Best World Settings & Difficulty (Solo, Co-op)
For a first run, keep Default. Pick Relaxed if you came for the base and the story: it halves enemy and boss damage and health, turns weapon wear off and gives 150% combat XP. Hard and Survival both cut combat and mining XP to 50%, so they level you slower, not just harder. Party size is already built in: it scales enemy numbers past 4 players and each boss's health per extra player.
- Presets4Relaxed, Default, Hard, Survival
- Settings38each with its range or options
- Hard XP50%combat, vs 100% on Default
- Boss health+48–90%per extra player
A world has 38 settings and four named presets (Relaxed, Default, Hard, Survival), plus Custom, where you set them yourself. Most people only need the preset and two or three changes. This page shows what the presets really change in the 1.0 files, then three recipes, marked as our picks, because the files do not call any value "best".
If you run a dedicated server, the config generator writes the file for you; the values below are what to put in it. Values are shown the way the game shows them: factors as percentages, times in minutes.
What the four presets change
Three differences matter. Fights: Hard raises enemy damage and boss health; Relaxed halves enemy and boss damage and health. Experience: Hard and Survival halve combat and mining XP. Loss: only Survival turns on hunger and starvation, makes a death cost the whole backpack and lengthens the night.
| Setting | Relaxed | Default | Hard | Survival |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enemy Damage | 50% | 100% | 125% | 150% |
| Enemy Health | 50% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Boss Damage Modifier | 50% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Boss Health Modifier | 50% | 100% | 150% | 150% |
| Combat Experience Modifier | 150% | 100% | 50% | 50% |
| Weapon Durability | off | on | on | on |
| On death | lose nothing | lose materials only | lose materials only | lose everything |
| Shroud time duration modifier | 150% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Fell Curse | off | normal | normal | double chance |
| Hunger and Starvation | off | off | off | on |
Enemy sliders skip bosses
Per Keen's readme, Enemy Damage, Enemy Health and the other enemy sliders exclude bosses. Bosses have their own: Boss Damage Modifier and Boss Health Modifier. Setting one and not the other is a common surprise.
Solo
Alone you carry every fight, so the XP numbers decide how fast you get strong enough for the next region. On Hard, enemy damage is 125% and boss health 150% while combat and mining XP drop to 50%: harder and slower at once. Our picks for a solo run, in order:
- First playthrough: Default. Nothing is scaled. You learn the real fights and the Shroud timer before you change anything.
- Want sharper fights without the slow levelling: Hard fights, Default XP. Start from Hard, then put Combat Experience Modifier and Mining Experience Modifier back to 100%. You keep 125% enemy damage and 150% boss health and level at the normal rate. This mix is ours; no preset ships it.
- Story and building first: Relaxed. Enemy and boss damage and health at 50%, your own health, mana and stamina at 200%, and no weapon wear. Pair it with the Shroud guide if the timer is your worry: Relaxed raises Shroud time duration modifier to 150% and turns the Fell Curse off.
- Real survival: the Survival preset, with eyes open. Tombstone Mode is "lose everything" on death, hunger and starvation are on, nights last 20 min against 12 min, and enemy damage is 150%.
Co-op
The game already adapts to a group, so a group rarely needs more than Default. On the Automatic enemy amount the number of enemies stays at the solo level for up to 4 players and climbs to 3× at 16 (see the co-op guide). Bosses get +48% to +90% health per extra player in the 1.0 files, depending on the boss, and 17 of the 21 named bosses +5% damage as well.
What to change in a group, in our order of use:
- Keep Default and agree on what a death costs. Tombstone Mode decides it: on Default you lose materials only, on Relaxed you lose nothing, on Survival you lose everything.
- Long boss fights: lower Boss Health Modifier. The range is 20% to 400%. A duo faces about +70% on the Fell Wispwyvern; a factor near 0.6 would bring it back to a solo-length fight if the two numbers multiply. The files do not say how they combine, so try it and watch.
- Mixed skill levels: lower Enemy Damage, not enemy health. Range 25% to 250%. It lowers every hit the whole group takes and leaves the fight as long as it was.
- Leave the XP factors at Default. Hard and Survival halve combat and mining XP for the whole world, so everyone levels slower.
Builders and explorers
If your fun is the base, change the economy, not the enemies. These are our picks, all inside the ranges below, applied to Default:
| Setting | Our pick | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plant growth speed | 200% | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Workstation effectiveness (shorter crafting) | 200% | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Resources gain | 150% | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Mining effectiveness | 150% | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Shroud time | 150% | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Weapon upgrade costs | 50% | 100% | 25% to 200% |
These are Relaxed's values
Every pick in the table is the value the Relaxed preset uses (200% plants, 150% mining, 50% upgrade cost, and so on). So a builder can take Relaxed and put the enemy and boss sliders back to 100%: the economy of Relaxed with the fights of Default.
