How to Change the Difficulty of a Minecraft Server

Balancing the challenge of your Minecraft server is essential for tailoring the experience for your players. The difficulty setting controls the spawning of hostile mobs, the damage they inflict, and even player starvation, making it a key factor in shaping the overall gameplay experience. 

Whether you want to create a peaceful world without threats or a challenging environment filled with adventure, this guide will show you how to adjust the difficulty of your Minecraft server from Peaceful, to Easy, to Normal and Hard. 

⚡️ Minecraft Server Difficulty Levels

1. Peaceful: In this difficulty, hostile mobs do not spawn naturally, and the player's health regenerates over time. This is the easiest difficulty setting for players who want to focus primarily on building or exploring without dealing with mobs. 
2. Easy: On Easy difficulty, hostile mobs spawn, but they cause less damage than on higher difficulty levels. Mobs are much less aggressive as well. For example, Zombies will not break down the doors if a player is inside. 
3. Normal: Hostile mobs spawn regularly and deal standard damage. The hunger bar can reduce the player's health to half a heart. 
4. Hard: On Hard difficulty, mobs spawn more often and deal greater damage to the player and environment. The player can also starve if the hunger bar is depleted, reducing health to zero and leading to player death. 

⚒️ Changing Your Minecraft Server Difficulty

You can change the difficulty of your Minecraft Server in a few different ways. For this guide, we'll focus on how to change the difficulty the simple way while in-game (no restart required). 

Minecraft Difficulty Command

Changing a server's difficulty in-game is the easiest way to change it. You can switch the difficulty in-game at any time as long as you have OP (operator permissions). The best part is that you don't need to restart the server to do this. 

Open the command/chat input in-game. You can normally do this by pressing "T" on your keyboard unless you have changed your keybindings in your game settings. 

Next, type the command '/difficulty <peaceful/easy/normal/hard>' and press enter. 

You do not need to include the '<>' in the command.

Example 👇

/difficulty hard

From this point, your server's difficulty should be set to the one you chose. You can always change it again at any point if you want a different feel. 

😎 Pro Tip: You can also run this command on the SimpleGameHosting Panel by typing it into the console (without the '/'). 

💎 Stuck? Make sure you're OP'd. For this method, you will need to make sure your player is OP'd on the server you're playing on. Here's our guide on how to do that.