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How to Change Difficulty in Minecraft

While some players are looking for a challenge, others just want to relax and work on a construction project or explore the game world. For this reason, there are four difficulty levels at your disposal: peaceful, easy, normal and hard. While the setting is quite simple in a solo game, there are various methods to change difficulty in Minecraft.

Overview How to Change Difficulty in Minecraft:

Singleplayer Settings – Change Difficulty in Minecraft

In a normal singleplayer world, you can change difficulty directly in the options menu. Minecraft even has a padlock: if the difficulty is locked, it can’t be changed the normal way.

How to change difficulty in singleplayer:

  1. Pause the game.
  2. Open options.

Find difficulty and select peaceful / easy / normal / hard

Important:There is a difficulty lock (the padlock). If you click the padlock and confirm, the world’s difficulty can’t be changed normally afterward. In hardcore, difficulty is locked to hard by design, so don’t expect peaceful vibes.

The Command to Change Difficulty in Minecraft

The easiest way to change difficulty levels is to use the Minecraft difficulty command /difficulty:

  1. Press ‘T’ to open the chat.
  2. Enter /difficulty <desired difficulty>
  3. Press enter to change difficulty in Minecraft.

Note that you need operator rights on the server to be able to change the difficulty level. Also, cheats have to be activated. 

Does this Command Persist?

On servers, the command can be temporary: on restart, the server can load difficulty from server.properties again. That’s why ‘how to change server difficulty Minecraft’ often really means ‘how do I stop it from resetting?’

How to Change Difficulty on Minecraft Server: Settings

If your goal is to change Minecraft server difficulty so it stays that way, you have to edit server.properties. There, you use on of these:

  • difficulty=peaceful
  • difficulty=easy
  • difficulty=normal
  • difficulty=hard

What about 0-3?Some older configs and older guides show numbers (0-3). That’s legacy formatting: modern servers use names and legacy numbers are converted automatically.

Now, to really set a permanent difficulty, do the following:

  1. Stop the server (recommended before config edits).
  2. Open or edit server.properties.
  3. Set difficulty= to the desired value.
  4. Save, restart and verify in-game.

How to Change Difficulty in Minecraft with Mods

In addition to difficulty levels, many mods and modpacks also give you the ability to further customize the difficulty level. Modpacks like Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons or RLCraft can be significantly more challenging than vanilla Minecraft. If you want to change the Minecraft difficulty beyond the default settings while staying as close to the original game as possible, mods like Majrusz’s Progressive Difficulty are recommended to gradually make your Minecraft harder.

FAQ

How to change difficulty in Minecraft without commands?

In singleplayer, open options → difficulty and pick peaceful / easy / normal / hard. If the padlock was clicked and confirmed, the difficulty can’t be changed anymore without commands. 

What is the Minecraft difficulty command?

The command is /difficulty. It sets or queries the world’s difficulty (peaceful, easy, normal, hard). On many servers it requires operator permissions and in singleplayer it’s ‘cheat only’ unless cheats are enabled.

How can I check the current difficulty (without guessing)?

Run /difficulty without arguments to query the current difficulty. Java returns the numeric id in command output. The command itself queries.

Why does /difficulty say I don’t have permission?

Because /difficulty is a cheat command. On a server, you generally need to be an operator (or have sufficient permission level). In singleplayer, commands work only if cheats are enabled (or temporarily enabled via Open to LAN).

How to change Minecraft server difficulty so it stays after a restart?

Use server.properties. The server reloads difficulty from that file on restart, so this is the ‘make it stick’ method.

Do I have to use numbers (0-3) in server.properties?

No. Modern server.properties uses difficulty names (peaceful / easy / normal / hard). If a legacy number is used, it’s silently converted to a name.

Does changing difficulty affect everyone on the server?

Yes. Difficulty is a world / server setting, not a per-player preference. When you change it, it applies to the whole world.

Why can’t I change difficulty in hardcore?

In hardcore, difficulty doesn’t change, even if a /difficulty command appears to run successfully, and the options menu also notes difficulty can’t be changed in hardcore Mode. It is always hard difficulty.

Wrap-Up: Diffi-CULTY? You’re in Control Now

Changing difficulty isn’t a one-way decision. Flip it in the menu for singleplayer comfort, use the Minecraft difficulty command when you need an instant switch and lock it in with server.properties when you’re running a server and want the setting to actually stay put. Whether noob or pro, relaxed or highly concentrated: Now you should know everything necessary to adapt Minecraft to your needs. We wish you a lot of fun playing.

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