCING — Calls nearby mobs to help. Has a cooldown and a radius cap.
WARDED — Gains small Absorption buffers periodically.
UNYIELDING — Briefly shrugs off damage when near death.
CHARGED — Creepers only. Activates vanilla charged state.
SNIPER — Ranged mobs with better accuracy and longer reach.
VOLLEY — Ranged mobs that fire a short burst of projectiles.
WARCALLER — Piglin family. Briefly buffs nearby allies.
PHASEWALKER — Endermen only. More aggressive use of their teleport.
Dimension matters for which affixes show up. Burning and Withering are
much more common in the Nether. Phasewalker and Warded lean End.
Overworld tends toward Armored, Swift, Reinforcing and Regenerating.
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ITEM RARITY AND ROLLED STATS
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Weapons, tools, armour, shields, Elytra and Totems of Undying can all
roll a rarity with extra stat lines on top. Stats are baked into the
item itself — they survive drops, chests, death, chunk reloads, server
restarts and dimension travel without issue.
Tiers: Common → Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythic
Number of natural stats per tier:
Common: 0 or 1
Rare: 1
Epic: 2
Legendary: 3
Mythic: 4 (see below)
What stats an item can roll depends on what it is:
Weapons: attack damage, attack speed, durability
Armour: armour, toughness, max health, movement speed
Shields: block stats, durability, stability
Totems: passive bonuses while held in the offhand
MYTHIC ITEMS only ever come from killing the right mob at the right
moment. You cannot craft one, smith one, trade for one, fish one up or
find one in a chest. Legendary elite mobs have a very small chance to
drop one. Mythic bosses have the best chance of all.
The tooltip always shows your natural stats, smithing upgrades and
vanilla enchantments in clearly separate sections so nothing is muddled.
Example:
Epic Diamond Sword
8.5 Attack Damage | 1.68 Attack Speed
─ Hardcore Plus Natural ─
+1.0 Attack Damage
+5% Attack Speed
─ Smithing Upgrades ─
Redstone — Power
Breeze Rod — Celerity
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SMITHING TABLE UPGRADE SYSTEM
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Take any compatible piece of gear to the vanilla Smithing Table and
specialise it. Every upgrade uses a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template
as the catalyst — the same one already in the game — so there is no
ambiguity with vanilla trims or the netherite crafting recipe.
Recipe: Netherite Upgrade Template + your item + upgrade material
How many upgrades an item can take depends on its rarity:
Common: 1
Rare: 2
Epic: 3
Legendary: 4
Mythic: 5
Each material can only go on once. Upgrading never changes rarity — a
Legendary with four upgrades is still a Legendary. Enchantments, trims,
custom names and damage are all kept intact.
THE 8 UPGRADE MATERIALS:
NETHER STAR — "Eternity"
Makes the item Unbreakable. One per item. On a Totem it gives a
passive defensive bonus in the offhand instead. This one requires
killing the Wither, so it should feel like a big deal.
REDSTONE DUST — "Power"
+Attack Damage on weapons. Small damage bonus on a Totem.
EMERALD — "Vitality"
+Maximum Health on armour while worn. Same bonus on a Totem while
held. Adds health to any Beast Armor a companion is wearing.
GHAST TEAR — "Renewal"
Slowly recovers health when you have not taken damage for a bit.
On a weapon it restores a little health on a kill, on a cooldown.
BREEZE ROD — "Celerity"
+Attack Speed on weapons (capped, nothing silly). Small speed bump
on armour. Speed bonus on a Totem.
HEAVY CORE — "Impact"
+Attack Knockback on weapons. +Knockback Resistance on armour. The
Heavy Core is rare enough that this upgrade actually means something.
HEART OF THE SEA — "Tide"
Better underwater mining and fighting. Slower oxygen drain on
armour. Aquatic utility on a Totem.
ENCHANTED GOLDEN APPLE — "Aegis"
+Armour and Toughness on armour. Better blocking on shields.
Extremely expensive for a reason.
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BOSS EVOLUTION
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Every Dragon or Wither you kill makes the next one stronger. The kill
count is saved to the world and carries through restarts. There is a
cap and the scaling is tuned... for now.
Dragon I → Dragon II → Dragon III → ...
Wither I → Wither II → Wither III → ...
You get the picture.
Health scales faster than damage, so harder fights stay readable rather
than just being walls of incoming numbers.
MYTHIC BOSSES
When a fight starts up, there's a small configurable chance for it to
spawn as a Mythic version instead. A Mythic boss has its own name, hits
harder, has more health and uses its vanilla attacks more aggressively.
