Optimal server settings for playing with randoms

[rainman895]

Playing with randoms is quite fun, you meet a lot of people and generally have a good time. In theory of course. Me experience was not very pleasant because i was playing with default settings: Survival mode, default resources and no moderation. Because of that i had: constant starvation, items got taken by people who disconnect, lack of basic resources despite having over 9001 berry bushes, twigs and grass, everyone kept dying and draining my sanity both in-game and IRL.
But i really like the idea of hosting a public server so i thought about some settings change: 
1) Admin Scoreboard mod installed
2) Resources set to more or even more than more
3) All items will drop on disconnect
4) Endless mode instead of Survival so no penalty when someone is dead
If you ever hosted a public server what were your settings? Did you like playing with random people? What would you recommend to improve the experience both for the host and the ones who join?
 

[MondayNight]

Depends. Having resources on more than default could be a bon if you run over-8-slots servers. Could. For advanced players though, anything aside default or scarcity settings is usually a turn-off. Because they manage well the survival aspect (even desiring challenges), hence "more" is redundant; not only that but on long-running worlds such setting (all on "more") means a lot more rot and other unwanted elements/entities accumulate, ultimately causing lag. More-so, usually newbies/noobs/casuals (bulk player-base) don't play on long-running worlds, even if Endless, since they really struggle to survive - and world becomes pretty hectic after first 1 in-game year, making for those categories survival even harder (lack of knowledge and/or 1st-hand experience). Usually after 1-3 in-game years you have a low number of experienced players doing advanced stuff, with casuals sparsely popping in, dying, leaving for good. Then a very big "No-No!" is the "All items will drop on disconnect": almost no self-respecting advanced player will play on such a server, since all their rare loot will be made redundant, progress too, if they willingly or erroneously (server crash) disconnect, all their gear drops only for some newbie to hoard all, die in another part of map, perhaps under a meteor field (destroying resources) or drowning at sea (loosing resources/gear to that mechanic), and so on. Is a choir if you need to disconnect solely in a remote part of map, in some hidden place to be sure next time you re-log, you access your hard-earned loot. Endless is ok, the sensible pick if wanna experience all late-game content. Aside that I would recommend you using some anti-griefing mod, and, if possible, have some trusty moderators that play on your server as much as possible. Likewise you may wanna use some world-cleaning mod to erase all rot/rotten eggs/feathers etc junk that tends to accumulate all over map over time. Gl in your endeavor.

[Pig Princess]

I would recommend classic resources. When world starts and it's twiggy tree/grass gekko world both in caves and on the surface, it usually leads to lack of mentioned resources (especially twigs because of lack of flint for axe) even more than usual; around late autumn twiggy trees are ok and I'd say are even better than regular saplings, but even on classic resources they appear quite early and you always can multiply them, grass gekko you can multiply as well if you want, also I find it more convenient for new player to pick grass in starter biome rather than search for mosaic/triple mac tusk for grass gekkos (and they can be killed by meteors, tallbirds, etc., which removes grass spawner from the world).

I support endless, as well as griefer protection and world-cleaning mods; but "more" resources endeed are turn off to advanced players and/or just won't help at all, like setting flint to "more" still result in flintless on the surface world (because if one picks 15 flint for no reason in starter biome, they will pick 30 just the same).

Also mods that affect balance too much make advanced players avoid that server, such as extra slots and other things that simplify survival.

Keep in mind that right now dropping everything option forces Wortoxes to drop souls as well (someone even created appropriate topic some time ago), so you might want to avoid that.

I would also recommend to force triple mac tusk biome, because a lot of people want cane and farming it for 6+ people with 1 spawner is not fun.