Talk:Difficulty

Hit Points
Does anyone know what the difference is in hit points for each mob on each difficulty level? The mobs page states a hit level value but this page says it's different based on difficulty level... --DannyF1966 14:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, It only changes how much damage they deal to you, not how much health they have. --Fishrock123 10:03, 19 November 2010 (CST)


 * It doesn't change health. However, if you're talking about damage, if a mob does 2 damage on normal, they will do 1 on easy and 3 on hard. --Joejr50 23:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Spawning
I removed the part saying difficulty affects spawning. This is false. Mobs spawn on all difficulties, including peaceful. They are simply killed instantly on peaceful mode. IKaleb 23:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Item gathering
The article states that you cannot get all items on peaceful mode, though sulphur, string and other items can be obtained in dungeons. maybe mention this in the main article? --Melzardust 13:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Realistic Mode
It says that you need to eat every MC week 140 mins, i understand, drink ever MC day, 1 hour, i understand, but shouldn't you need sleep? sleep should be added on Realistic Mode, just saying D3l1n 16:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)D3l1n
 * I agree too, but the wiki isn't the best place to make suggestions; Mojang probably won't read these talk pages. You could try getsatisfaction or the forums however. Alphap 19:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Difficulty in Nether
Does Peaceful prevent mobs spawning / (or as I read upper) kill them on spot while I am in Nether? Or is Nether still dangerous (I mean except for lava) to explore? --TakeruDavis 18:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ghasts won't spawn/are removed on peaceful. Zombie pigmen don't spawn as well. Alphap 08:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Mob spawn rate?
How does changing the difficulty level affect the spawn rate of mobs? this was added by Deathgleaner on 06:36, 25 March 2011 please sign with four of these ~ The difficulty level does not affect mob spawns at all. Woodcock 17:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Mobs Attacking While Sleeping Safely!?
Does anyone have been experiencing night assaults in any difficulty?

I believe that when it is on Hard Difficulty, it also creates a probability that when a player sleeps, there may be a mob that will attack you in his/her sleep. Luckily though, I only have experienced being attacked by Zombies and Skeletons (a much worse situation).

Perhaps there may be a flip coin chance of being attacked in sleep, while everything is closed, in Hard Difficulty? –The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johnnycake92 (Talk . Please sign your posts with !
 * You can be attacked while sleeping if:
 * A mob spawns in an area within your house that isn't adequately lighted.
 * A mob gets within two blocks of the bed. This means you should not place your bed against a wall.

I've never seen a mob wake me up under any other condition. - Alphap T ~ C 22:00, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

drop rate
Does the difficulty have any affect on the drop rate of items?--Lazeman 18:19, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't think so. The item drop code for each individual mob is just a solid "pick a random number from 0 to 2" in most cases. - Alphap T ~ C 18:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Difficulty increases the likelihood that a zombie or skeleton will spawn with enchanted gear, so in a way, yes, difficulty increases the drop rate of higher-level enchanted gear from zombies and skeletons. Physicist 22:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Difficulty in SMP?
What difficulty level is SMP? AFAIK there is only one setting, spawn_monsters={true|false}. I'm under the impression that creepers seem to be far more aggressive (read: harder to evade) than in SSP. Maybe somebody has already collected more data? Fischertechniklas 17:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See Server.properties. As of 1.8 there is a “difficulty” setting. Hawk777 23:32, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Needs editing.
Some things in this article need to be looked at and rewritten. The tweet for Realism shows that he thought about but doesn't list details. We need another source. Also we need a source to show that Notch got an idea for an hardcore mode from the article. Currently it just show the existance of the article. Also drumsticks in the screen grab are for 1.8. Need to edit that. Also "Difficulty does not affect hostile mob spawning in any way." True but it should be noted that it kills them instantly. (I know this is elsewhere in the article but still should be noted. And lastly Notchs' tweet should be listed as a source not as an external link. SirDaveYognaut 18:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There also seems to be a Difficulty setting in the server.properties for 1.8 multiplayer. This needs to be investigated and added. - 130.194.76.210 03:59, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Hardcore Mode
Is Hardcore Mode listed as a "future difficulty" because it's only available in prereleases and not officially? Or was it just not edited? --XZippy 20:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Peaceful
In the article it says you may not eat in peacful difficulty, In my game, on pre5, I can eat as long as there is half a drumstick gone. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Bonestegreat35997 (talk • contribs) at November 4, 2011 (UTC). Please sign your posts with