It also has the best Mythic item drop rate in the game.
Kill a Mythic Dragon and it drops 2 Dragon Eggs, 2 Elytras and a huge
XP reward on top of the usual loot.
Kill a Mythic Wither and you get extra Nether Stars and a large XP
payout.
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PET STORAGE — GOAT HORN SYSTEM
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Tamed horses and wolves can be stored inside a vanilla Goat Horn. Right
horn, right companion, and you have a reliable pocket for your pet that
does not rely on them somehow following you everywhere.
To store a horse it needs to be tamed, saddled and given a name with a
Name Tag. For a wolf it just needs to be tamed, named and owned by you.
The horn tooltip updates to show what is inside:
Contains: Shadow | Type: Horse | Status: Stored
Contains: Shadow | Status: Deployed
Contains: Shadow | Recovering: 07:42
PET DEATH AND RECOVERY
If a companion stored in a horn takes lethal damage while out in the
world, it does not die permanently. It goes into a recovery state and
the horn shows a countdown. Once the timer is done the horn is ready
again and the companion comes back at full health.
Default recovery times:
Hardcore Pain: 5 minutes
Hardcore Hell: 8 minutes
Hardcore Apocalypse: 12 minutes
Recovery time is adjustable in the World Rules.
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WOLF COMPANION INVENTORY
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Shift + right-click your tamed wolf to open a small companion screen.
Three general-purpose slots and one dedicated Beast Armor slot. Anything
stored in there is saved with the wolf when it goes into the horn.
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BEAST ARMOR
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Horse armor and wolf armor fall under a shared "Beast Armor" category.
It rolls rarity, carries natural stats and can take all 8 Smithing
upgrades. The bonuses go directly to the animal wearing it:
Armour / Toughness — straight defensive stats
Maximum Health — from the Vitality (Emerald) upgrade
Movement Speed — from Celerity (Breeze Rod)
Knockback Resistance — from Impact (Heavy Core)
Out-of-combat recovery — from Renewal (Ghast Tear)
Unbreakable — from Eternity (Nether Star)
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EXPANDED SHIELD SYSTEM
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Six tiers of shield, all using the vanilla shield look:
Wooden → Iron → Copper → Emerald → Diamond → Netherite
Each tier has different values across four stats:
Durability — how many hits it can take
Passive Block Chance — a small chance to block a frontal hit even
when you are not actively holding the shield
up. Requires you to be facing the attack. Has
a cooldown. Does not block things that cannot
be blocked.
Block Damage — a small amount of damage reflected to whoever
hits you while you are blocking
Stability — reduces knockback and how easily the shield
gets knocked down
Shields roll rarity and take Smithing upgrades just like weapons do.
The Netherite tier is fire-resistant.
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TOTEM OF UNDYING UPGRADES
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A Totem is no longer just a death safety net. Upgrade one at the
Smithing Table and it gives you passive bonuses while sitting in your
offhand:
Power (Redstone) — +Attack Damage
Vitality (Emerald) — +Maximum Health
Celerity (Breeze Rod) — +Movement Speed
Impact (Heavy Core) — +Knockback Resistance
Renewal (Ghast Tear) — slow out-of-combat health recovery
Tide (Heart of the Sea) — underwater utility
Aegis (Enchanted Gapple) — defensive boost
Eternity (Nether Star) — Eternal Ward defensive bonus
It still gets consumed if it saves your life. The upgrades do not
change that or prevent the Totem from activating.
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FOOD QUALITY
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Food can show up in Normal, Rare, Epic and Legendary quality. Each
quality tier is a fixed definition rather than per-item random stats,
so identical quality items stack normally in your inventory.
Higher quality food gives better nutrition and saturation, sometimes a
small heal, and on the better tiers a short vanilla effect on top.
Legendary food is actually rare and does something worth noticing but it is not a replacement for good gear or a Totem.
Mythic food does not exist. Mythic is mob drops only.
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SURVIVAL PRESSURE
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LOOT SCARCITY
Ordinary mob drops and container loot come out thinner on harder
presets. Boss rewards and special Hardcore Plus drops are untouched
by this — only normal loot is affected.
DURABILITY PRESSURE
Gear wears faster. Unbreaking still helps. Mending still works.
Anything with the Eternity upgrade is completely immune since it is
Unbreakable.
HUNGER PRESSURE
Exhaustion builds faster. Sprinting, jumping, swimming, fighting,
all of it drains your hunger bar quicker than usual on higher
presets. Saturation and Mending still function correctly.
