How to Adjust Zombie Difficulty and Horde Settings on Your 7 Days to Die Server
Tune zombie speed, feral behavior, blood moon frequency, and horde size to match your server's difficulty goals — from casual to nightmare.
All Settings in serverconfig.xml
Every zombie difficulty setting lives in serverconfig.xml. Stop the server, edit, save, restart.
Zombie Movement Speed
Speed values: 0 = Walk, 1 = Jog, 2 = Run, 3 = Sprint, 4 = Nightmare
<property name="ZombieMove" value="0" /> <!-- Daytime speed -->
<property name="ZombieMoveNight" value="1" /> <!-- Nighttime speed -->
<property name="ZombieFeralMove" value="2" /> <!-- Feral zombie speed -->
<property name="ZombieBMMove" value="3" /> <!-- Blood moon horde speed (default 3) -->
Daytime zombies and nighttime zombies can have different speeds — running servers where the night genuinely feels dangerous is a popular setup.
Feral Zombie Behavior
<property name="ZombieFeralSense" value="0" />
Values: 0 = off, 1 = day only, 2 = night only, 3 = always on
Feral sense controls how aggressively ferals detect and pursue players at distance. Setting this to 3 makes ferals very aggressive regardless of time — expect them to path to you across long distances.
Blood Moon Settings
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency" value="7" /> <!-- Days between blood moons -->
<property name="BloodMoonRange" value="0" /> <!-- Random variation in +/- days -->
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount" value="8" /> <!-- Max zombies attacking at once -->
BloodMoonFrequency— how often horde night happens. Default 7. Set to 1 for daily hordes. Set to 0 to disable blood moons entirely.BloodMoonRange— adds randomness so players can't predict the exact night. A range of 2 means the horde happens within ±2 days of the scheduled day.BloodMoonEnemyCount— how many zombies actively attack during horde night. Range is 8–64. Higher = more intense but also more server load.
Disabling Zombie Spawning Entirely
<property name="EnemySpawnMode" value="false" />
Setting this to false turns off all zombie and enemy spawning. Useful for building/creative-focused servers.
Enemy Difficulty (Feral Mode)
<property name="EnemyDifficulty" value="0" />
0 = Normal, 1 = Feral. Setting this to 1 makes every zombie behave like a feral zombie — they don't lose interest, always run, and ignore obstacles more aggressively.
Preset Recommendations
Casual/New Player Server:
<property name="ZombieMove" value="0" />
<property name="ZombieMoveNight" value="1" />
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount" value="8" />
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency" value="14" />
Standard Survival:
<property name="ZombieMove" value="0" />
<property name="ZombieMoveNight" value="2" />
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount" value="16" />
<property name="BloodMoonFrequency" value="7" />
Hardcore/Nightmare:
<property name="ZombieMove" value="3" />
<property name="ZombieMoveNight" value="4" />
<property name="ZombieBMMove" value="4" />
<property name="BloodMoonEnemyCount" value="64" />
<property name="EnemyDifficulty" value="1" />
<property name="ZombieFeralSense" value="3" />