Mobs in full armor are a common sight in higher difficulty levels.

Difficulty is an option in Minecraft that has a direct impact on the ease of gameplay, allowing the game's challenges to be tailored to the player's skill level.

World settings [ edit ]

There are four difficulty levels in the game: Peaceful, Easy, Normal and Hard. These can be changed when creating a world, in the settings, as well as with the /difficulty command.

Peaceful [ edit ]

No hostile mobs can spawn naturally, except for evokers ‌[Bedrock Edition only], shulkers, hoglins, zoglins ‌[Bedrock Edition only], piglins, piglin brutes, and the ender dragon. Of these mobs, only the Ender Dragon can deal damage to the player. No spiders, cave spiders, zombified piglins or endermen – neutral rather than hostile mobs – can spawn naturally. When any of these mobs attempt to spawn (whether naturally, through mob spawners, spawn eggs, or commands), they are removed from the game instantaneously. When the difficulty is switched from any other setting to Peaceful, all mobs that are not allowed to spawn on Peaceful are removed from the world. Players regain health rapidly over time. Despite this, it is still possible to die if damage is received quickly enough. TNT deals no direct damage to the player, but it does give knockback still, meaning a player can be killed by it if it launches them too far upward. The hunger bar never depletes; in Java Edition, players therefore cannot eat anything except golden apples, chorus fruits, and milk buckets, unless the player switched to Peaceful when their hunger bar was below the maximum. Players can eat normally in Bedrock Edition. Additionally, if the hunger bar is below the maximum, it quickly regenerates.

It is, for the most part, currently impossible to complete Minecraft while playing on Peaceful, because The End cannot be accessed unless a seed with the End Portal already filled in is used, or by trading with villagers for eyes of ender in pre-1.9. Blaze rods are for the most part required to activate the End Portal, and due to the fact that eyes of ender have a 10% chance of already existing in each of the end portal frame blocks, and the only way to obtain blaze rods to make the eyes of ender is directly from a blaze, there is only a 1 in a trillion chance that the portal is activated without any player intervention. Not all achievements can be completed in peaceful difficulty. Even though evokers can spawn in peaceful, they do not summon vexes.

Easy [ edit ]

Hostile mobs spawn, but they deal less damage than on Normal difficulty. The hunger bar can deplete, damaging the player until they are left with 10 if it drains completely. Cave spiders and bees cannot poison players on Easy difficulty, and the wither does not cause the Wither effect, although wither skeletons do. Lightning sets only the struck block on fire, not surrounding blocks. Zombies do not break down doors, and do not turn villagers into zombie villagers. Zombies and skeletons rarely wear full sets of armor. Hostile mobs like zombies, skeletons, and spiders, husks and strays deal about 1 or 2 damage.

Normal [ edit ]

Hostile mobs spawn and deal standard damage, about 2 or 3 . The hunger bar can deplete, damaging the player until they are left with with 1 if it drains completely. Zombies do not break down doors, but villagers killed by zombies have a 50% chance of turning into zombie villagers. Zombies and skeletons rarely wear sets of enchanted armor. Vindicators can break doors.

Hard [ edit ]

Hostile mobs deal more damage than on Normal difficulty. The hunger bar can deplete, damaging the player until they die if it drains completely. Zombies can break through wooden doors and can spawn reinforcements when attacked. Spiders can spawn with a beneficial status effect (speed, strength, regeneration & invisibility), with these effects having an infinite duration in Java Edition. Villagers killed by zombies always turn into zombie villagers. Pillagers spawn near the player, with their attacks dealing 4 damage. In Bedrock Edition, if the world type is infinite, they deal 5 damage.

At the world creation screen, selecting Hardcore from among the game mode options causes the player to spawn in Hard difficulty, does not allow it to be changed, and allows the player only one life. In a single player world, if the player dies, they can choose to respawn in Spectator mode or delete the world. In multiplayer, the player's gamemode is automatically set to Spectator mode upon their death.

The only way to change the difficulty of Hardcore is to use the Open to LAN feature in the pause menu to enable commands, or to use an .NBT editor on the world's .NBT file.

Currently not available in Realms.

Moon phase [ edit ]

The phase of the moon has effects on the spawning of slimes in swamp biomes, and contributes to the calculation of regional difficulty. The fuller the moon is, the greater the effect.

The moon does not actually have to be in the sky for this effect to take place, since the moon exists in daytime and across dimensions.

Moon phase Value Percentage Full 1.0 100% Gibbous 0.75 75% Quarter 0.5 50% Crescent 0.25 25% New 0.0 0%

Regional difficulty [ edit ]

Regional difficulty or local difficulty is a value between 0.00 and 6.75 that the game calculates by considering not just the world difficulty setting, but also the inhabited time of a chunk, the total daytime in the world, and the phase of the moon. This value is shown on the debug screen as the first value listed after the heading "Local Difficulty". This value determines several aspects of the difficulty of gameplay (see below).