Hard Mode
Just now, after a while in AFK on Hard mode, I came back and saw a Creeper in the middle of the day walk up to my house, step on the pressure plates in front of the door, and walk inside. Luckily, I switched back to Peaceful mode, but somebody needs to post something about Creepers spawning in broad daylight, then stepping on a pressure plate to get in a player's house. Because I know for a fact that mobs can't do that in Easy mode. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.249.110.103 (talk) at September 11, 2011 (UTC). Please sign your posts with


 * Its impossible because creepers don't spawn at "Day". Also maybe you afk at night and then when you came back it is midday and the creeper spawned at night survived/and or still

there just wandered in your house or your house is not lit well or your house is in a dark place.--Paidpop (talk) 01:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Small slimes and peaceful
I have not seen any evidence that small slimes stay around on peaceful; they seem to go poof just like the medium and larges.

Can someone else confirm what actually happens in 1.2 and later with slimes? Keybounce 04:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Now that you mention it, there's a bug here. Slimes are allowed to spawn on Peaceful if their size is 1 (tiny). But when they update, on Peaceful they despawn if their size is greater than 0, which is always true. (If you made a size 0 slime, it would have 0 health and die instantly anyway.) -- Orthotope 05:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Ender dragon damage
This page does not list the enderdragon damage for the different difficulties. Do you think that would improve this article? 01:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Unlike most mobs, the Ender Dragon does the same damage on all difficulties, so it wouldn't really add anything to list it here. -- Orthotope 01:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Formatting errors
I am looking at the page in google chrome, and there are horrible formatting errors in the chart. All of the text is blurred together. Is this a usual problem with chrome? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.188.136.127 (talk) at August 24, 2012 (UTC). Please sign your posts with

Mobs On Peaceful?
i was sleeping in creative mode peaceful and when i woke up there was a zombie and a skeleton burning near me What is that? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.243.12 (talk) at November 28, 2012 (UTC). Please sign your posts with

Regional difficulty
Has the new regional difficulty been added to the snapshots yet? If so, can someone add some details? Thanks! –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.255.162.102 (talk) at June 8, 2013 (UTC). Please sign your posts with


 * Yes. Basically, chunks record how many ticks you spend in them (you can view the time spent with an NBT editor).  Dev stated (on twitter) that there would be a cap on increased difficulty, and that the difficulty would likely come in the form of better AI and better spawned gear/enchants.  No idea whether this takes the average or sum time spent in a group of chunks or if it calculates difficulty of individual spawns or packs based on one center chunk.  I have not been able to determine if the entire vertical chunk is taken or if it matters what elevation you've been spending time at.  I suspect one could take advantage of the better spawned gear/enchants by AFKing in the same chunk as an XP grinder farm to build the region to max. -- Physicist 02:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Does anyone know the following:

1. Can regional difficulty decrease, if so how? 2. Are effects of regional difficulty cumulative with moon phase? i.e. when Regional Difficulty is at max level, will Moon phase still do anything? 3. What are the actual rates of increase- for example is it a 100% chance mobs will spawn with items when Regional is at max, 50%, or what? 69.145.252.254 20:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Orthotope put some info on that over at Talk:Spawn a while back. Briefly:  1) AFAIK no, 2) Yes, at the max inhabited time the moon has about a third the effect of the regional difficulty.  3) It varies with the "general" difficulty level too, but the item spawning chances top out well below 50%.  However, the chances of any items being enchanted, or of the mobs being able to pick up new items, can get up into the 60's.  (Orthotope gives a table.)  I'm still not sure how to work regional difficulty into the Wiki, which is why I haven't done so. --Mental Mouse 21:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Rotated table?
The leading table is hard to read. Perhaps we should swap the axes and table-ize the prose, like so?

