There is no working difficulty slider for a Palworld dedicated server. The Difficulty entry exists in PalWorldSettings.ini, but the Palworld Wiki, Lord Hosting and MintServers report that it is currently unused on dedicated servers. To make a server easier or harder, leave Difficulty=None and adjust the damage, regeneration and death-penalty settings individually. Stop the server before editing, keep the file in its required two-line format, save the change, and restart the server.
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What the Palworld server difficulty setting actually does
Palworld has a setting named Difficulty, which makes it look as if a dedicated server should offer Casual, Normal or Hard modes. On dedicated servers, however, current third-party documentation says this key is not functional. The Palworld Wiki labels it “Not currently used”; Lord Hosting says changing it has no effect; and MintServers describes it as a legacy value that Pocketpair has not made operational for dedicated servers.
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This is different from changing difficulty in a local or hosted world through an in-game menu. A dedicated server reads its settings from PalWorldSettings.ini. If the server build ignores Difficulty, changing that word alone cannot alter combat, survival or death rules.
The reliable approach is to use Difficulty=None as the neutral setting and tune the individual multipliers that determine how much damage players and Pals deal or receive. Because server behavior can change between Palworld updates, test the result with a willing player after every substantial configuration change.
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Which settings control how hard the server feels?
The names below are the controls commonly identified in current server guides. The first two player-rate settings are described by Supercraft as attack and defense damage rates. In that guide, a higher defensive rate means the player takes more damage, not less. Pal rate names and death-penalty choices are widely documented by community hosts, but their exact behavior should be checked against the build you run.
| Setting | What it changes | How to make play easier | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|---|
Difficulty |
A nominal Casual, Normal or Hard preset | Use None |
Reported as unused on dedicated servers; preset behavior is disputed |
PlayerDamageRateAttack |
Player attack damage | Increase the value to make player attacks stronger | Confirm the direction in a controlled fight after restarting |
PlayerDamageRateDefense |
Damage received by players | Decrease the value so players take less damage | Supercraft specifically warns that a higher value means more incoming damage |
PalDamageRateAttack |
Damage dealt by a player’s Pals | Increase the value for stronger Pal attacks | Named in secondary server guides; behavior is not confirmed by an official Pocketpair reference |
PalDamageRateDefense |
Damage received by Pals | Decrease the value so Pals are harder to hurt | Verify in your current server build because community documentation is not uniform |
DeathPenalty |
Items or equipment lost when a player dies | Choose the least severe available option | Community guides list None, Item, ItemAndEquipment and All |
bHardcore |
Permanent-death behavior | Set False |
G-Portal documents True as the permadeath toggle |
“Easier” is not one universal slider. For a new group, reducing incoming player and Pal damage, increasing outgoing damage and removing death losses can matter more than any nominal preset. Change one category at a time so you can tell which rule produced the result.
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Before you edit the configuration
Stop the server and protect the existing file
Shut the dedicated server down cleanly before opening its configuration. A running process can rewrite the file when it stops, erasing edits made while it was online. Make a copy of PalWorldSettings.ini with a date in the filename. If a change causes a startup error or unexpected gameplay, restore that copy rather than trying to reconstruct the original line by line.
Find the file after the first startup
Community hosting instructions place the file at Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini on Linux and in the corresponding WindowsServer directory on Windows. This path is secondary guidance rather than an officially verified Pocketpair path, and the directory may not exist until the server has started once. Managed hosts can expose the same file through a control-panel file manager instead of a normal operating-system folder.
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Use an editor that does not reformat the line
A plain-text editor is safest. Do not use a word processor, and do not allow automatic quotation marks or line wrapping to alter punctuation. Preserve the existing capitalization, commas and decimal format used by the file.
Step-by-step: change a dedicated server to an easier setup
- Stop the Palworld server. Use the host’s Stop command or stop the server process and wait until it is no longer running.
- Open the configuration directory. On a self-hosted Linux installation, check
Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/; on Windows, check theWindowsServerequivalent. On a managed host, open the file manager or configuration editor supplied by that host. - Back up
PalWorldSettings.ini. Copy the file before making any edit. Keep the backup outside the live configuration folder if your host automatically synchronizes files. - Check the physical file format. The file should contain two lines: the first is the opening configuration text, and the second is the long
OptionSettings=(...)line containing all settings. The settings must remain on that oneOptionSettingsline. If an editor wrapped it visually, that is normally harmless; if it inserted actual newline characters, the server may discard the values and revert to defaults. - Set the nominal preset to neutral. In the existing
OptionSettingsline, change the value toDifficulty=None. Keeping the preset neutral avoids an additional layer of preset behavior while you tune individual values. - Adjust player combat. Increase
PlayerDamageRateAttackif you want players to defeat targets faster. DecreasePlayerDamageRateDefenseif you want players to receive less damage. Do not assume that “higher defense rate” means better protection; Supercraft documents the opposite direction for this key. - Adjust Pal combat if needed. Increase
PalDamageRateAttackfor stronger Pal attacks, or decreasePalDamageRateDefenseso Pals receive less damage. These labels come from community guides, so test them rather than changing several Pal-related values blindly. - Reduce the cost of dying. Set
DeathPenaltyto the least severe option your server build accepts. Community references useNone,Item,ItemAndEquipmentandAll; if your panel presents a drop-down, use its exact spelling. If permanent death is not wanted, setbHardcore=False. - Save without changing the structure. Keep every setting separated by commas inside the existing
OptionSettings=(...)expression. Do not add a secondOptionSettingsline, remove the opening or closing parentheses, or paste a complete configuration from a different game version. - Start the server again. Wait for the server to finish loading before joining. Some hosts regenerate configuration files during startup; if that happens, stop again, inspect the saved file and use the host’s documented persistence method.
