Configuration

Ascend reads everything game-specific from plugins/Ascend/config.yml. This page covers the main sections admins tune: stage-order:, stages:, abilities:, and sidebar:. Top-level game: and lifecycle: are lighter and documented inline below.

Reload with /tea reload after editing.

game: - match behavior

game:
  devolve-on-death: true
  max-match-seconds: 300
  celebration-fireworks: 5
  death-spectator-seconds: 3

• devolve-on-death - when a player dies, drop one stage (floor at 0). Set false for pure kill-accumulation.
• max-match-seconds - hard LIVE cap. 0 disables. When reached, highest-stage player wins; ties = no winner.
• celebration-fireworks - fireworks spawned at the winner on victory.
• death-spectator-seconds - seconds held in SPECTATOR before respawning.

lifecycle: - phase timers

lifecycle:
  max-wait-seconds: 120
  countdown-seconds: 30
  starting-seconds: 5
  ending-seconds: 10
  title-countdown-threshold: 10        # at or below this many seconds, big title overlay kicks in
  chat-announce-at-seconds: [30, 15]   # chat announcements above the threshold

Seconds at or below title-countdown-threshold use a big title + pling; anything in chat-announce-at-seconds above the threshold posts a chat message. As admin, /tea arena start <id> collapses the current phase timer so a match can be kicked off without waiting.

stage-order: - the ladder

The ladder is driven by the top-level stage-order: array. Stage ids appear in this list in the order players progress through them; the last id is the apex (the winning stage). Stage ids defined under stages: but absent from this list are simply ignored - leave them off to disable.

stage-order:
  - iron_golem
  - blaze
  - spider
  - creeper
  - slime
  - chicken

To swap, reorder, or add stages, edit this list. To use one of the bundled extras (wither_skeleton, piglin, enderman, wolf, phantom, magma_cube, warden), insert its id where you want it on the ladder.

If stage-order is missing or empty, Ascend falls back to the hardcoded default ladder (Iron Golem → Blaze → Spider → Creeper → Slime → Chicken) and logs a warning.

stages: - per-stage tuning

Each entry under stages: defines the stats and ability for one stage id. The id is the YAML key. Order in stages: doesn't matter - the ladder is taken from stage-order:.

stages:
  iron_golem:
    name-key: ascend.stage.iron_golem
    ability: ground_pound
    mob-type: IRON_GOLEM
    combat-item: IRON_INGOT
    max-health: 40
    melee-damage: 6
    walk-speed: 0.20
    knockback-resistance: 0.5
  blaze:
    # ...

All stage fields

Field	Type	Default	What it does
name-key	string	ascend.stage.<id>	Translation key for the stage display name.
ability	string	none	Id of a registered StageAbility (or blank/missing for no ability).
mob-type	EntityType	none	Bukkit EntityType name used for the morph.
head-material	Material	none	Optional worn helmet.
combat-item	Material	STICK	Hotbar slot-0 flavor item; damage comes from melee-damage, not this.
info-icon	Material	MobHeads.iconFor(mob-type)	Slot-8 icon in the stage info item.
max-health	double	20.0	Half-hearts of max HP.
melee-damage	double	3.0	Half-hearts per punch.
walk-speed	double	0.22	Player.setWalkSpeed value (0.20 = vanilla).
knockback-resistance	double 0.0-1.0	0.0	1.0 = total immunity.
fall-damage-multiplier	double 0.0-1.0	1.0	0 = immune, 0.5 = half, 1 = full.
water-damage	bool	false	Takes damage while touching water.
speed-amplifier	int	0	0 = none, 1 = Speed I, 2 = Speed II.
double-jump	bool	false	Allows a mid-air leap (Chicken).
mob-size	int	0	Slime / magma cube morph size (vanilla values are 1, 2, 4). 0 keeps the LibsDisguises default.

If you add brand new stages, don't forget to add matching translation keys (ascend.stage.<id>) to every plugins/Ascend/lang/*.yml, and slot the id into stage-order.

abilities: - per-ability tuning

Every ability ships its full tuning surface as YAML keys under abilities.<id>. Durations, damages, and cooldowns are all in ticks (20 ticks = 1s) unless otherwise noted. Omit a key to keep the bundled default. The bundled config.yml lists every ability and every key with comments.

abilities:
  flamethrower:
    duration-ticks: 30
    tick-damage: 0.5
    fire-ticks: 40
    tick-interval: 4
    range: 4.5
    cone-width: 1.2
    cooldown-ticks: 80
  sulphur_bomb:
    damage: 9.0
    radius: 4.5
    knockback: 1.4
    max-flight-ticks: 40
    cooldown-ticks: 60
  ground_pound:
    radius: 4.0
    damage: 4.0
    cooldown-ticks: 200
    launch-velocity: 1.2
  # ... web, slime_slam, blink, crossbow_volley, dive_bomb, egg_blaster,
  # double_jump, fireball, leap_rip, molten_bounce, sonic_boom, soul_slash
  # all expose their full tuning surface; see the bundled config for the
  # complete list of keys.

The double_jump block tunes the chicken's mid-air leap (forward, up) and its anti-hover cooldown (cooldown-ms).

sidebar: - per-state scoreboard

Ascend attaches a per-player scoreboard to everyone in the arena. Lines are MiniMessage templates with theme tags like <primary>, <accent>, <muted> and per-state placeholders:

sidebar:
  title: "<primary><bold>Ascend</bold></primary>"
  waiting:
    - "<secondary>Kit:</secondary> <accent><kit></accent>"
    - "<secondary>Waiting for</secondary> <accent><waiting-for></accent> <secondary>more</secondary>"
  countdown:
    - "<secondary>Kit:</secondary> <accent><kit></accent>"
    - "<secondary>Starting in</secondary> <accent><seconds>s</accent>"
  live:
    - "<secondary>Kit:</secondary> <accent><kit></accent>"
    - "<secondary>Ability:</secondary> <accent><ability></accent>"
    - ""
    - "<primary>Players:</primary>"
    - "@players: <accent><player-name></accent> <secondary>(<player-stage>/<max>)</secondary>"
    - ""
    - "<secondary>Time:</secondary> <accent><time></accent>"
  ended:
    - "<accent><winner></accent> <success>wins!</success>"
    - "<secondary>Your final stage:</secondary> <accent><stage>/<max></accent>"

Per-state placeholders

• waiting - <kit>, <waiting-for>, <min>, <time>, <seconds>
• countdown - <kit>, <time>, <seconds>
• live - <kit>, <stage>, <max>, <kills>, <alive>, <time>, <seconds>, <ability>, <ability-hint>, <ability-cooldown>
• ended - <kit>, <stage>, <kills>, <winner>

<time> renders as mm:ss (or hh:mm:ss for long matches). Raw seconds are on <seconds>.

@players: expansion

Any line starting with @players: is expanded to one line per arena participant; the viewer's own line gets a (you) suffix. Per-player placeholders inside an @players: template: <player-name>, <player-stage>, <player-stage-name>, <player-ability>.

Max ~14 lines per state after @players: expansion - beyond that, scoreboard slots run out.

Chat and stats

Ascend uses TeaCore's chat router, so the kill feed and game messages stay inside the arena and don't leak across matches running on the same server.

Per-match results are written to the ascend_stats table (uuid, kills, deaths, evolves, games_played, games_won). Schema is applied by TeaCore's migration runner on first boot from V001__init.sql. Query per-player totals with /tea stats [player].