Wharege 21:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I concur, this bugged me too. 146.90.136.14 18:28, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Moon phase in Nether?
I just had a thought: Does the equipment for Zombie Pigmen and Wither Skeletons vary with the Overworld moon phase? --MentalMouse42 (talk) 02:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The moon phase applies to all dimensions. The equipment for Zombie Pigmen and Wither Skeletons doesn't change, but the chance of picking up items will vary. -- Orthotopetalk 22:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Change to mob spawn armor and drop rate in 1.8?
I just updated a 1.7 world to 1.8-pre1 and I noticed the skeletons spawning from a skeleton dungeon spawner had much more armor than usual. I also noticed that they dropped armor at a much higher rate. Is anything known about what was changed in 1.8 that could explain this? It was significant enough that I'm pretty certain my observation isn't a random fluke. 24.6.173.186 00:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Difficulty locking and carryover between world saves
Please include information about the locking feature added in 1.8. The game states that once locked, the difficulty cannot be changed. Surely this is not true? I'd like to know more about what locking really does and what it affects (settings button vs entering the command). 1.8 also claims that difficulty is saved per world to prevent carryover issues. I still had a problem where I went from one world save to another and all the hostile mobs had despawned.* I assume a peaceful setting had carried over, even though it was 1.8. What must be done to get difficulty to save per gamesave? Does it just need to be run in 1.8 once beforehand? What happens if you switch between world saves that use older versions of Minecraft? Will difficulty carry over? 50.181.85.8 22:40, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Local Difficulty
In 1.8, the chunks for my home base (where I spend over 50hrs each) have local difficulty 3.5 in normal and 6.0 in hard. So somebody should check and update the information on local difficulty, as the numbers for max difficulty are WRONG! –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.84.128.63 (talk) at 12:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC). Please sign your posts with


 * Seems like you may not have been on a full moon to me. Go check again, making sure you're on a full moon.--97.122.217.214 19:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)Lost

Local difficulty pseudocode "minmax"?
The pseudocode explaining how the local difficulty is calculated is really bad. "Minmax" is a term used in cRPG power gaming and economic studies - it refers to maximizing the benefits in a given situation while minimizing the tradeoffs - RPG players maximize things like damage output and minimize things like how much damage they take; economists maximize money in and minimize money out. Regardless of the context, it's always a relatively complex task; often requiring complex-turing decisions to decide what's an acceptable trade off for a given amount of benefit. It is not a simple computer operation.

Alternately, Min and Max, separately, are. (Indeed, Excel actually uses them.) They are generally understood to accept a number of different arguments and calculate their values. Min returns the lowest value, Max returns the highest. I'd rewrite the code properly, but I don't know if it's supposed to be Min or Max because of this inherent lack of clarity. 24.69.201.248 10:09, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Minimax. -- Naista2002 ♦ Grid Book and Quill.png Grid Iron Pickaxe.png 10:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * 'Minmax' isn't an appropriate term here, as the decision theory meaning is no more relevant than the RPG one. MCP calls the function 'clamp_float', as it restricts the first argument to be in the range defined by the second and third arguments. I'll rewrite that section to be actual pseudocode instead of decompiled Minecraft code. -- Orthotopetalk 11:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Pseudocode rewrite explanation
Some of the changes may not be obvious, so I'll do my best to explain them here.

f2 = minmax( ( DayTime + -72000 ) / 1440000, 0.0, 1.0 ) * 0.25;

This is clamped to 0 only if DayTime is less than 72,000 ticks, or 1 hour. It's clamped to 1 (and then reduced to 0.25) only if DayTime is greater than 1,512,000 ticks, or 21 hours. Combining the division operations, this became:

if ( TotalPlayTime is greater than 21 hours ) TotalTimeFactor = 0.25 else if ( TotalPlayTime is less than 1 hour ) TotalTimeFactor = 0 else TotalTimeFactor = ( TotalPlayTimeInTicks - 72,000 ) / 5,760,000

f3 = 0.0; f3 += minmax( InhabitedTime / 3600000, 0.0, 1.0 ) * ( hard ? 1.0 : 0.75 );