The inhabited time of a chunk increases for each tick a player spends with the chunk loaded. This is a cumulative measure of time—if 50 players spend a single hour in a chunk, it counts the same as if one player spent 50 hours there. The effect of inhabited time on regional difficulty is capped at 50 hours.

The total daytime in the world is the value from /time query daytime added to the "Day" on the F3 debug screen converted to ticks, i.e. daytime + (dayNumber * 24,000) . This is not the same as the actual playtime in the world (the value from /time query gametime ). It affects the regional difficulty after the first 3 in-game days, and has no additional effect after 63 in-game days.

In pseudocode, the calculation of regional difficulty is:

# DaytimeFactor, ChunkFactor, and RegionalDifficulty are floating-point variables # MoonPhase is as in the table above. if (difficulty is Peaceful) return 0 if (TotalDaytime > 63 in-game days) DaytimeFactor = 0.25 else if (TotalDaytime < 3 in-game days) DaytimeFactor = 0 else DaytimeFactor = (TotalDaytimeInTicks − 72,000) / 5,760,000 if (ChunkInhabitedTime > 50 hours) ChunkFactor = 1 else ChunkFactor = ChunkInhabitedTimeInTicks / 3,600,000 if (difficulty is Normal or Easy) multiply ChunkFactor by 0.75 if (MoonPhase ÷ 4 > DaytimeFactor) add DaytimeFactor to ChunkFactor else add (MoonPhase ÷ 4) to ChunkFactor if (difficulty is Easy) multiply ChunkFactor by 0.5 RegionalDifficulty = 0.75 + DaytimeFactor + ChunkFactor if (difficulty is Normal) multiply RegionalDifficulty by 2 if (difficulty is Hard) multiply RegionalDifficulty by 3 return RegionalDifficulty

The raw regional difficulty therefore is always 0.0 on Peaceful and ranges from 0.75 to 1.5 on Easy, 1.5 to 4.0 on Normal, and 2.25 to 6.75 on Hard.

Clamped regional difficulty [ edit ]

clamped regional difficulty relates to regional difficulty Howrelates to

The clamped regional difficulty is a value between 0.00 and 1.00 based on regional difficulty. This value is shown on the debug screen as the second value listed after the heading "Local Difficulty". This is yet another value that affects the difficulty of gameplay (see below).

The regional difficulty value is clamped as follows:

if (RegionalDifficulty < 2.0) value = 0.0; else if (RegionalDifficulty > 4.0) value = 1.0; else value = (RegionalDifficulty − 2.0) / 2.0;

Thus, on Easy, where regional difficulty is never higher than 1.5, the clamped value is always zero.

On Normal, the effects reach the maximum after 63 in-game days (1,512,000 game ticks) in a fully-inhabited chunk on a full moon; and on Hard after 63 in-game days the effects reach the maximum in chunks inhabited 4 1⁄ 6 hours during a full moon and remain at maximum in chunks inhabited over 16 2⁄ 3 hours.[verify]

Effects [ edit ]

Mob damage [ edit ]

The damage mobs deal to players is affected by the difficulty of the game. The below values represent the amount of damage taken per hit.

This only applies to mobs attacking the player. Mobs attacking other mobs always deal the 'Normal' damage listed, regardless of difficulty.

Values for the creeper and ghast assume the player is directly adjacent to the explosion.

The damage of slimes and magma cubes depends on their size. Tiny-sized slimes, while hostile, are unable to do damage directly.

Mobs deal no damage on peaceful, apart from wolves‌[ BE only ] and llamas.





Other effects [ edit ]

Attribute Notes Condition World difficulty Regional difficulty (RD) Clamped regional difficulty (CRD) Moon phase only Peaceful: No damage

Easy: 1⁄ 2 of Normal damage + 1 (never higher than Normal damage)

Hard: 1 1⁄ 2 times Normal damage Yes No No No Guardians (both types) have higher laser magic damage. Hard: + 2 [a] Yes No No No Starvation more harshly affects health. Easy/Normal/Hard: starvation brings health down to 10/1/0 HP Yes No No No Mobs that spawn with armor are more likely to have more armor. Easy & Normal: 75%/56%/42% of having 2/3/4 pieces;

Hard: 90%/81%/73% of having 2/3/4 pieces Yes No No No Zombies are more likely to spawn with weapons. 1% on Easy and Normal,

5% on Hard Yes No No No Zombies are able to spawn reinforcements. Hard only Yes No No No Zombies are more likely to be able to break wooden doors. A zombie having the ability to break a door: (10× CRD )% The door actually breaking: Hard only Yes No Yes No Villagers killed by zombies have a greater chance of becoming zombie villagers. 0% on Easy,