Settings people overlook
Fell Curse. Modify Shroud curse has three options in the readme: off, normal, and a doubled chance. Relaxed turns it off, Survival doubles it.
Flame Altars in the Shroud. A setting new in 1.0 sets the Flame level you need before you can place Flame Altars into the Shroud. It is 11 in every preset, and the range is 1 to 11. Lowering it lets you push a base into the Shroud earlier.
Days and nights. Daytime is 30 min and Nighttime 12 min, adjustable from 2 min to 60 min. Survival's nights are 20 min.
Hunger. Off in every preset except Survival. Hungry State Duration sets how long the hungry state lasts before starvation: 10 min on all four.
Every setting and its range
The range is the overlap of Keen's readme and the game files, the same one the config generator enforces. Values are what the game shows (percentages, minutes).
All 38 settings
| Setting | Default | Range / options |
|---|---|---|
| Player Health | 100% | 25% to 400% |
| Player Mana | 100% | 25% to 400% |
| Player Stamina | 100% | 25% to 400% |
| Player body heat against cold weather | ×1 | ×0.5 to ×2 |
| Diving time | ×1 | ×0.75 to ×2 |
| Weapon Durability | on | on or off |
| Hunger and Starvation | off | on or off |
| Food Buff Duration | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Hungry State Duration | 10 min | 5 min to 20 min |
| Shroud time duration modifier | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Tombstone Mode | lose materials only | lose materials only, lose everything, lose nothing |
| Air turbulences while gliding | on | on or off |
| Weather phenomena frequency | Normal | Disabled, Rare, Normal, Often |
| Fishing difficulty | Normal | Very easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very hard |
| Mining Effectiveness | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Plant Growth Speed | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Resources Gain Modifier | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Workstation Effectiveness | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Weapon Recycling Yield Modifier | 50% | 0% to 100% |
| Weapon Upgrading Costs | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Combat Experience Modifier | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Mining Experience Modifier | 100% | 0% to 200% |
| Exploration Experience Modifier | 100% | 25% to 200% |
| Enemy Amount | Automatic | Few, Normal, Automatic, Many, Extreme |
| Modifier for simultaneous Enemy Attacks | Normal | Few, Normal, Many, Extreme |
| Enemy Damage | 100% | 25% to 250% |
| Enemy Health | 100% | 25% to 400% |
| Enemy Stun Modifier | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Enemy Perception Modifier | 100% | 50% to 200% |
| Boss Damage Modifier | 100% | 20% to 500% |
| Boss Health Modifier | 100% | 20% to 400% |
| Enemy Attacks Modifier | 100% | 25% to 400% |
| Pacified Enemies | off | on or off |
| Taming failure repercussions | Lose some progress | Keep progress, Lose some progress, Lose all progress |
| Daytime | 30 min | 2 min to 60 min |
| Nighttime | 12 min | 2 min to 60 min |
| Modify Shroud curse | normal | off, normal, double chance |
| Required Flame level to enable placing Flame Altars into the Shroud | 11 | 1 to 11 |
Common mistakes
Picking Hard for the challenge and wondering why levelling crawls. It halves combat and mining XP; see the second pick under Solo.
Changing the enemy sliders and expecting bosses to follow. They do not.
Stacking Relaxed and Survival ideas. Durability off, starvation on and a full-backpack death penalty pull in opposite directions; choose the loss you want.
Copying a server file between versions. The 1.0 server added settings (the Shroud Flame Altar level and Enemy Amount); regenerate with the config page.
Related guides
Enshrouded Multiplayer & Co-op (1.0): Play With Friends
How to play Enshrouded 1.0 with friends: up to 16 players on PC and 8 on PS5, the new host permissions, and how enemies scale with the party.
Enshrouded Shroud (1.0): Timer, Fell Curse, Altars
Enshrouded 1.0 Shroud guide: your Shroud timer at every Flame level, what adds time, the Fell Curse and its tonic, and Flame Altars inside the Shroud.
Best Build for Solo vs Co-op in Enshrouded — Decision Matrix + Loadouts
Build picks shift dramatically between solo and group play. Here's a matrix for choosing, from the 1.0 skill tree — solo builds prioritize sustain, co-op builds specialize.