InhabitedTime is always positive, so it will never be clamped to 0. It will be clamped to 1 when the chunk inhabited time is greater than 3,600,000 ticks, or 50 hours. On any difficulty but Hard, this is multiplied by 0.75, so it became:

if ( ChunkInhabitedTime is greater than 50 hours ) ChunkFactor = 1 else ChunkFactor = ChunkInhabitedTimeInTicks / 3,600,000 if (difficulty is not Hard) multiply ChunkFactor by 3/4

f3 += minmax( MoonPhase * 0.25, 0.0, f2 );

MoonPhase has one of the values [1.0, 0.75, 0.5, 0.25, 0.0],. MoonPhase * 0.25 will be one of [0.25, 0.1875, 0.125, 0.0625, 0.0]. This is clamped to be at most f2, so it became

if ( MoonPhase > TotalTimeFactor ) MoonPhase = TotalTimeFactor add MoonPhase to ChunkFactor

Let me know if anything else needs explanation. -- Orthotopetalk 12:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Personally I think you went a little too far in the "try to rewrite in English" direction, particularly in redefining MoonPhase instead of referring to the table of values already in the article and the seeming use of significant whitespace, but meh. I don't see any errors. Anomie x (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * MoonPhase could be changed; less complexity in defining it means more complexity in the pseudocode, but it's six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. I think most readers would be interested in understanding how it works, which is why I went with a more plain-English version. If anyone needs compilable code, this should work:

private float getRegionalDifficulty(EnumDifficulty difficultySetting, long totalPlayTime, long chunkInhabitedTime, float moonPhase) { double totalTimeFactor, chunkFactor; float regionalDifficulty; if ( totalPlayTime > 21 * 60 * 60 * 20 ) { totalTimeFactor = 0.25f; } else if ( totalPlayTime < 1 * 60 * 60 * 20 ) { totalTimeFactor = 0; } else { totalTimeFactor = ( totalPlayTime - 72000 ) / 5760000; } if ( chunkInhabitedTime > 50 * 60 * 60 * 20 ) { chunkFactor = 1; } else { chunkFactor = chunkInhabitedTime / 3600000; } if (difficultySetting != EnumDifficulty.HARD) { chunkFactor *= 0.75; } if ( moonPhase / 4 > totalTimeFactor ) { chunkFactor += totalTimeFactor; } else { chunkFactor += moonPhase / 4; } if ( difficultySetting == EnumDifficulty.EASY ) { chunkFactor /= 2; } regionalDifficulty = 0.75f + totalTimeFactor + chunkFactor; if (difficultySetting == EnumDifficulty.NORMAL) { regionalDifficulty *= 2; } else if (difficultySetting == EnumDifficulty.HARD) { regionalDifficulty *= 3; } return regionalDifficulty; }


 * -- Orthotopetalk 13:39, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The moonPhase handling in your compilable code is wrong. Anomie x (talk) 14:14, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Better? -- Orthotopetalk 21:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes. (: Anomie x (talk) 04:31, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Mob spawn rate (again)
In 0.12.1, there are new difficulties. I played easy and was surprised to enounter a lot less monsters (for example, I started a new world and, the next day, only encountered 1 zombie and 1 spider). I also noticed that there are fewer mobs when the world is first created. I did not observe a change base on the moon. The BlobsPaper.png 01:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Anecdotal evidence like that is very subject to confirmation bias. The data on this page is derived from decompiled code for the PC version. Even if difficulty is confirmed to affect spawn rates in PE, it would need to be flagged as only affecting that version. Anomie x (talk) 11:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

PE Difficulty
Shouldn't we add some information on the differences of PE difficulty on this page. We could also add how to change you difficulty to from the different settings. For example, we could show which different bar on the difficulty slider means what level of difficulty. LCSKID (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

If you have PE (I don't), then go ahead and add it. | AndrewAB (talk 18:49, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Add Wither spawning wither skeletons except on easy to difficulty table?
Should the Wither being able to spawn Wither Skeletons in Pocket Edition when below half health (except on easy difficulty) be added to the table of difficulty effects? -172.68.58.123 20:48, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Good call! Added. –  Sealbudsman talk/contr 22:22, 24 October 2016 (UTC)