Enshrouded Custom Difficulty: Every Value You Can Tune

 

    Enshrouded's named presets — Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival — are quick ways to set a feel, but they move dozens of hidden values together. When you want a world that is, say, gentle on survival but brutal in a boss fight, you switch to the Custom preset and set each value yourself. This guide is the deep dive: the individual gameSettings fields you can change on a gamever-hosted server, what each one does, and the ranges it accepts. For the preset overview and the one-click panel controls, see our difficulty presets guide; this article picks up where that one stops.

 

Step 1 — switch the preset to Custom

 

    Custom difficulty is a two-part job: you flip the preset on the panel, then edit the detailed values in the config file.

 

    Open the Settings tab and set Server Settings Preset to Custom, adjust the day/night durations if you want, and Save. This is the single Settings page — Enshrouded exposes the preset and the day/night length here, and everything else lives in the config file.

 

 

    The detailed values only take effect when the preset is Custom. On Default, Relaxed, Hard or Survival, the game uses the preset's own numbers and ignores the ones below.

 

Step 2 — edit the values with the server stopped

 

    The individual values live in the gameSettings block of enshrouded_server.json. Enshrouded rewrites that file every time the server stops, so a running edit is thrown away. Always:

 

1. Stop the server (Overview → Stop).
2. Open File Manager, edit enshrouded_server.json, and find the gameSettings block (or edit over FTP).
3. Start the server.

 

    Keep the JSON valid — one stray comma and the server rejects the file — and copy the text out first as a backup (see backup & restore). For the full tour of the file's other sections, see the config file guide.

 

    Two formatting rules matter before you touch a number:

 

• Factor fields are multipliers, where 1 is the default (normal). 0.5 halves, 2 doubles.
• Time fields are stored in nanoseconds, not minutes — 600000000000 is 10 minutes. The game shows minutes in its UI, but the file wants the long number.

 

Combat and enemies

 

Field	What it does	Range
enemyDamageFactor	How hard regular enemies hit (bosses excluded).	0.25 – 2.5
enemyHealthFactor	Regular-enemy health pool.	0.25 – 4
enemyStaminaFactor	How long enemies can keep attacking before tiring.	0.5 – 2
enemyPerceptionRangeFactor	How far enemies notice you.	0.5 – 2
bossDamageFactor	Boss damage, tuned separately from regular enemies.	0.2 – 5
bossHealthFactor	Boss health pool.	0.2 – 4
threatBonus	How strongly enemies prioritise and swarm you.	0.25 – 4
randomSpawnerAmount	Density of roaming spawns.	Few / Normal / Automatic / Many / Extreme
aggroPoolAmount	How many enemies can engage you at once.	Few / Normal / Many / Extreme
pacifyAllEnemies	true makes regular enemies passive — a pure building mode.	true / false

 

Your character (survival)

 

Field	What it does	Range
playerHealthFactor	Your maximum health.	0.25 – 4
playerManaFactor	Your mana pool.	0.25 – 4
playerStaminaFactor	Your stamina pool.	0.25 – 4
playerBodyHeatFactor	How fast cold/heat affects you.	0.5 – 2
playerDivingTimeFactor	How long you can hold your breath underwater.	0.75 – 2
enableDurability	Whether gear wears out and needs repair.	true / false
enableStarvingDebuff	Whether an empty hunger bar actively harms you.	true / false
foodBuffDurationFactor	How long food buffs last.	0.5 – 2
fromHungerToStarving	Grace time before hunger turns into starving (nanoseconds).	300000000000 (5 min) – 1200000000000 (20 min)
shroudTimeFactor	How long you survive inside the Shroud.	0.5 – 2

 

Mining, resources and progression

 

Field	What it does	Range
miningDamageFactor	How fast you break ore and terrain nodes.	0.5 – 2
plantGrowthSpeedFactor	Farm/plant growth speed.	0.25 – 2
resourceDropStackAmountFactor	How much a gathered node yields.	0.25 – 2
factoryProductionSpeedFactor	Crafting-station / production speed.	0.25 – 2
perkCostFactor	Skill-point cost of perks.	0.25 – 2
perkUpgradeRecyclingFactor	How much you recover when recycling a perk upgrade.	0 – 1
experienceCombatFactor	XP gained from combat.	0.25 – 2
experienceMiningFactor	XP gained from mining.	0 – 2
experienceExplorationQuestsFactor	XP from exploration and quests.	0.25 – 2

 

Death penalty, world and weather

 

Field	What it does	Range
tombstoneMode	What you drop on death.	AddBackpackMaterials / Everything / NoTombstone
tamingStartleRepercussion	What a startled animal costs you while taming.	KeepProgress / LoseSomeProgress / LoseAllProgress
dayTimeDuration	Length of daytime (nanoseconds).	120000000000 (2 min) – 3600000000000 (60 min)
nightTimeDuration	Length of night (nanoseconds).	120000000000 (2 min) – 3600000000000 (60 min)
weatherFrequency	How often weather events occur.	Disabled / Rare / Normal / Often
fishingDifficulty	How hard the fishing minigame is.	VeryEasy / Easy / Normal / Hard / VeryHard
enableGliderTurbulences	Whether wind buffets your glider.	true / false
curseModifier	Overall curse/altar challenge scaling.	Easy / Normal / Hard
flameLevelFogRemoval	How much Flame Altar level pushes back the Shroud.	1 – 11

 

    tombstoneMode = NoTombstone keeps everything on death; Everything drops your whole inventory. The day/night values are the same two durations exposed on the Settings page.

 

Two quick recipes

 

• Chill builder: pacifyAllEnemies: true, enableDurability: false, enableStarvingDebuff: false, miningDamageFactor: 2. A peaceful, resource-rich world for building.
• Hardcore run: enemyDamageFactor: 2, enemyHealthFactor: 2, bossHealthFactor: 2, playerHealthFactor: 0.5, tombstoneMode: Everything. Punishing combat with a real cost to dying.

 

Additional Tips

 

• Flip the preset to Custom first — every value below is ignored on a named preset.
• Stop the server before editing, or Enshrouded overwrites your changes when it next shuts down.
• 1 is normal for every ...Factor field; nudge in small steps and test before going extreme.
• Time fields are in nanoseconds — 600000000000 = 10 minutes. Set day/night on the Settings page instead if the long numbers are fiddly.
• Bosses are tuned separately — bossDamageFactor / bossHealthFactor don't follow the regular enemy factors.
• Keep the JSON valid and back up the text first — a missing comma stops the server loading.

 

Conclusion

 

    Enshrouded's Custom preset turns a handful of named difficulties into roughly forty individual dials — enemy and boss scaling, your own survival stats, gathering and XP rates, the death penalty, and the day/night and weather of the world itself. Set the preset to Custom on the Settings page, stop the server, edit the gameSettings block of enshrouded_server.json, and start again. Remember the two rules: factors centre on 1, and times are in nanoseconds.

 

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