50% on Normal,

100% on Hard Yes No No No Zombified piglins spawn from Nether portals in the Overworld more often. 1⁄ 2000 per block tick on Easy,

1⁄ 1000 on Normal,

3⁄ 2000 on Hard Yes No No No A skeleton or stray does not wait as long between bow & arrow attacks. Easy/Normal: 2s cooldown

Hard: 1s Yes No No No A skeleton or stray is more accurate in ranged attacks with its bow. Easy/Normal/Hard "inaccuracy" value is 10/6/2 Yes No No No Damage from arrows slightly increases. Easy/Normal/Hard damage bonus = +0.11 / +0.22 / +0.33 Yes No No No Phantoms spawn more frequently. A spawn attempt succeeds if the local difficulty is greater than a random value between 0.0 and 3.0. No Yes No No Phantoms spawn in larger groups. Easy: 1-2

Normal: 1-3

Hard: 1-4 Yes No No No Spiders can naturally spawn with status effects. Normal and Hard (10× CRD )% Yes No Yes No The Poison effect given by a cave spider lasts longer. Normal/Hard: 7s/15s Yes No No No The Poison effect given by a bee lasts longer. Normal/Hard: 10s/18s Yes No No No The Wither effect given by a wither skull lasts longer. Normal/Hard: 10s/40s Yes No No No A wither shoots wither skulls when idle. Normal/Hard only Yes No No No A wither spawns 3–4 wither skeletons when brought below half health.‌[ Bedrock Edition only ] Normal/Hard only Yes No No No Lightning can cause fires in the surrounding blocks, not just the block struck. Normal/Hard only Yes No No No Fire lingers for a bit longer. The raw encouragement value of blocks surrounding fire gets a bonus of (Easy/Normal/Hard) +47 / +54 / +61, before being adjusted for fire age, humidity and rain. Yes No No No Mobs are more willing to take fall damage when pursuing a target.[note 1] Easy: 33% + 8

Normal: 33% + 4

Hard: 33% Yes No No No Lightning strikes are more likely to spawn a skeleton trap horse. Chance = ( RD )% (0.75–1.5% on Easy, 1.5–4% on Normal, 2.25–6.75% on Hard) No Yes No No Burning zombies are more likely to set their target on fire, and the burn duration is longer. Chance = (30× RD )% Burn time = 2 × RD seconds No Yes No No The Hunger effect caught from being attacked by a husk lasts longer. Effect time = 7 × RD seconds No Yes No No Illusioner s can cast blindness. If RD > 2. No Yes No No Skeleton s can shoot flaming arrows. If RD > 3. No Yes No No Skeletons and zombies are more likely to have the ability to pick up dropped items. Having the ability: (55× CRD )% No No Yes No Zombies are more likely to have a greater follow distance. if (random # in range 0–1.5) × CRD is greater than 1, that becomes a bonus multiplier on the follow distance. No No Yes No Zombies are more likely to be "leader zombies" (gaining a bonus to max HP, a bonus to the chance to spawn reinforcements, and the ability to break doors). Any given zombie being a "leader": (5× CRD )% No No Yes No Mobs are more likely to spawn with armor. Chance of getting any armor at all: (15× CRD )% No No Yes No Mobs that spawn with weapons are more likely to have enchantments. Chance for the main hand item = (25× CRD )% No No Yes No Mobs that spawn with armor are more likely to have enchantments. Chance per armor item = (50× CRD )% No No Yes No Mobs that spawn with enchanted equipment have higher levels of enchantments. Level = 5 + 18× CRD No No Yes No Slimes are more likely to be bigger. Small: (33×(1- CRD )/2)%

Medium: 33%

Big: (33×(1+ CRD )/2)% in other words:

Small/Medium/Big: 17%–33% / 33% / 33%–50% No No Yes No Slimes are more likely to spawn in swamp biomes. See above No No No Yes Raid has more waves Easy: 3 waves

Normal: 5 waves

Hard: 7 waves Yes No No No Illager patrol can spawn vindicator‌[ Bedrock Edition only ] Easy and Normal: 100% pillager

Hard : 80% pillager, 20% vindicator Yes No No No Illager patrol can spawn on any light level‌[ Bedrock Edition only ] Easy: Light level 0-7

Normal and Hard: Any light level Yes No No No Vindicator and Pillager spawn from raids having higher chance to drop special loot.‌[ Bedrock Edition only ] Normal: 65% chance

Hard: 80% chance Yes No No No Vindicator are able to break down Wooden Door Peaceful and Easy: unable to break door

Normal and Hard: can break door Yes No No No

↑ Mobs accept fall damage if their health would not be reduced below 33% of their maximum health (rounded up to the nearest 1), plus a constant reserve based on difficulty. This even applies to ground-based mobs immune to fall damage.

Video [ edit ]

History [ edit ]

Issues [ edit ]

Issues relating to "Difficulty" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

See also [ edit ]



