"multicast_limit_global" WhatsApp preferences parameter

I managed to make my my preferences file in WhatsApp read only. obviously I am rooted and that is through magisk on Android 10.
I set
"multicast_limit_global" WhatsApp preferences parameter to a non default value yet it does not work.
question is why so is it taking a parmanent override from the server ? or its mentioned in another file and that parameter takes into effect ignoring this one.

incidentally it worked immediately after I made the change but after a few hours it’s stopped working and that has been the case even now and as I just checked my set value is still in there
I set other parameters in the parameters file also to non-default and they do have effect but this one does not….. pretty strange eh ?

any idea how these parameters are influenced ?