Hi!
We want to setup a small private server for 2-3 of us play on. Trying to figure out the best server settings for us.
We want a vanilla like experience but also understand some things might need to be tweaked since there will only be 2-3 of us playing.
What server settings should we tweak to make the the game normal challenging but not so much so it’s not fun for us?
Thanks for any help!
Nothing… lower Player XP rate to 0.2x or so, the base progression is ridiculously fast to the point that if you put effort in it, you can be max level in like 2 hours…
If you actually want to enjoy the leveling process and make sense of it all, then lower the xp rate.
Just the top Player XP slider though, leave the rest as it is, since thralls and pets use those for leveling.
Otherwise the content itself is designed that it can be done by a single player so you don’t need to reduce the enemy hp or anything silly like that…
And get my mods ofc!! 
Welcome to the forums, @AstroCat!
Assuming you’ll be playing together most of the time, i’d suggest the following:
That should keep combat duration/difficulty similar to the vanilla experience.
As for building… are you all building your own or collaborating on a castle?
Something I wish I had done from the beginning and now is standard for my small group is to make longer days and nights. Doesnt affect difficulty on the average but its a nice quality of life change for us since the normal 20 min cycle is kind of silly fast.
Thanks for the replies!
@Xevyr Yeah I’ve seen that we should lower our XP so we don’t level too fast. For sure that is a good idea. We won’t get to play too often, a couple hours a day here and there, maybe more on the weekend. Maybe 0.5x XP would make sense?
And I will check out your mods! 
After we get going, slowly we could introduce some mods to our game.
@Azazane We will be playing together but I’m sure there will be some solo time as well. We will probably build together, small to start and then maybe end up trying to build something larger and more impressive.
I’ve seen some to say lower the amount of materials needed for items, and other mentioned thrall times. But for thrall times the server will be left on, so I think we are ok there?
Yeah I noticed it was pretty quick. Maybe double?
I would play for awhile before adjusting cost or harvest rates. If you relax those it can really detract from the game progression. After playing awhile, you could adjust them slowly, but if you relax them from the start it can make the game way too easy and almost trivial.
Oh question on the damage, curious why change it? Is that to make it a bit more challenging for 2 players? We set the base difficulty to Decadent.
I usually set it to .2 (5x normal) just so that night is kind of an event all it’s own but the exact change is kind of to taste. Its just a knob I thought I’d mention because it has no game mechanic effect but can be a big mood setter.
Ahh, good advice… yeah we can try it normal for a while and see how it goes.
I played with 0.4x it was fine, but still a bit too fast 
It’s up to you ofc…
On 0.2x I leveled to 60 in a fairly casual way in like 2 weeks of playing just a few hours every day / every other day. So that should give you an idea… It’s similar to your typical MMO leveling, but still way faster on the late levels because the curve is not that harsh for the later levels.
There are a few there that you probably want off the bat… because they’re no brainers 
For example one of them shows the stats of armor and stuff in benches before crafting… which the basegame does not. There’s a mod that fixes the issue of the map not having meteor showers… and adds their smoke back…
And there are some UI stuff that you might want… a minimap that shows clan members as well… a party interface where you can see each-others health as well as thralls… etc
Ahh, it’s really fast! Ok maybe 0.2/-0/3 is better. And yeah those are the kind of mods I think would be good to get very early on. I usually go for the QoL and aesthetic type mods, not mechanical unless I’ve really got the game down and see a need.
That’s the tricky part when adjusting those settings, you can’t really tune it for a group without increasing the difficulty for a single player. Best to tinker and find settings that work the best for all of you.
Thrall time i’d leave as is, once you find a good taskmaster the wait isn’t that bad.
Some other suggestions have been to 1.5 - 2x Harvest, but we’ll see how it goes first.
Another was to up player damage so fights are quite as hard with only a couple people. I guess we can wait and see first how tough things are?
This was one setup example I was given:
HarvestAmountMultiplier=1.500000
PlayerDamageMultiplier=1.700000
PlayerDamageTakenMultiplier=0.700000
MinionDamageMultiplier=2.00
MinionDamageTakenMultiplier=0.30PlayerStaminaCostSprintMultiplier=0.700000
PlayerStaminaCostMultiplier=0.700000PlayerActiveThirstMultiplier=0.300000
PlayerIdleThirstMultiplier=0.300000
PlayerActiveHungerMultiplier=0.300000
PlayerIdleHungerMultiplier=0.300000PurgeLevel=3
PurgeNPCBuildingDamageMultiplier=(3.000000,5.000000,7.000000,9.000000,12.000000,15.000000)
PurgePeriodicity=1
InitialPurgeDelay=20.000000
PurgePreparationTime=20.000000DayCycleSpeedScale=0.500000
NightTimeSpeedScale=0.300000
DawnDuskSpeedScale=0.400000
Oh god 
I’ve seen some of the suggestions you’ve been getting on other platforms…
Do yourself a favor and disregard any of them that suggest greater values than vanilla… especially when it comes to damage and stamina costs… like the 1.7x player damage etc… those are from people who never put in the effort to figure out the game and instead chose to “brute force” through it… it really isn’t needed…
Or better yet… try it for yourself
But here’s an example I posted in another thread today…
This is one of the most feared bosses in the game… because people never realized that it has high armor so you need weapons with high armor penetration… and it has less than 5k health otherwise (you can turn on healthbar numbers in the settings)
Haha… thanks for double checking!
I am thinking to start:
We will make the whole day/night cycle longer… 0.5 (nights don’t seem that dark in my game… calibrated monitor, gamma correct, etc…)
XP less: 0.4 (will lower if it seems to fast)
Purge set to 2 (so it can’t happen just solo)
And just see how it goes for the rest…
That pretty much sounds good yea.
You don’t need any harvest amount increase either, especially with multiple people. At first it will be slow as intended, but you get better tools and even a harvesting spell later on so it’ll speed up ridiculously (plus you can even build for it)
Also, atm the night has been replaced by an eclipse, it’s just a temporary Sorcery event, which is why it isn’t too dark.
Ahhh I saw the eclipse and was like I don’t remember that!
I played CE on launch but that was years ago!
It will mostly be 2 people, sometimes 3 just having fun exploring, adventuring and building.
Hey question, since I can tell you know what’s up with the game. Any advice or can you point me to a current list of tweaks to increase the graphical immersion/fidelity of the game? Such as draw distance, etc… I’ve seen some .ini tweaks but not sure if they are current or still viable.
I currently am using “cinematic” mode but I’m sure there is more to tweak to make it look better. Current graphics card has headroom to spare (4090). Thanks!
Oh I found this thread…
My advice would be to play standard “decadent”, this is what official Funcom servers are running otherwise you may get frustrated before you even get to experience the game. For new players, it will be hard enough until you figure stuff out.
Turn off the decay timers for thralls and buildings (2 different settings). Those are designed for public servers only.
If you wish to experience the purge mechanic, start with difficulty 3 while you are leveling and still in T1 buildings, increase it to 6 once you are level 60 and/or your buildings are upgraded. With 3 people online in the same clan, you will fill the purge bar quite quickly and depending on where your base is, you may get wiped if you are not prepared for the difficulty.