Mob cap easily reached

[bloodycoffin]

There are situations where the mob cap is easily reached due to the minority of players saturating the majority of the mob limit. Mob farms and unlit caves are the primary reasons.

[ChipWolf]

The per-player-mob-spawns config option might be the first step in resolving this issue, it was implemented in PaperMC/Paper#2171. This was formerly a plugin, it was then added to Paper.

Unfortunately, I don't believe it's the entire solution. This Reddit thread involving a PaperMC developer, @electronicboy, highlights some of the considerations around the use of per-player-mob-spawns:

Enabling this option might artificially seem to increase the mob limit per-player-mobs-spawns doesn't change how the limit is calculated

The limit is calculated globally based on the number of players, basically, mob limit * player count / 289

The idea is that instead of a bunch of players amassing a hefty % of the limit and other players getting a smaller count and obviously being upset about that, you can instead apply the limit per player, and reduce the mob limit overall and have a more consistent experience

It's a case of toying with the values and seeing what works for you - mob spawning, in general, is a mess I've seen people pull the mob limit down to mid-30s and still complain of having too many mobs I'd say 45 is a good starting point and tweak as needed

Additionally; I found an interesting write-up on the mob spawn changes in Paper from 1.13+ which highlights some other issues.

[bloodycoffin]

Enabled "per-player-mob-spawns" in paper.yml and lowered the mob cap in bukkit.yml for monsters to 45. Asked for player feedback to see how well this does: Alexon, wai_tea, @Acuilaa

[bloodycoffin]

Changed to 70, can freely change between values if players give feedback that this is too much.