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Merciless and server difficulty are separate settings in V Rising. Merciless is a full-loot ruleset: bloodbound equipment protection is disabled, items can drop when you die, and Castle Keys can let attackers seize enemy castles. Difficulty is a three-way preset—Relaxed, Normal or Brutal—that changes combat power, V Blood stats, loot and durability behavior.
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Choose the ruleset under Advanced Game Settings → Select Ruleset, then choose the difficulty preset separately. Keeping those choices separate prevents the most common setup mistake: expecting Merciless to make bosses harder, or selecting Brutal and assuming the server has full-loot castle sieges.
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Merciless is a ruleset, not a difficulty level. Its defining feature is full loot on death. In a normal ruleset, bloodbound equipment protects your equipped weapons and other bound items when you die. Merciless turns that protection off, so the contents of your character and inventory can become recoverable loot for another player.
The ruleset also enables the most consequential castle-raiding outcome: attackers can use Castle Keys to take control of an enemy castle. That is fundamentally different from simply increasing enemy damage or boss health. A server can be Brutal without being Merciless, or Merciless while using Relaxed, Normal or Brutal combat tuning.
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How to select Merciless when creating a server
- Open the private-game or server-creation screen.
- Open Advanced Game Settings.
- Find Select Ruleset and choose Merciless.
- Choose a difficulty preset—Relaxed, Normal or Brutal—in the separate difficulty control.
- Review the remaining PvE, PvP and loot options, then create the world.
Menu wording can vary slightly between a locally hosted game, a dedicated server launcher and a hosting panel. The important distinction is that Select Ruleset controls the ruleset, while the difficulty selector controls the preset modifiers.
V Rising difficulty presets in version 1.0
V Rising 1.0 introduced three main difficulty choices: Relaxed, Normal and Brutal. Stunlock Studios’ 1.0 patch-notes description says the choice affects enemy power and how deadly environmental effects are. The detailed multipliers below come from a secondary server-settings table, so treat them as practical reference values for the build that table documented rather than as an immutable promise for every future patch.
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| Preset | Enemy damage | V Blood health | V Blood damage | Loot multiplier | Durability drain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relaxed | 0.7× | 0.8× | 0.6× | 1× | 1× |
| Normal | 1× | 1× | 1× | 1× | 1× |
| Brutal | 1.4× | 1.25× | 1.7× | 1.25× | 0.5× |
A multiplier is relative to Normal. For example, the table’s Brutal values mean ordinary enemy damage is 1.4 times the Normal value, V Blood damage is 1.7 times Normal, and durability drains at half the Normal rate. The loot entry is 1.25 times Normal; the table does not define which individual loot categories receive that increase.
Relaxed
Relaxed lowers incoming enemy damage to 0.7×, V Blood health to 0.8× and V Blood damage to 0.6×. It is the forgiving choice for learning the map, testing a build or running a cooperative world where combat is not meant to be the main obstacle. The documented loot and durability values remain at Normal’s 1× levels.
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Normal
Normal is the baseline against which the other documented multipliers are measured. Each listed combat, loot and durability value is 1×.
Brutal
Brutal raises ordinary enemy damage to 1.4×, V Blood health to 1.25× and V Blood damage to 1.7×. The same table lists loot at 1.25× and durability drain at 0.5×. That combination makes fights more punishing while reducing how quickly equipment wears out.
Ruleset versus difficulty: the distinction that matters
Think of the settings as two independent axes:
| Question | Setting to change | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| What happens to a player’s gear after death? | Ruleset | Merciless disables bloodbound protection and uses full-loot behavior. |
| Can a castle be taken with a Castle Key? | Ruleset | Merciless permits castle seizure mechanics. |
| How hard do enemies and V Blood carriers hit? | Difficulty preset | Relaxed, Normal or Brutal combat multipliers. |
| How much V Blood health is used? | Difficulty preset | Preset health multiplier. |
| How quickly equipment loses durability? | Difficulty preset | Preset durability-drain multiplier. |
That means “Merciless server” does not identify a single difficulty. A host should state both settings—for example, “Merciless-Brutal PvP” or “Merciless-Normal PvE”—so players know whether they risk full loot, harder combat, or both.
Do not confuse the difficulty preset with the startup game-settings preset
Dedicated-server launchers and hosting dashboards often include a Game Settings Preset dropdown with names such as StandardPvP or StandardPvE. That control loads a larger ruleset bundle: PvP permissions, castle and clan rules, loot behavior and other server values. It is not the same control as the Relaxed/Normal/Brutal difficulty preset.
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Changing StandardPvP to StandardPvE therefore does not, by itself, select Brutal. Conversely, selecting Brutal does not automatically convert a PvE world into a full-loot PvP world. Set the startup ruleset preset and the difficulty option independently, then inspect the resulting settings before starting the world.
