Harder MC (Hardcore-Hearts)

Start with 3 hearts, develop your character, and defend your base against undead raids. Face stronger bosses, dangerous mobs, new weapons, and the Undead King!

Hardcore Hearts — survival where every heart must be earned.

Hardcore Hearts is an extensive datapack for Minecraft Java 1.21.11 that makes survival more challenging through character progression, new mob abilities, raids on your base, and a custom boss.

You begin with just 3 hearts, reduced damage, slower mining, and limited luck. Defeat mobs, explore structures, earn advancements, and overcome bosses to grow stronger.

The world becomes more dangerous too. Zombies gain better equipment, familiar enemies use new attacks, and a raid begins every ten in-game days. Losing a raid can leave behind an undead camp that plunges the world into endless night.

Your ultimate objective is to find the underground hall, awaken the Undead King, and defeat him to permanently stop future mob raids.

The datapack is designed for challenging survival. It works in both Survival and Hardcore; it does not enable Hardcore mode itself. No mods are required for its core mechanics.

Character Progression

• Health: Start with 3 hearts. Your first victories over the Ender Dragon, Wither, and Warden each grant 2 additional hearts. Defeating an Evoker for the first time grants 1 more, bringing your maximum to 10 hearts.
• Strength: Starts at 50% and gradually increases to 100% after 300 mob kills. Affects base melee damage and supported arrows.
• Mining: Starts at 50% of normal mining speed and increases to 100% after mining 400 blocks.
• Movement: Starts at 40% of normal speed. Your first visits to a village, shipwreck, Nether, Nether fortress, End city, and ancient city increase it to 80%.
• Luck: Initially applies an additional 50% chance to retain block drops and a 60% retention factor to chest loot. Six advancements gradually restore both values to 100%.
• Progress Messages: Each upgrade explains the bonus you received.
• Persistent Progress: Each player has individual progression that is saved between sessions.

Raids and Undead Camps

• Raids occur every 10 in-game days, with a warning beforehand.
• Raids become stronger over time, progressing from 3 waves to 4 and eventually 5.
• Enemies spawn on the surface around the defense point. The sky turns dark red during the attack.
• Raiders glow green, and a boss bar tracks the current wave. Raid creepers remain visible.
• Winning a raid creates a reward chest. Later raids offer more valuable loot.
• The death of the selected defender results in defeat and the appearance of an undead camp.
• Ignoring a raid for 75 minutes also creates a camp and starts killing villagers and animals within a 400-block radius.
• There are three camp layouts. Destroy five flags to liberate a camp.
• While at least one camp exists, night continues indefinitely, hostile mobs gain Strength II, villager trading is blocked, and animal breeding is disabled.
• These restrictions end once all camps have been liberated.

The Undead King and His Hall

Each world receives one Main Hall of the Undead King, an underground structure located within 700 blocks of the world's original spawn point.

• The King sits on his throne and watches nearby players. The first hit awakens him.
• He has 200 health points and two combat phases.
• During the first phase, he summons reinforcements, creates fire, and throws bone blocks.
• During the second phase, he uses cobwebs, a skeleton healer, and a slow-moving cluster of bone blocks that deals 3 hearts of damage before protection.
• Creepers summoned by the King do not explode.
• The skeleton healer restores the boss's health. Killing it interrupts the healing.
• Victory rewards: 10 diamonds, 10 explosive arrows, and a Mending book.
• Defeating the King permanently disables future custom mob raids in that world.
• Barrels inside the hall contain resources, explosive arrows, and rare loot, including a trident, Mending, and a diamond shovel with Sharpness VII.
• A locator pointing toward the hall can be purchased from a zombie villager. It provides direction and coordinates rather than a terrain map.

New Zombie Variants

• Zombie Doctor: Appears in swamps at night, heals and buffs allies, and attacks players with potions.
• Infector Zombie: Appears in the Deep Dark and creates a patch of sculk with sensors and a source of additional zombies. Destroying the central block stops them from spawning.
• Giant Zombie: A rare, enlarged enemy with increased health, jumping attacks, shockwaves, and thrown blocks.

Reworked Bosses

• Ender Dragon: Gains a diving shockwave attack and a direct charge after all End crystals are destroyed.
• Wither: Summons wither skeletons, breaks through obstacles with charges, and launches enhanced projectiles. Regeneration is disabled, and vulnerable periods provide openings between attacks.
• Warden: Moves faster, jumps toward players, breaks passages through obstacles, and throws blocks. Also receives its own boss bar.
• Evoker: Has 85 hearts and two phases. It initially floats beneath the protection of ten spheres while summoning a group of enemies, then switches to enchanted sword attacks. The number of Evokers in a nearby group is limited.

