Player Difficulty

Player Difficulty 2.0.0

READ THIS FIRST

• The mod is now required on the clients too. A client without it is refused while it joins, with a message that names the mod and its version. Vanilla clients, Fabric clients without the mod and clients of 1.1.0 are all refused. Server owners can switch the check off with general.requireClientMod (default true). Single player and the host of a LAN world are never refused.
• The config file and the player records of 1.1.0 migrate on their own at the first start. The old config is kept as config/player_difficulty.json.v1.bak.
• The death penalty is unchanged: 50 % more hunger for 5 minutes of play, 30 % less damage dealt for 5 minutes of fighting.

Added

• A multiplier of three dials: potential (the pack's ten-stage progression ladder, read from each player's own advancements and kill statistics, plus gear, kills and a little time), playstyle (how the player plays now) and relief (a temporary cut after a death by a monster). M = 1 + (P - 1) x S x (1 - R).
• Playstyle: every 20 seconds of active play is classed aggressive, defensive, productive or neutral. A label (Builder, Explorer, Adventurer, Fighter) and a trend arrow in /scaling, on the overlay and as the placeholder %player_difficulty:playstyle%.
• Relief of revision 3: a death by a monster takes 30 % off the part of the multiplier above 1.00x, up to 50 % with further deaths in the same fight, gone after 30 active minutes (10 minutes of fighting).
• The overlay shows the label, the trend and Relief -0.20x 26:00. Admin commands /scaling admin progress, progress add, progress clear, progress rescan. 38 new or renamed config keys (135 in all). Five boss tag entries and six kill value overrides.

Changed

• Builders stay near 1.00x whatever their gear. A typical fighter is at 1.45x after 15 active hours, 1.65x after 20 and 1.98x after 30. A fighter at 2.46x who turns builder is at 2.39x after 1 hour, 2.12x after 5 and 1.61x after 20.
• Relief is a share of the part above 1.00x (at most 50 %), fades three times as fast in fights and no longer pauses during the hunger part of the penalty. In practice the chain window is the hunger part (5 minutes at level 1).
• /scaling admin relief grant now takes a share (default 0.30, at most 0.5 per call) instead of steps.
• The extra loot roll rolls the monster's own loot table at the monster; Lootr chests and other containers are not touched.
• The status packet is version 2 (status_v2).

Removed

• Counted time, the gear gate, the floor and the pressure of 1.1.0, with 14 config keys. The field pressure of /scaling admin set and add.

Migration

• Config: backup to player_difficulty.json.v1.bak, renamed keys keep their values, removed keys are logged. Records: the playstyle is seeded from the stored combat share, the ladder is filled at the next join. Nobody starts above their 1.1.0 multiplier without relief; the reference players start 0.10x to 0.51x lower.

Known limits

• The combat and building habits behind the targets are assumed. A player who never strikes first stays a defender. A bot that builds lowers the multiplier like a builder. The ladder is the pack's as of October 2026 with inferred weights. No Mod Menu screen.