For a two-to-six-player co-op or PvE world, start with player killing disabled, Normal difficulty, a 60-minute day, a Blood Moon every seven days with no random range, daytime walking or jogging and nighttime running, 100% loot abundance, and five-to-seven in-game days for loot respawn. Use roughly four to eight Blood Moon enemies per player at first, keep the 100-unit shared-kill range, and leave land-claim defaults in place until the group has played long enough to identify a real problem.
These values are a practical baseline rather than an official preset. The right profile depends on whether your group needs more building time, more combat pressure, less resource friction, or more performance headroom. The sections below explain what each control actually changes, how current 3.x builds store the settings, and how to tune a dedicated or cross-platform server without creating a world that is frustrating, trivial, or unstable.
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Recommended starting profile for a small co-op server
The following profile is designed for roughly two to six cooperative players with mixed experience. It preserves the survival loop while giving a new group time to learn stamina management, healing, quests, and horde defense.
| Setting | Starting value | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Player killing | Disabled (PlayerKillingMode = 0) |
Prevents accidental or deliberate friendly fire in a PvE world. |
| Difficulty | Normal | Provides a neutral baseline for players with different skill levels. |
| Day length | 60 real-time minutes per in-game day | Keeps the familiar day/night rhythm without making quests feel rushed. |
| Blood Moon frequency | Every 7 days | Creates a predictable weekly preparation cycle. |
| Blood Moon random range | 0 | Makes the horde arrive exactly on the configured interval. |
| Daytime zombie movement | Walk or jog | Leaves room for exploration and early-game learning. |
| Nighttime zombie movement | Run | Preserves a meaningful nighttime danger without using the fastest options. |
| Blood Moon enemies | About 4–8 per player initially | Starts combat pressure conservatively and leaves performance headroom. |
| Loot abundance | 100% | Retains the normal resource economy while the group learns what it consumes. |
| Loot respawn | 5–7 in-game days | Encourages travel and scavenging while allowing regular players to revisit areas. |
| Party shared-kill range | 100 units | Lets a group remain useful when it spreads out modestly. |
| Land claims | One claim per player; 41-block size | Provides protection without covering an entire settlement. |
Play for several in-game days before changing anything. A setting that feels wrong may be exposing a different issue: a group that runs out of materials may need a longer loot cycle rather than more abundance, while a horde that feels overwhelming may need fewer simultaneous spawns or better fortification rather than a lower world difficulty.
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Make the world genuinely PvE
Disable player killing explicitly
Set PlayerKillingMode to 0. The 7 Days to Die Official Wiki server reference defines the values as follows:
0: no killing1: kill allies only2: kill strangers only3: kill everyone
For a cooperative server, choose the no-killing value and verify it after the world has loaded. Testing with two characters is worthwhile because a host panel can display a saved value that was not applied to the active world. If players can damage one another after the test, stop and correct the setting before building a base or transferring valuable equipment.
Choose difficulty for the least experienced regular player
Normal is the sensible first choice for a mixed-skill group. Difficulty affects how punishing mistakes feel, but it does not replace the need to learn stamina, healing, weapon range, and horde-night preparation. Raise it only after everyone understands those systems and the group is consistently finishing nights with substantial supplies and little danger. Lower difficulty is appropriate when players are learning the game or when the server is intended primarily as a building and exploration space.
Set the pace with day length and Blood Moon timing
Day length controls real-world time
DayNightLength is expressed as real-time minutes per in-game day in the server reference. A 60-minute day gives a familiar survival cadence: daylight is long enough for a quest, a supply run, or a short building session, while night still creates a reason to return home. Choose 90 minutes when the group spends most of its time constructing, exploring distant points of interest, or playing in long sessions where the default day feels compressed.
Longer days reduce the frequency of forced returns to a base, but they also slow the arrival of each Blood Moon when that event is tied to the calendar. Discuss the trade-off before changing the value: a builder may want 90 minutes, while a player who enjoys regular horde preparation may prefer 60.
Use a seven-day Blood Moon for predictable preparation
BloodMoonFrequency sets the nominal interval. Set it to seven and set BloodMoonRange to zero when the group wants an exact weekly event. A zero range removes the random deviation, so everyone can count on the same day and schedule repairs, ammunition production, farming, and quests around it.
