ProgressGuard

ProgressGuard adds server-authoritative personal and world progression to multiplayer Valheim while protecting less-progressed players from advanced ambient enemies and raids.

Two-stage boss progression

Every vanilla Forsaken follows a two-stage progression loop:

1. A player must damage the boss and witness its death to earn that boss's personal kill receipt.
2. A receipt holder must return the matching trophy to its Forsaken altar to commit world progression.

Boss death alone does not set the world-wide defeated_* key. At the offering, nearby receipt holders receive personal boss credit and access to the Forsaken power, the world key is committed, and withheld boss loot is released at the altar.

Party-ready offerings

The altar keeps its familiar controls. Normal E/Use selects an unlocked power, while using the matching trophy directly on the hook makes the offering.

Before accepting the trophy, the server checks every connected receipt holder who still needs credit. If everyone is within the configured altar range, the offering proceeds immediately. If someone is outside the radius, the trophy is retained and the carrier is told how many players are missing. A second use within 15 seconds deliberately proceeds without them.

In-game guidance

Players can follow the progression loop without reading external documentation:

• the first two login sessions for each character and world explain kill receipts and altar range;
• qualified fighters receive a clear kill-receipt confirmation;
• the trophy carrier is reminded to gather the group;
• connected receipt holders are told who has the trophy;
• altar hover text shows personal receipt and credit status;
• every eligible witness receives a personal progression confirmation.

Progression safety

The least-progressed connected character sets the default server-wide ceiling for managed out-of-biome ambient enemies and random raids. Bosses, event creatures, tamed creatures, native-biome enemies, dungeons, fixed spawners, and boss summons remain unaffected.

Event Monuments of Torment are blocked outside the Ashlands and allowed inside it. Clients wait for the authoritative server snapshot before applying ambient-spawn checks, preventing temporary join state from removing creatures.

Existing progress

ProgressGuard preserves progression additively. Existing world keys are never cleared, existing personal guardian-power progress is imported, and older ProgressGuard registry records are upgraded without lowering or erasing credit. Server administrators can verify connected characters with pg audit.

Configurable server rules

Server owners can configure witness distance, altar range, delayed boss loot, trophy presentation timing, trophy weight and stacking, automatic pickup, portal restrictions, ambient-enemy gates, raid limits, and biome exceptions. Server settings are authoritative and synchronized to connected players.

Changelog

0.2.2 - 2026-08-09

• Clarify boss-progression wording and simplify the package description.

0.2.1 - 2026-08-09

• Rewrite the package description to focus entirely on ProgressGuard's features and gameplay loop.

0.2.0 - 2026-08-09

• Replace ZenBossStone with an integrated, server-authoritative Forsaken altar progression system.
• Require a player to damage a boss and witness its death before recording that exact boss's kill receipt.
• Delay the matching world-wide defeated_* key until a valid trophy sacrifice.
• Grant personal boss credit only to nearby sacrifice witnesses who hold the matching kill receipt.
• Drive personal boss-stone visibility, activation, and power access from exact server credits.
• Withhold managed boss loot until sacrifice and reproduce the live boss drop table at the altar.
• Apply configurable trophy weight, stack size, auto-pickup, and portal restrictions matching the existing server profile by default.
• Preserve existing world keys, upgrade schema-1 registry tiers, and union exact legacy guardian-power keys without ever lowering progress.
• Retry legacy imports until the server resolves and acknowledges the character, fixing the profile-load/character-replication race.
• Add pg audit for connected-player migration verification and show exact kill/credit flags in registry commands.
• Enable Valheim PlayerEvents automatically by default and synchronize all new settings to required clients.
• Preserve vanilla E/Use power selection and make direct trophy-on-hook use the only sacrifice input.
• Add guidance on the first two character/world login sessions, kill-receipt confirmation, trophy-carrier party announcements, personal altar status, and credit confirmation.
• Query connected pending receipt holders before sacrifice: proceed immediately when everyone is in range, otherwise retain the trophy and show a missing-player warning before deliberate confirmation.
• Removes ZenBossStone dependency

0.1.3 - 2026-08-09

• Replace the package icon with updated ProgressGuard artwork.

0.1.2 - 2026-08-09

• Make client-side ambient spawn validation fail open until an authoritative server snapshot has been received.
• Prevent an owning client from removing existing networked creatures using default enabled settings and progression tier None during the join synchronization window.
• Preserve immediate server enforcement and run the existing loaded-creature sweep after the authoritative snapshot arrives.
• Add regression checks for unsynchronized-client, synchronized-client, and server authority behavior.

0.1.1 - 2026-08-08

• Add an optional least-progressed-online ceiling for managed random raids.
• Stop an active managed raid if a newly connected character lowers the online ceiling below its required trophy tier.
• Block new event Monuments of Torment outside the Ashlands and remove loaded event monuments found there.
• Always allow the Monument-of-Torment raid and its monuments inside the Ashlands.
• Map Hildir's quest raids to conservative boss-progression tiers.
• Fix dedicated-server character identity resolution for legacy progression imports and online safety-tier calculation.
• Let each required client report its own in-range ZenBossStone sacrifice observation to the authoritative server registry.

0.1.0 - 2026-08-07

• Initial ProgressGuard implementation.
• Record per-character progression from in-range ZenBossStone trophy sacrifices.
• Automatically import existing per-character ZenBossStone guardian-power keys on spawn.
• Synchronize the authoritative world registry and gate configuration to required clients.
• Gate post-Yagluth, post-Queen, and post-Fader ambient roamers outside their native biomes.
• Make the least-progressed connected character the default server-wide ambient-spawn safety ceiling.
• Enable early-game boss-key roamer protection by default.
• Fail safe for new ambient entries that use recognized vanilla boss-unlock keys.
• Remove already-loaded managed creatures that exceed the online ceiling outside their native biome, while exempting raids, bosses, tamed creatures, and native-biome enemies.
• Preserve raids, native-biome spawns, dungeons, fixed spawners, and boss summons.
• Add world-scoped atomic persistence and remote administrator commands.
• Add pure behavior tests and installed-API compatibility checks.