How to Change Your Minecraft Server Difficulty
Learn how to change the difficulty on your Minecraft server between Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. Includes detailed differences and recommendations.
Difficulty controls how dangerous your Minecraft world is — from peaceful landscapes with no enemies to brutal survival where hostile mobs deal maximum damage and hunger can kill you. Choosing the right difficulty sets the tone for your entire server experience.
Changing Server Difficulty
Access the panel and stop your server
Go to the XGamingServer panel and stop your Minecraft server.
Open the file manager
Go to Files.
Edit the difficulty setting
Open server.properties and change difficulty= to one of the values below.
Difficulty Levels Compared
| Value | Mob Damage | Hunger | Hostile Mobs | Special Mechanics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
peaceful | No mobs | Never depletes | None spawn; existing ones despawn | Health regenerates rapidly. Best for building-only servers. |
easy | Reduced | Drains to 5 hearts (won't kill) | Spawn normally | Cave spiders and bees don't poison. Wither doesn't cause Wither effect. |
normal | Standard | Drains to 0.5 hearts (won't kill) | Spawn normally | The default Minecraft experience. Zombies can spawn with equipment. |
hard | Increased | Can kill you | Spawn more frequently | Zombies break wooden doors. Spiders spawn with potion effects. Villagers turn into zombie villagers 100% of the time. |
Which Difficulty Should You Choose?
- Peaceful — Best for creative building servers, young children, or anyone who wants a relaxing experience without combat. Note: peaceful disables many game mechanics tied to hostile mobs (blaze rods, ender pearls, wither skulls), so progression to the End is blocked.
- Easy — Good for family-friendly survival servers where you want some challenge without frustration. Hunger won't kill players and mobs deal less damage.
- Normal — The standard experience. Recommended for most survival servers.
- Hard — For experienced players who want a real challenge. Combine with Hardcore Mode for permanent death.
Changing Difficulty In-Game
You can change difficulty on the fly without editing files:
Open the console
Go to Console on the XGamingServer panel.
Run the difficulty command
Type /difficulty <level> (e.g., /difficulty hard).
This change takes effect immediately but may not persist after a server restart unless you also update server.properties. For a permanent change, always edit the config file.
💡 Tip: The
/difficultycommand requires OP permissions. If you're OP and in-game, you can type it in chat directly.
📝 Note: Changing from a higher difficulty to Peaceful will despawn all hostile mobs immediately. Changing back to a higher difficulty will start spawning them again normally.
If you get stuck at any time, you can join our Discord.
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