Increase the interval for a relaxed building server. Decrease it only for a group that actively wants frequent combat and has enough time to recover between events. Do not use a random range to solve a difficulty problem: randomness changes when the event occurs, not how well the group can defend itself.
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Know when the event ends
The Blood Moon event completes at 04:00. That gives the group a clear finish line for a night of defense and a reliable point at which ordinary exploration and crafting can resume. Plan ammunition and repairs for the entire event rather than assuming the first lull means the night is over.
Balance zombie movement and horde pressure
Movement speeds for ordinary nights
Walk or jog during the day and run at night is a forgiving default. It creates a visible escalation without making every daytime supply trip a combat sprint. Faster settings suit groups that already find this profile easy, communicate well, and can handle unexpected encounters without exhausting stamina.
Movement speed is a group-wide pressure multiplier. If one experienced player carries the rest, raising speed may punish the newer players rather than improve the challenge. Change movement only after checking whether the real issue is weapons, armor, base layout, or a lack of healing supplies.
How BloodMoonEnemyCount really works
The setting is a simultaneous-spawn limit per player, not a guarantee that the game will always put that many zombies on screen. Official references explain that the actual horde is also shaped by Game Stage, player count, and other game settings. Multiplayer limits can override the per-player value, so multiplying the number by the party size does not predict the final wave.
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Cross-platform dedicated servers document a permitted range of 4–64 for this setting. That is a platform constraint, not a recommendation to use the upper end. A small group on modest hardware should stay near the lower part of the range; a larger, experienced group with ample headroom can test higher values in small increments.
Configure loot without misunderstanding abundance
Loot abundance changes stack sizes
Keep LootAbundance at 100% initially. The server reference explicitly states that this control changes stack sizes and does not change the chance that an item drops. Raising it can reduce the number of trips needed to gather materials, but it does not make a rare item more likely to appear in a container.
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This distinction matters when diagnosing a resource shortage. If the group finds the right items but carries too little of each, abundance may help. If a specific item is not appearing, changing abundance is not the appropriate fix; the group should instead explore more points of interest, improve its scavenging route, or adjust the respawn cycle.
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Use loot respawn to control exploration
LootRespawnDays controls how long it takes for eligible containers to refill. Five to seven in-game days works well for regular co-op play: locations become valuable again without making the same building feel permanently exhausted. Shorter cycles make familiar routes highly productive and can reduce the incentive to travel. Longer cycles increase the importance of mapping new areas and planning expeditions.
Cross-platform dedicated-server documentation lists a minimum of five days for this environment. Do not set a lower value on a cross-platform server, even if a local game appears to accept it. If players have irregular schedules, choose the longer end of the range so someone who misses a session is not locked out of useful supplies.
Keep cooperative progression moving
Shared kill and quest credit
PartySharedKillRange determines how close party members must be for shared kill experience and quest-objective credit. The documented default is 100 units, which is a good starting point for a group that explores together but occasionally separates to search adjacent buildings.
Keep 100 unless the group regularly splits across a large area and notices that one player is missing credit. Increasing the range can make a scattered party feel more coordinated, but it also reduces the value of staying physically close during dangerous missions. Change this one setting independently so the group can tell whether it solved the credit problem.
Land claims and irregular schedules
One claim per player and the documented 41-block size provide a practical first settlement. Claims protect the area that matters without making every nearby point of interest unavailable to other players. Coordinate overlapping claims before placing them, especially when several players are building one base.
Review the offline-expiry rule when the group has players with different schedules. The documented expiry is seven real-world days offline. A player who is away longer may lose the protection associated with an inactive claim, so agree on a shared base policy before someone leaves for an extended period. If the server supports separate claim-count, size, spacing, expiry, and durability controls, change only the axis that addresses the observed problem.
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Where settings live in current 3.x builds
Do not assume an old XML tutorial still applies
A current community technical reference reports that version 3.2.0 no longer reads several former gameplay properties from serverconfig.xml, including BloodMoonFrequency, DayNightLength, LootAbundance, and XPMultiplier. Pasting those lines into an older tutorial or hosting panel can therefore produce a configuration that looks correct but has no effect.
Use sandbox options, SandboxCode, or setgamepref
In current builds, the affected gameplay controls are handled through the world’s sandbox options, the generated SandboxCode, or the setgamepref mechanism. The exact screen and command availability depend on whether you are hosting a local world, running a dedicated server, or using a provider’s control panel.
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- Confirm the game version shown by the host and by every connecting client.