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The world tracks a threat level based on your preset, how many days you
have survived, local Minecraft difficulty and boss kill history. It is
capped and grows on a curve so, not infinitely, not suddenly.
Threat affects mob rarity rolls, loot chicken quality, how good
villager enhanced trades can get, the multiplayer bleedout window and
how fast boss scaling climbs.
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SPAWNER PICKUP
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Break a mob spawner with Silk Touch on a Diamond or Netherite Pickaxe
and it drops as a normal item you can carry and place anywhere. The mob
type comes with it. Can be turned off in World Rules if you do not want
it in your world.
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LOOT CHICKENS
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Very rarely a normal vanilla Chicken will spawn as a loot variant. You
will know it by the enchantment particles and its coloured rarity name.
No new model, no new texture — it just looks a bit different. Kill it
and it drops a proper haul of vanilla loot, potentially including
Hardcore Plus rarity items. You cannot farm them, breed them or hatch
them. Each one is a lucky find.
Mythic drops from loot chickens are off by default.
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MULTIPLAYER DOWNED / REVIVE
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An optional system that gives teammates a window to save you before
Hardcore takes the run for good. It is off by default and can be
toggled in World Rules.
When you would take lethal damage:
1. A Totem of Undying fires first if you have one so Nothing changes
there.
2. No Totem and downed mode is on, Now you enter a DOWNED state instead
of dying immediately.
3. Your health stays at a tiny safe value. You can barely move.
A countdown timer is visible.
4. A teammate can save you by sneaking and holding use on you for
about 3 seconds. Moving away or taking damage interrupts it.
5. Timer runs out and it's bye bye...
The bleedout window starts at 90s / 60s / 35s depending on preset and
narrows as the world threat grows. Can be adjusted in World Rules or
turned off entirely for solo worlds.
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VILLAGER ENHANCED TRADES
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As the world gets older and threat climbs, certain villager professions
start stocking items with Hardcore Plus rarity. An Armorer might offer
an Epic Chestplate. A Weaponsmith might have a Rare Sword. Prices go up
with quality.
Once an offer is generated it stays that way. Restocking does not
reroll it, and breaking their workstation is not a way to farm better
items.
Villagers top out at Legendary. They will never sell Mythic items.
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EXPANDED BREWING
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Six compound potions using existing vanilla bottles and effects. No new
models. All three forms thus drinkable, splash, lingering are supported.
Potion of Restoration — Regeneration + a small direct heal
Potion of Expedition — Speed + Jump Boost
Potion of the Depths — Water Breathing + Night Vision
Potion of the Inferno — Fire Resistance + Strength
Potion of Vigor — Strength + Regeneration at lower levels
Potion of the Bulwark — Resistance + a short Absorption buffer
They use appropriate expensive ingredients. Combined effect levels are
lower than if you drank two separate maxed potions back to back —
convenience has a tradeoff.
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HARDCORE PLUS CHRONICLE (STATS BOOK)
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Combine a Book and a Compass to get the Hardcore Plus Chronicle, a
vanilla Written Book with enchantment glint that tracks everything
about your run. Right-click it to open the stats screen.
Tracked stats include:
General: days survived, playtime, preset, threat summary
Combat: mob kills by rarity tier, damage dealt and received
Bosses: dragon and wither kill counts, Mythic kills, highest
generation reached
Items: rarity items found by tier, upgrades applied, Eternity uses
Survival: food eaten, distance covered, times downed, revives
Pets: companions captured, recoveries, distance ridden
Special: loot chickens found by tier, spawners picked up
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COMMANDS
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/hardcoreplus rules — open the rules screen
/hardcoreplus preset <pain|hell|apocalypse>
/hardcoreplus stats [player]
/hardcoreplus book — recover your Chronicle if lost
(OP only)
/hardcoreplus debug mobrarity <tier>
/hardcoreplus debug itemrarity <tier>
/hardcoreplus debug mythicdragon
/hardcoreplus debug mythicwither
/hardcoreplus debug threat <value>
/hardcoreplus debug resetbossprogress
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REQUIREMENTS
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Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.1
NeoForge 21.1.x
Works in single player and on dedicated servers. Rules are stored per
world, not as a global config, so different worlds can run completely
different settings. Should play fine alongside most other NeoForge mods so it does not replace vanilla classes or overwrite vanilla loot tables.
All balance values are in data files and can be adjusted
without touching any Java.
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Modpack authors: Made by Hixxy
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Any issues please make a report on this Github repo here: https://github.com/HixxyDubz/hixxys-hardcore-plus-mod/tree/main
If you wish to support me please do so here: https://ko-fi.com/suncreststudios



