Difficult Raids

Do you enjoy Illager Raids?

Do you think they're too easy?

Do you want some actual rewards from the villagers for saving their lives?

If you answered yes to any of these, this mod is for you!

Overview

You pause for a second, having just defeated a raid on Hard difficulty. As you collect the metaphorical spoils of war, you wonder if the illagers are really as weak as you think. After all, you absolutely decimated their last group, are they really a threat?

Meanwhile, the Illagers have had enough. They've been getting their butts kicked since 2019, and now they want revenge. But they can't do it alone. The Illagers have only been using a fraction of their true power. Now, ready to exact vengeance, they initiate PvE skill-based matchmaking and bring out the full might of the Illager army...

Difficult Raids adds 4 new levels of Raid Difficulty and plenty of new illagers!

Raid Difficulties

• Hero – A slightly harder Raid experience. Face mostly illagers from standard Minecraft Raids, but with upgraded equipment. A couple of new recruits will show up during these Raids.
• Legend – The Illagers know you're not to be trifled with. This is the basic Raid Difficulty, where you'll face a mix of the usual illagers from standard Minecraft Raids and powerful new illagers added by this mod.
• Master – You've really angered the Illagers this time. This is the hard level of challenge, consisting of similar raiders as in Legend raids, but with much more upgraded equipment, attacks, and spells.

For the brave:

• Grandmaster – The ultimate challenge. The Illagers are not holding back. They will send armies at players each wave, with each Illagers' power at its maximum. The village probably won't survive, so maybe try to stay alive yourself...

For the insane:

DifficultRaids now features Insanity Mode. This can be toggled in-game using the /difficultraids_insanitymode command. Each Raid Difficulty (except Default) can be challenged in Insanity Mode. Currently, Insanity Mode will multiply the number of raiders that spawn each wave by a set, configurable value. This will be expanded upon in the future!

Are you sure whatever you're doing is worth it?

Additional Information:

• Expect Illagers that wield weapons to spawn with enchanted ones. On every difficulty. Enjoy!

• Certain waves are tagged as "Elite Waves". I wonder why they're called that?

• Raids will scale based on the number of players present. Raiders will get incrementally stronger as more players are fending off against the Illager armies.

• I highly recommend playing this mod with Guard Villagers - you need all the help you can get!

Starting Higher Difficulty Raids

The combined level of Bad Omen of all the players that enter the Raid determines the Raid Difficulty.

A default vanilla Raid can be summoned with a Bad Omen Level of 1. "Default" Raids, as they're called, do not feature the added illager improvements and new illager variants from this mod. Use them to practice!

Harder difficulties added by this mod correspond to the following Bad Omen levels:

• Bad Omen 1 – Default (Vanilla)
• Bad Omen 2 – Hero
• Bad Omen 3 – Legend
• Bad Omen 4 – Master
• Bad Omen 5 – Grandmaster

To get higher levels of Bad Omen in-game, defeat multiple Pillager captains. Each defeated captain grants you an extra level of Bad Omen.

Meet the Illagers

Difficult Raids adds a few new illager friends that will show up in raids.

The Warrior

Vindicators that have decided to master swords instead of axes. In doing so, they managed to increase their attack and movement speeds!

The Tank

Who needs to deal tons of damage when you can survive forever? These Illagers have sacrificed powerful weapons for full sets of enchanted armor.

The Dart

What was that? Within milliseconds, your health will disappear. Dart Illagers have insanely fast movement and attack speeds, and unleash multiple blows within seconds. They don't have much health though, so they can be taken out simply, if you can actually hit them, that is...

The Assassin

Another fast Illager? Wait, it's not going for me? Where's it headed? Raid Defeat. Assassin Illagers are just like Dart Illagers: they're fast, and attack even faster. But, they don't go for players - they target villagers and iron golems, aiming to get them victory before you even find where the Raiders spawned.

The Illusioner

Mobs that are fully implemented within Minecraft, but don't spawn, these guys will create copies of themselves, inflict blindness on targets, and fire arrows until you're gone.

The Conductor

These evokers have mastered the art of lightning. They unleash a few lightning bolts, a concentrated bolt that deals high damage, a ring of lightning that surrounds them, or a slowness bolt that weakens their targets. They aren't masters though, and their bolts can't start wildfires or convert villagers to witches.

The Necromancer

These evokers use your skills against you by reviving fallen foes as Zombies or Skeletons to attack you. They can summon minions, which have full sets of armor, or hordes, which are short-living skeletons that swarm targets. Necromancers are always looking for more to add to their army, and they will attempt to bury you as well if you get too close...

The Shaman

These evokers don't deal damage. Instead, they buff their allies with Resistance or Strength, and apply a whole assortment of debuffs to their targets.

The Frostmage

These evokers have mastered the power of ice. They emit a slowness aura around them, causing any enemies to slow down as they try to target the Frost Illager. They can freeze their targets in place, and unleash a barrage of snowballs, pestering their enemies.

Elite Raiders

On certain waves during a Raid, you will encounter Elite Raiders. These Illagers are the most powerful forces the Illager army has produced, and will show no mercy.

The number of Elite Waves per Raid Difficulty is as follows:

Note: These are values assuming Hard difficulty. On Normal or Easy, raids have less waves by default so naturally some of the later Elite Waves won't show up.

Hero: 2

Legend: 3

Master: 5

Grandmaster: 7 (All of them!)

Meet the Elite Raiders!

Nuaos, the Honored

A warrior who dreamed of being more. And so he did. Nuaos managed to train himself to the point where he absorbs damage, and unleashes it upon his enemies...

Xydrax, Windborne

An evoker who dabbled in the magic of the wind. Xydrax commands the wind like no other, able to conjure tall wind columns and a powerful vortex...