Where the difficulty setting is stored
Configuration guidance currently conflicts across hosting documentation, and there is no single officially documented key that can safely be assumed for every server build. Stop the server and make a backup before editing any JSON file. A malformed comma or an edit made while the server is running can be overwritten or prevent startup.
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|---|---|---|---|
| BerryByte hosting table | Settings/ServerHostSettings.json → GameDifficultyPreset |
Difficulty_Easy, Difficulty_Normal, Difficulty_Brutal |
Useful if your host exposes this file and naming scheme. |
| Supercraft hosting guide | ServerGameSettings.json → numeric GameDifficulty |
0 = Relaxed, 1 = Normal, 2 = Brutal |
Use only when your build and panel document the numeric key. |
| G-Portal configuration example | Brutal block containing GameDifficulty |
2 |
Confirms the numeric representation in that example, not necessarily every host. |
| Steam community configuration post | GameDifficultyPresets folder with Difficulty_Relaxed.json and Difficulty_Brutal.json |
Preset files can supply values when the setting is not Normal | Check whether your server build actually loads these files. |
Some installations may contain both a selector-style key and a numeric key. It has not been confirmed from a primary source whether one chooses the preset while the other drives boss mechanics, so do not edit both on guesswork. Use the file and syntax documented by your host for your exact V Rising version.
A safe configuration workflow
- Stop the server completely and copy the entire save and configuration folders.
- Use the hosting panel’s file manager or open the documented JSON file locally.
- Search for
GameDifficultyPresetand, separately,GameDifficulty. Record which key actually exists. - Change only the documented key and use the exact spelling and value format shown by the host.
- Save, start the server and inspect the startup log or in-game settings screen.
- Test with a disposable character or backup world before inviting players.
A launcher dropdown that appears to change difficulty may apply only to a newly generated world; that behavior has been reported in a search summary but is not verified against a cited primary page. Treat an existing-world change as unconfirmed until your host documents it and your server log shows the new preset loaded.
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Individual settings that can resemble Merciless
Several independent options affect death and inventory behavior, but none is a replacement for the Merciless ruleset.
DeathContainerPermission: the valueOnlySelflimits who can loot a death container. This changes access to dropped contents; it does not enable castle seizure.BloodBoundEquipment:truekeeps weapons with the player through death. Leaving it enabled produces the opposite of Merciless-style equipment loss.InventoryStacksModifier: a multiplier for maximum stack size. The documented range is 0.25 to 3, with1.0as the baseline. It changes carrying capacity, not the ruleset.
Because these keys are version-dependent, verify their names and accepted values in the configuration generated by your server rather than pasting settings from a different release.
Choosing a combination for your server
Cooperative first world
Choose a standard PvE startup preset with Relaxed or Normal difficulty. This keeps the learning curve manageable without introducing full-loot losses or castle theft.
Competitive PvP with meaningful risk
Choose the appropriate PvP startup preset, then select Merciless. Add Normal or Brutal depending on whether player conflict or PvE combat should be the larger threat. Tell players explicitly that death can expose equipment and that castles can be seized.
Hard PvE challenge
Choose a PvE ruleset and Brutal difficulty. This raises the documented enemy and V Blood multipliers without adding Merciless’ full-loot and castle-key rules.
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Use Relaxed on a separate test world. Because the preset changes V Blood health and damage as well as ordinary enemy damage, it is useful for practice, but results will not represent a Normal or Brutal fight.
Troubleshooting common mistakes
The server still feels like Normal
Check that you changed the difficulty preset rather than the startup Game Settings Preset. Then stop the server, confirm the setting was saved in the file your host uses, and review the startup log. A panel may regenerate a configuration file when a world is created.
Merciless losses are not happening
Verify the ruleset under Select Ruleset and check that BloodBoundEquipment has not been enabled by another preset. Also confirm that you are testing player death, not a protected tutorial or special container behavior.
Your edit is overwritten
Many panels write their own JSON when settings are changed through the web interface. Stop the server, make the change in the panel if the option exists, and keep a backup of the resulting file. Do not edit a running server and expect the change to persist.
Boss numbers found online do not match
Unattributed guides circulate exact boss figures that conflict with the documented secondary table. There is no reliable primary confirmation here for a complete set of boss multipliers, so do not configure or advertise precise boss damage, health or level bonuses unless your current build exposes them in-game or your host provides version-specific documentation.
What to publish in your server description
List the startup ruleset preset, the difficulty preset and any unusual death or inventory settings separately. A clear entry looks like: “PvP ruleset; Merciless; Brutal difficulty; death-container permission OnlySelf; stack modifier 1.0.” This gives players the information they need without treating a difficulty label as a substitute for the full ruleset.
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