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By AydenAc
#209336 Hello! My friends are casuals when it comes to Pixelmon. I've dragged them in, introduced them to the mechanics, and over time they've come to absolutely adore it, but when they originally started, the default config settings made it almost completely unplayable for them. There are three config settings in particular that I think destroy the experience for new Singleplayers, who might not have the experience of needing to change it, or are too young to understand it:

• The Anvil Auto-Reload setting
• The Aggressive Pokemon
• And the Maximum Plants.

I've gone through the top 10 Pixelmon servers according to topminecraftservers.org and minecraft-mp.com and found that *in not a single one of them* did they have Auto-Anvil Reloading turned off. There's a mass agreements that Anvil-Reloading being disabled is an idea of the past, a massive tediously that practically not a single player wanted. This setting *needs* to be changed to on by default, if not completely removed for being obsolete.

Similarly, the Aggressive Pokemon setting isn't enabled on a single one of these, but I think this is a bit more subjective. The main issue most people have with this setting is that it's way too oppressive for new players, almost guaranteeing that they have no option but to either sit at a healer and grind to a point of survival, or leave their Pokemon fainted and ignore battling anything at all until they're more prepared. In my opinion the only way to make this option even a real option, is to either lock it to Pokemon above a certain level, or lock it to Pokemon a certain level (20+) above your own highest the way that Repel does.

Finally the Maximum Plants setting, which is actually a great one for servers, since it acts as an easy way to decrease people lagging out by limiting the amount of models loaded in at once. The issue I have with this though is that it's way too low by default, and even more than that, why is it even enabled by default? Surely the better choice would be to provide people the option for a limit, instead of the option to disable a limit?

Changing these three easy settings default would make the game significantly more open to casual players that actively want to be introduced to the game, but are put off by extra work to play a game that's primarily aimed at kids who aren't expecting it, thank you for reading ^^

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By SKyTheThunder
#209344 The auto-reloading one I can see, but the other two are very subjective.

Aggressive wild Pokémon mimic the original games forcing you to walk through grass patches to progress. Being forced into battle is a core gameplay mechanic of Pokémon, which is why it is enabled by default. The "spawnLevelsCloserToPlayerLevels" should make sure the wilds you encounter aren't too over-leveled, but you're free to opt out of either of those.

The "maximumPlants" setting is a thing because otherwise we get tons of complaints about lag, because players don't realize that covering entire landscapes in multiple layers of apricorn and berry trees impacts performance. It exists to improve quality of life for the average player, not reduce it.
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By AydenAc
#209361 The difference with aggressive Pokemon is that in the games the early route battles are always between level 2-4, and the opponents only have Normal-type moves, while in Pixelmon they can immediately range up to level 9 and have more moves available since the spawn pool stays the same as late game. A good balance could be making the aggressive Pokemon only lower level than your own, the higher level ones don't feel threatened until engaged.

One of the devs said the lag from plants has been fixed for a while and it's a balance thing, which I don't think should apply here like it does in the games, since in those you don't craft the majority of your Pokeballs.
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By SKyTheThunder
#209367 The spawn pool varies quite a lot with level, based on the min/max spawn levels. I do see how the level ranges have more of an impact on lower levels though. Might be worth fine tuning that a bit.

The current plant models are much better than the ones before that, sure - but they're still models rendered in the world, which will always take some degree of resources. And if there's too many of those that will result in lag no matter what. The defaults should allow you to maintain a decent production of balls. Plus there's always the option of buying them from a Mart.
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By AydenAc
#209369 I meant is that the spawn pool isn't limited to enemies that only have Normal-type moves & low speed like the regular games, things like Ponyta basically guarantee that you're half health down until you can get a healer. Dropping the levels for early game to 2-5 would be a great fix, another way you could go is increasing the spawn rate of Magikarps for early game since they also have Raw Fish as their drop, and right now you're almost required to play on Peaceful just because of how difficult food is to get.

Fair enough on the plants, I agree that the default right now is enough for most people
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