View Distance Control

View Distance Control gives different chunk view distances to different groups of players on your server. Assign larger distances as a perk for donors or VIPs, limit guests to save bandwidth, or let the plugin automatically pull back the view distance for AFK players and restore it when they return. Getting started takes a single LuckPerms command per group; players with no matching permission fall back to the defaults in config.

Note: This plugin controls how much of the world is streamed to each player, not how much the server loads. Players see fewer chunks, but the server still keeps the same area loaded. If you want to reduce server load, lower simulation-distance in server.properties instead.

Dependencies

• LuckPerms
• EssentialsX
• PlaceholderAPI

Configuration

plugins/ViewDistanceControl/config.yml:

default-view-distance: 10       # Fallback view distance
default-afk-view-distance: 4    # Fallback AFK view distance
afk-view-distance-enable: true  # Set to false to disable AFK distance reduction
afk-distance-delay: 5           # Seconds before AFK distance applies (0 = immediate)
notify-player: false            # Notify player when their view distance changes
notify-message: "Your view distance has been changed to %viewdistancecontrol_distance%"
console-log: false              # Log view distance changes to the console
debug: false                    # Log debug messages for diagnosing listener triggers

The notify-message supports & color codes and other PlaceholderAPI placeholders.

Permissions

Node	Description
viewdistancecontrol.default.<N>	Sets normal view distance to N. Highest granted value wins.
viewdistancecontrol.afk.<N>	Sets AFK view distance to N. Highest granted value wins.
viewdistancecontrol.max.<N>	Caps the resolved view distance to at most N. Lowest granted value wins.
viewdistancecontrol.reload	Allows /vdc reload
viewdistancecontrol.get	Allows /vdc get <player> and /vdc list
viewdistancecontrol.afkbypass	Bypasses AFK view distance reduction

Example — give a VIP group a view distance of 16:

lp group vip permission set viewdistancecontrol.default.16 true

Example — cap a restricted group to at most 6 chunks, regardless of other groups:

lp group restricted permission set viewdistancecontrol.max.6 true

Note: The view distance is capped by view-distance in server.properties. If a value greater than the view-distance is set, the view-distnace would apply.

PlaceholderAPI

Placeholder	Description
%viewdistancecontrol_distance%	Player's current view distance

Commands

Command	Description
/vdc reload	Reloads config and reapplies distances to all online players
/vdc get <player>	Shows a player's current view distance and AFK state
/vdc list	Shows all online players' view distances