Terraria Classic, Expert, Master and Journey Modes for Server Hosts

The four world difficulties compared

• Classic: the standard game.
• Expert: tougher enemies with altered AI, more frequent loot, and bosses drop Treasure Bags with Expert-only items.
• Master: Expert's AI changes with higher health and damage. Each boss gives two extra drops and there is an extra accessory slot.
• Journey: extra starting items, item duplication and adjustable game mechanics.

Figures are from the Terraria Wiki's difficulty page. Journey's 0.5x is the default slider position and can be changed in game.

Setting difficulty on a dedicated server

Use the world-creation keys and leave world= pointing at a file that does not exist yet:

autocreate=2
worldname=MyJourneyWorld
difficulty=3
world=/home/terraria/.local/share/Terraria/Worlds/MyJourneyWorld.wld

After the world exists, the file decides its difficulty. Editing difficulty= later has no effect. The wiki notes that a third-party editor such as TEdit can convert a world to another difficulty, but that is unsupported by the game, can corrupt the file, and some Journey settings persist after conversion. The practical route is a new world, or loading a pre-made world of the mode you want. See the upload guide for that.

Character difficulty is separate

Players pick a character difficulty when they create their character, and it cannot be changed later: Classic, Mediumcore, Hardcore, or Journey. Classic characters drop coins on death, Mediumcore characters drop all items, and Hardcore characters die permanently and become a ghost that can watch but not affect the world. A character can join any world difficulty as long as the Journey rule is respected.

• Journey characters can only play in Journey worlds.
• Journey worlds can only be entered with Journey characters.
• A player who is rejected when joining a Journey world usually has a character of the wrong type.

How Journey Mode works on a server

Journey is the sandbox mode. Its Power Menu covers item duplication and research, time (freeze, set dawn, noon, dusk or midnight, or speed up to 24x), weather, enemy spawn rate (from 0x to 10x), infection spread, god mode, placement range, and an enemy difficulty slider from 0.5x to 3x. Research is tied to the character, and players on the same team share fully researched items.

On a dedicated server you decide who may use each power with 15 permission keys in serverconfig.txt. Each accepts the same three values:

journeypermission_time_setfrozen=1
journeypermission_time_setdawn=1
journeypermission_time_setnoon=1
journeypermission_time_setdusk=1
journeypermission_time_setmidnight=1
journeypermission_time_setspeed=1
journeypermission_wind_setfrozen=1
journeypermission_wind_setstrength=1
journeypermission_rain_setfrozen=1
journeypermission_rain_setstrength=1
journeypermission_biomespread_setfrozen=1
journeypermission_setdifficulty=1
journeypermission_setspawnrate=1
journeypermission_godmode=2
journeypermission_increaseplacementrange=2

Two details to be aware of. First, powers that change the world (time, weather, difficulty, biome spread) affect everyone who is playing, while god mode and placement range are personal. Second, the wiki lists no default for these keys, so set every key you care about explicitly rather than relying on what an unset key does.

Hosting with ChicagoServers? The Terraria server hosting page lists what is included, such as free server backups and SFTP file access.

Choosing a mode before you launch

Because difficulty is locked at creation, decide before your community invests time. A few practical points that follow from the rules above:

• Not sure? Journey is the forgiving choice for builder or creative servers, because the difficulty slider and spawn rate can be adjusted live, and the wiki notes that moving the slider unlocks that difficulty's exclusive items and drop changes.
• Expert and Master suit groups who want tougher bosses and the exclusive drops listed above. Master is the hardest: enemy health and damage are triple Classic.
• Run two worlds if needed. You can keep several world files on the server and switch between them by changing world=, but players need characters that fit whichever world is active, which in practice means Journey characters for a Journey world.
• Hardcore and Mediumcore characters change how deaths feel on any world, so agree on the rule with players ahead of time. A dead Hardcore player can rejoin with a new character to collect dropped items.

When you do restart a server on a new world, take a backup of the old world first. Moving a group between worlds is much easier when you can go back.

Console commands worth knowing

Server console commands do not need a leading slash. The wiki lists these:

Console access depends on your host.

Frequently asked questions