- Open the world or server’s sandbox-options editor rather than relying on an old XML-only guide.
- Set the desired values for day length, Blood Moon timing, loot abundance, and other gameplay options.
- If the server exposes
SandboxCodeorsetgamepref, apply the values through that supported interface and use the build’s own help text for the accepted key and value format. - Restart the server or reload the world when the interface requires it.
- Join with a test character and verify the behavior in the loaded world, not just the value shown in the panel.
Some server properties remain in serverconfig.xml, so the correct workflow is mixed rather than all-or-nothing: leave properties in XML when the current build still reads them, and move gameplay options to the sandbox system when the build requires it. Record the version and configuration method alongside your chosen values so a future update does not silently revert the world.
Dedicated and cross-platform server limits
The official Help Center states that cross-platform dedicated servers support up to eight players. It also lists these constraints:
| Control | Cross-platform documented limit |
|---|---|
| Maximum players | 8 |
DayNightLength |
At least 10 minutes |
BloodMoonEnemyCount |
4–64 |
LootAbundance |
No higher than 200 |
LootRespawnDays |
At least 5 days |
These are documented platform boundaries, not targets for a small PvE group. A server with six players can still suffer from high simultaneous-spawn settings, and an eight-player server may need more hardware headroom than the minimum values suggest. If you rent hosting, check the provider’s supported game version, player-slot count, geographic location, backup policy, mod support, and crossplay status before moving an established world.
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Presets are easier to evaluate when you classify each change by the problem it is meant to solve.
- Pace: day length and Blood Moon interval determine how quickly the calendar advances and how often the group must prepare.
- Combat pressure: zombie movement and Blood Moon enemy count affect reaction time, ammunition use, and server load.
- Resource friction: loot abundance changes stack sizes, while loot respawn determines when explored containers become useful again.
- Co-op convenience: shared-kill range and land-claim rules determine how forgiving the server is when players separate or miss sessions.
- Performance headroom: simultaneous zombies, player count, and host hardware determine whether a difficult horde remains playable.
Change one axis, play through the next meaningful test, and write down the version, value, and configuration method. For example, if a horde is difficult but smooth, leave the enemy count alone and adjust movement only if the group wants faster reactions. If the horde is smooth but causes frame drops, reduce simultaneous spawns rather than lowering the entire world difficulty. If materials feel scarce, test abundance and respawn separately so you know whether carrying capacity or world exploration was the actual bottleneck.
Common failure modes and fixes
Players can still damage one another
Recheck PlayerKillingMode after the world loads and confirm it is 0. A saved panel value is not proof that the active world used it. Test with two players before inviting the full group.
The horde is much larger than the configured number
Remember that the value is a simultaneous-spawn limit per player. Game Stage, party size, game settings, and multiplayer limits also shape the event. Check performance and the group’s Game Stage before assuming the setting was ignored.
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That is expected. Abundance changes stack sizes, not drop probability. Adjust the exploration route or respawn interval when the issue is container availability.
An XML edit has no effect
Confirm whether the current build still reads that property from serverconfig.xml. In version 3.2.0, the documented examples of no-longer-read gameplay properties include Blood Moon frequency, day length, loot abundance, and XP multiplier. Move those controls to sandbox options, SandboxCode, or setgamepref as supported by the build, then restart and verify in-world behavior.
Cross-platform values are rejected or silently constrained
Check the Help Center limits: no more than eight players, at least 10 minutes for day length, 4–64 Blood Moon enemies, abundance no higher than 200, and at least five loot-respawn days. A provider panel may prevent invalid values, while a manual configuration may simply fail to apply them.
Quick Recap
A practical first-session checklist
- Confirm the game version and whether the server is local, dedicated, or cross-platform.
- Set player killing to
0and test friendly-fire behavior. - Choose Normal difficulty, a 60- or 90-minute day, and a seven-day Blood Moon interval.
- Set Blood Moon random range to
0if the group wants a fixed horde day. - Use walk or jog by day and run at night until the group knows the map and combat systems.
- Start Blood Moon enemy count around four to eight per player, then monitor CPU, memory, and frame rate.
- Leave loot abundance at 100% and choose five to seven in-game days for respawn.
- Keep the 100-unit shared-kill range and one 41-block land claim per player unless a specific problem justifies a change.
- Verify every setting in the loaded world and record the values with the version and configuration method.
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