New Abilities for Familiar Mobs

• Zombies and Husks: Gain stronger armor and weapons as the world ages. Their added equipment does not drop.
• Regular Creepers: Become invisible beyond 9 blocks and have a larger explosion radius. Raid creepers and the King's creepers follow separate rules.
• Skeletons and Their Variants: Receive shields and Power IV bows. An axe hit removes the shield.
• Spiders: Gain Strength II and create cobwebs beneath players.
• Cave Spiders: Some become ambush variants that obstruct your view at close range and deal periodic damage.
• Bats: Inflict blindness on nearby players.
• Phantoms: Gain Strength III and cause blindness at close range.
• Blazes: Ignite nearby players and attack with a fire beam that can be blocked by taking cover.
• Squids: Grab players underwater and damage them.
• Drowned: Drag players downward. Escape by fighting back or killing the mob holding you.
• Hoglins: Grab players and launch them into the air.
• Magma Cubes: Set players on fire through combat contact.
• Slimes: Apply strong slowness.
• Witches: Once per witch, throw a decorative green potion and raise three zombies and one skeleton from the ground.
• Vindicators: Can place TNT once to breach a wall blocking their target. This explosion does not harm hostile mobs protected by the datapack.
• Pillagers: Have a 10% chance to spawn with TNT instead of a crossbow and gain Speed III. Approaching a player starts a five-second fuse.
• Iron Golems: Build upward to reach players above them and are protected from lava.
• Breezes: Fire an enlarged wind charge that deals damage and knocks entities back.
• Shulkers: Are protected from projectiles even while open.
• Guardians: Dash toward players.
• Elder Guardians: Perform a ground-slam attack and additionally drop diamonds and a Respiration IV book.
• Untamed Horses, Skeleton Horses, and Zombie Horses: Strike players who approach from behind.

Items, Crafting, and Trading

• Throwable TNT: Purchased from zombie villagers, thrown with right-click, and detonates three seconds after landing.
• Explosive Arrows: Crafted using one ordinary arrow and eight ordinary TNT blocks. Base damage is 15 health points to the direct target and 5 to surrounding targets. They do not destroy blocks, and character strength affects their damage.
• Trident Upgrades: Combine a sword, pickaxe, or axe with a trident in the crafting grid. The upgrade increases reach, while swords and axes also gain damage. Existing durability and enchantments are preserved.
• 43 More Demanding Recipes: Weapons and tools require two additional string and two leather. Bows, crossbows, netherite upgrades, and trident upgrades do not receive this extra cost.
• Zombie Villager Trading: Adult zombie villagers sell special goods and gain trading levels while remaining hostile. Their special zombie trades disappear after curing.
• Regular Trading Restrictions: Many powerful librarian books, diamond equipment sold by relevant professions, and the fletcher's sticks-for-emeralds trade are removed.

Other Balance Changes

• Mace: Maximum raw damage is 70, followed by a five-minute cooldown after a successful attack.
• Spears: The right-click attack is capped at 25 damage and has a three-minute cooldown. The regular jab remains available.
• Enchantments: Armor and elytra can have up to three vanilla enchantments; other items with durability can have up to four. Excess enchantments are removed at a cost of 20 durability each.
• Elytra: Are found with only one durability remaining. Mending is removed and causes additional durability loss.
• Protective Armor: Certain full armor sets with high Protection levels slow down their wearer.
• Vanilla Illager Raids: Evokers are replaced with Illusioners that provide a separate reward.
• Sleep Deprivation: Gradually causes weakness, mining fatigue, slowness, and blindness. Sleeping removes these penalties.
• Lava: Bypasses ordinary armor protection. Protective enchantments and effects still apply.
• Minecarts: Travel much faster on straight rails and deal collision damage.
• Beds in the Nether and End: Allow you to lie down, but explode when you leave the bed.
• Respawn Anchors in the End: Instead of exploding, teleport you to a distant random location and temporarily grant levitation.

Four Languages

Supports Russian, English, French, and Spanish.

An English language-selection menu appears when you first join. You can reopen it through the pause menu. The language used for messages, boss bars, and custom mob names is shared across the world.

To translate item descriptions and enchantments, enable the additional HardcoreHearts Languages resource pack and select the matching language in Minecraft's settings.

Installation and Compatibility

1. Back up your world.
2. Place the datapack ZIP in your world's datapacks folder.
3. Fully restart the world or server.
4. Choose a language in the menu that appears.

When updating, remove the previous Hardcore Hearts version first. Do not install multiple versions simultaneously.

Game version: Minecraft Java 1.21.11. Current release: 6.3 BETA.

The datapack changes recipes, loot tables, mob behavior, and some dimension rules, so compatibility with other major datapacks requires testing. Raids can place a significant load on servers, and generating camps and the hall changes blocks in the world.