- Run a controlled test. Have one player attack a low-risk target and record the number of hits, then let a target hit the player or a Pal. Test death behavior with items that can safely be recovered. Change only one value if the result is not what you expected.
Choosing values for common server goals
Because there is no functional dedicated-server difficulty slider, choose a combination of rules that matches the group rather than copying a “Hard” or “Casual” label.
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| Goal | Settings to consider | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Help new players survive | Lower PlayerDamageRateDefense; lower PalDamageRateDefense if Pals are dying too quickly; use a mild death penalty |
Combat loses some danger, especially when several players can revive or replace Pals easily |
| Shorten routine fights | Raise PlayerDamageRateAttack and, if confirmed by testing, PalDamageRateAttack |
Bosses and progression gates may become much easier than intended |
| Keep combat dangerous but forgiving | Leave outgoing rates near their existing values, reduce incoming rates modestly, and choose DeathPenalty=None or Item |
Players still need to manage health and positioning, but a mistake does not erase equipment |
| Make survival punishing | Increase incoming-damage rates only after confirming their direction, retain a severe death penalty, and consider bHardcore=True |
bHardcore=True is a permadeath rule; use it only when every player has agreed and backups are available |
Record the original value beside every change. Rates are multipliers, so a small edit can have a large practical effect depending on the current number and the creature being tested. There is no published statistic in the available documentation that translates a particular multiplier into a guaranteed percentage change for every encounter.
Why Casual, Normal and Hard presets are controversial
Two hosting guides describe preset behavior differently. Physgun says choosing Casual, Normal or Hard applies a bundled preset that can override hand-tuned multipliers. GameServerHosting likewise says a non-None preset overrides most multipliers. Other documentation says the Difficulty key is unused on dedicated servers, so the preset should do nothing. No official Pocketpair documentation or patch note located for this topic resolves the contradiction.
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Treat preset behavior as version-dependent rather than established fact. The safest workflow is:
- Set
Difficulty=None. - Change one or two explicit rate settings.
- Restart the server and test.
- If you deliberately try
Casual,NormalorHard, make a backup first and compare the saved file and in-game behavior with the neutral configuration.
If a preset appears to change the server, do not assume it has permanently converted every multiplier. Check the file after restart and test each rule that matters to your group.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsKeeping the two-line file valid
Configuration reversion is often a formatting problem rather than a difficulty problem. Palworld server guidance says the file must retain its two-line structure, with every setting on the single OptionSettings=(...) line. A missing parenthesis, a line break inserted inside the expression, an extra pair of quotation marks or a duplicate key can cause the server to ignore the edited values and load defaults.
- Compare the edited file with your backup and identify the exact changed characters.
- Make sure each key appears only once.
- Keep commas between entries and do not place a comma after the final entry if the existing file does not use one.
- Preserve the numeric style already present, including decimal places.
- After a restart, reopen the file to confirm that the server or control panel did not overwrite it.
Troubleshooting a change that does not work
The server still feels the same
Confirm that the server was fully restarted, not merely disconnected from the control panel. Verify the character-for-character spelling of the key and that you edited the active server’s file rather than a local single-player configuration. Test with a repeatable attack and change only one rate at a time. If only Difficulty was changed, the unchanged behavior is expected on a dedicated server according to the Palworld Wiki, Lord Hosting and MintServers.
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The file reverts to defaults
Stop the server, restore the backup, and inspect the two-line format. A malformed OptionSettings expression or an edit made while the process was running can be discarded at shutdown. Managed hosts may also regenerate files from a panel template; in that case, use the panel’s persistent configuration field and restart after saving.
A higher value made protection worse
For PlayerDamageRateDefense, that outcome is documented: the higher value increases damage received by players. Lower it, restart, and repeat the same test. Do not transfer assumptions from this player key to an unverified Pal key without testing.
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Return to the backup, set Difficulty=None, and reapply only the explicit multipliers you can verify. The Physgun and GameServerHosting descriptions indicate that non-neutral presets may override hand-tuned values, but the behavior is not settled across versions.
Players cannot agree on the server’s rules
Publish the values in your server’s welcome message or community channel, including the death penalty and hardcore state. A screenshot of the final OptionSettings line helps players distinguish a real configuration change from a client-side perception or a temporary world event.
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Version and platform cautions
Community guides cited for these settings range from roughly 33 days to more than 900 days old at the time they were collected, and they target different Palworld builds and hosting environments. Pocketpair’s official documentation was not available for these exact dedicated-server behaviors. Treat every setting as subject to change after an update, especially Difficulty presets and the interpretation of multipliers.
Keep a dated backup before updating the server. After an update, inspect the generated configuration, confirm that your keys still exist, and rerun a short combat and death test before opening the server to the whole group. If the host supplies release notes or a configuration schema for that build, use those labels instead of importing an older template.
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Recommended starting configuration strategy
For most cooperative dedicated servers, start with Difficulty=None, leave the existing multipliers unchanged, and alter only the rule that is causing a problem. If players are dying too quickly, lower PlayerDamageRateDefense. If fights are too slow, raise PlayerDamageRateAttack and test Pal attack damage separately. If losing equipment makes experimentation frustrating, reduce DeathPenalty. Keep bHardcore=False unless the group explicitly wants permadeath.
This method preserves a clear cause-and-effect trail and avoids relying on a contested preset system. It also makes it easier to restore the original game balance when a future Palworld update changes how the server reads its configuration.
The Bottom Line
Set Difficulty=None on a dedicated server and tune the individual player, Pal and death-penalty settings instead. Keep PalWorldSettings.ini in its required two-line format, restart after every edit, and test the result because preset behavior and multiplier support can vary by Palworld version.
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