Morkhalla Progression Scaling

Deep North not hard enough? Missing the Ashlands' relentless assaults? Look no further!

This mod turns every cleared Morkhalla into another notch on the Deep North's difficulty dial. Break the Malicious Ice, start a Jotunn invasion, and the frozen north answers: more creatures, bigger packs, more stars, and Gammeltrolls waiting at the next invasion. A progression hardness tuner that grows with you, one Morkhalla at a time.

Steps

Progression works in steps: one step is one cleared Morkhalla. A Morkhalla counts as cleared when you break the Malicious Ice at the bottom and the Jotunn invasion starts. The count is saved with the world and stops at MaxSteps (3 by default, the three Morkhallas vanilla needs).

With the default settings:

Steps	Deep North spawns	Star chance	Gammeltrolls at that invasion
0	vanilla	vanilla (about 10%)	-
1	1.5x	+5	1
2	2x	+10	2
3 (max)	2.5x	+15	3

What scales

• Day and night spawns: Deep North creatures spawn more often, more of them can be around at once, and their groups are bigger.
• Morkhalla: dungeons you have not entered yet hold more creatures, spread evenly over the dungeon, and their respawning spawn areas allow more creatures at once.
• Jotunn invasion: more creatures spawn around the invasion.
• Stars: Deep North creatures that can have stars get them more often. Creatures without stars never get any.
• Gammeltrolls: each new invasion places Gammeltrolls near the ice, one per step so far. They spawn once, never respawn, and stay until killed.

Only hostile creatures are scaled: seals, fish and the invasion's meteors stay vanilla, and so does anything in ExcludedCreatures (default: Moose). Health and damage stay vanilla. Raid events are not changed at all.

Works alongside spawn and raid config mods: whatever they set is the base this mod multiplies, and it never overwrites their values.

Configuration

Where the settings are

The config file is created the first time you start the game with the mod installed:

BepInEx/config/com.jonasd.valheim.morkhallaprogressionscaling.cfg

• Mod manager (r2modman, Thunderstore Mod Manager, Gale): open your profile's config editor and pick com.jonasd.valheim.morkhallaprogressionscaling. No need to find the file.
• By hand: the BepInEx folder is in your Valheim folder, or in your mod manager profile folder. Open the file with any text editor.
• Dedicated server: edit the same file in the server's BepInEx/config folder.

Restart the game (or server) after editing the file.

Format

Plain text: a [Section] heading, then one Name = value per line. Lines starting with # are explanations and are ignored. Only change the value after the =.

[1 - Steps]
MaxSteps = 3
SpawnIncreasePerStep = 0.5
StarChancePerStep = 5
GammeltrollsPerStep = 1

[2 - General]
Enabled = true
ExcludedCreatures = Moose

Settings

Section	Setting	Default	What it does
1 - Steps	MaxSteps	3	Progression stops at this many cleared Morkhallas
1 - Steps	SpawnIncreasePerStep	0.5	Added per step to Deep North spawning: 0.5 = +50% per step (1.5x, 2x, 2.5x)
1 - Steps	StarChancePerStep	5	Percentage points of star chance added per step (vanilla is about 10%)
1 - Steps	GammeltrollsPerStep	1	Gammeltrolls per step at each new invasion (1, 2, 3)
2 - General	Enabled	true	Turns the mod on or off
2 - General	ExcludedCreatures	Moose	Creatures never scaled, comma separated prefab names (e.g. Moose,Barka)
2 - General	LogDetails	false	Writes what gets scaled to the BepInEx log, for testing
3 - Gammeltrolls	MinDistance / MaxDistance	15 / 30	How far from the ice the Gammeltrolls are placed, in metres

Set a value to 0 to turn that part off, e.g. GammeltrollsPerStep = 0 for no Gammeltrolls.

Examples

You want	Change
A gentler curve (1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x)	SpawnIncreasePerStep = 0.25
Brutal (2x, 3x, 4x)	SpawnIncreasePerStep = 1
More stars, same spawns	StarChancePerStep = 10
Only stars and Gammeltrolls	SpawnIncreasePerStep = 0
Keep growing past the third Morkhalla	MaxSteps = 5

Server or player?

On a server, the server's settings apply to every player: while connected, players' own MaxSteps, SpawnIncreasePerStep, StarChancePerStep, Enabled and ExcludedCreatures are ignored. Settings marked "Server only" in the file (everything about Gammeltrolls, CountedEvents) are only read on the server. LogDetails is each player's own. In single player, your own file is used.

Multiplayer

Install on the server and on every player. The server keeps the step count and sends its settings to all players, so everyone scales the same way.

To set the count by hand (for example on a world where Morkhallas were cleared before you installed the mod), an admin can open the console with devcommands and type setkey mps_morkhallaclears 2.