Modur, Harbinger of Thunder

A conductor enveloped with electricity. Modur is the thunder – be prepared to face ruthless storms, homing lightning bolts, and powerful concentrated lightning bolts...

Voldon, the Eternal

A necromancer who couldn't resist taking risks. Voldon's familiars are extensions of himself – powerful enough that they render Voldon defenseless, yet he seems to be impervious to damage until his familiars fall...

Raid Loot:

After winning a Raid, rewards will drop near the village center after the Raid bar goes away. You will find plenty of useful resources, and the amount of loot that drops increases with Raid Difficulty. Raids will also drop enchanted gear. On higher difficulties, you may even acquire gear with enchantments beyond the limits of vanilla Minecraft...

For the brave players that manage to complete a Grandmaster Raid, a set of Grandmaster Armor awaits them. This armor is enchanted with a very high level of Protection, and provides a constant Regeneration II and Speed I while the full set is equipped.

From all Raids, the loot also contains new, unique variants of the classic Totem of Undying. All of these variants will revive you upon taking fatal damage, but also provide a little extra effect when that happens! Raids now also drop any of 7 new treasure enchantments that will surely assist you in your future conquests!

Totem Variants

Totem of Invisibility: Grants you invisibility with a little bit of speed. Get to safety!

Totem of Lightning: Nearby enemies within a short radius will be struck by lightning. Take out those Conductors with their own magic!

Totem of Poison: Poisons nearby enemies. Now witches will get a taste of their own medicine!

Totem of Speed: Grants you immensely fast speed for a brief period of time. Are you faster than Darts now?

Totem of Vengeance: Grants you extra regeneration as well as strength for a bit. Take out your revenge!

Totem of Destiny: The enemy that killed you will be killed as well. Nearby enemies will also take some damage, scaling as they are farther away from where you died. If you're dying, so are they!

Totem of Levitation: Nearby enemies will start floating into the sky. What a beautiful sky!

Totem of Protection: Summons 2 Iron Golems to help you out. Now you get to bring in reinforcements!

Totem of Freezing: Freezes nearby enemies. So cool!

Totem of Persistence: Has a chance not to be consumed when it gets used. A literal Totem of Undying!

Totem of Teleportation: Teleports you to a nearby area, hopefully away from enemies. This is what it feels like to be an Enderman!

Totem of Fireballs: Launches fireballs in all directions around the player. Fire away!

Enchantments

Bane of Raiders: Deal increased damage to Raiders!

Defender's Vanish: When taking damage, you have a random chance to go invisible, useful for some quick escapes!

Lightning Resistance: Take reduced damage from lightning bolts! This should be helpful against a certain Evoker....

Projectile Evasion: Random chance for projectiles to deal no damage! Take that, Pillagers!

Critical Strike: Increases the chance for any hit that you make to be a critical hit, dealing extra damage!

Critical Burst: Increases the damage that a critical hit deals! Combine with Critical Strike for the ultimate critical hits!

Critical Resistance: A very small chance to take heavily reduced damage!

Configuration

DifficultRaids is mod is highly configurable. Almost every aspect of the added difficulty, and attacks of the custom illagers can be configured through the server config, different for each difficulty. You can also disable the added difficulty (and all features) of this mod by changing the Raid Difficulty setting to Default.

Some configuration options are only available through datapacks. For more information, see the GitHub page for datapack configuration.

Raid waves are also configurable, using datapacks. There's a separate guide for that style of datapack here.

Future Plans

• More compatibility (Compatibility with Guard Villagers has been added already)

• Balancing

• More raid loot?

• More illagers!

• Increasing the number of waves in a Raid

If you're really good at texturing and want to help out by texturing some of the Illagers or Totems in this mod, please reach out to me! I would really appreciate anyone's help, even if you texture one entity or item.

Compatibility

I have not explicitly tested compability with other mods (except the few shown below). However, in general, this mod should be compatible with any mod that doesn't heavily change Raid structure with mixins.

Mods that add new Raiders are also compatible – the features and wave spawns for regular raids will be used in all higher difficulties unless I add explicit compatibility.

If you'd like to see compability with a mod that adds Raiders, please post an issue to the GitHub repository. I am more than happy to incorporate any mods that add to the Raid experience!

Explicit compatibility (meaning mobs from these mods will spawn in custom amounts based on Raid Difficulty, and in some cases, gain enchanted weaponry at higher difficulties):

Guard Villagers – Guards will try to help you fend off against the onslaught.

Hunter Illager – Hunter Illagers

Enchant with Mob – Enchanters

It Takes a Pillage – Archers, Skirmishers, Legioners

Savage and Ravage – Griefer, Executioner, Trickster, Iceologer

Illage & Spillage – Igniter, Twittollager, Preserver, Absorber, Crocofang, Magispeller, Spiritcaller, Freakager

Dungeons Mobs – Mountaineer, Royal Guard, Geomancer, Illusioner (Dungeons Mobs version), Mage, Iceologer, Windcaller, Squall Golem, Redstone Golem

Note: The 1.18.2 version only has explicit compatibility for Guard Villagers and Hunter Illager.

Modpack Use

Go ahead!

Contributors

CalculusMaster (me) for the main coding & development.

Sheppenings for the mod's icon and title image!

These artists were generous enough to provide illager textures (as detailed below). Thank you so much to all of you!

SystemLoadingLIVE: Assassin

kaiya: Necromancer

アラン ナメカジ: Conductor, Shaman, Tank

Rogeriforloki: Warrior Illager

IvanTheSpaceBiker: Dart Illager, Nuaos, Xydrax, Modur, Voldon, (1.19.2+) Frostmage

PixG13: Voldon Familiar (standard)

Yoler_Toons: Voldon Familiar (hidden)