TBH, and this is just my opinion, i just think most players dont want to pvp in this game because its really easy to get out of these situations, there's not really a faction to pvp, and punishment for pvp is pretty harsh, atleast since the last beyond update that changed all this.
add that most of us are probably sad grown men who love over complicated games ( i know i am), especially space games and star citizen was the destiny of pc games, so.... i mean £200 for 1 ship. just 1 ship. £50 for "land insurance" on a triple A game too... what a joke.
so here we are, in elite dangerous.
i think for elite dangerous to have a working, healthy pvp, there would need to be a real incentive to do it, maybe a faction, or clan system people can sign up to join,
or a real arena where players can kill eachother without fear they're gunna have to spend tens of millions on the rebuy.
but there would have to be certain rewards too.
my idea i can think off the top of my head is, well i have 2 ideas.
1. notify every player in the bubble which system will have a pvp sign up, which planet, lets say when you go into the system map, a white marker, maybe a station or settlement, you go there, and under contacts there'll be a 'sign up for tournament' where you sacrifice cash (for arguments sake, lets say 1m) and then you get the exact planet you need to go to to take part. this would be a time limited event, where the last player standing wins the pot. after said time limit, all players still in this designated arena show up on your hud, so there's no hiding. also would deter people who run away, because if you get into orbital cruise, you forfeit your money you put into that pot. dying would give you back whatever ship you was in for no cost. that way it incentivises you to atleast give it a try, because without a feature like that, everybody would be running cheap ships.
2. mega ship battles. mega ships are already in the game. so this one would require less developing. 2 mega ships spawn in a USS or something, and every player within a certain area would be notified with "faction battle - 20m reward". when you get to the area as remarked, a huge battle, wth cruisers, ships, fighters (npcs) all battling it out in a massive space battle as far as the eye can see, like 200 ships a side with a mega ship each side fighting it out. players who've not chose a faction in the powerplay can just shoot at whatever side they want, and they will take the other role, for instance, if one of these events was taking place between the feds and the empire, and you go in as neutral, shooting the feds will ally yourself with the empire, atleast, for this event. players who've chosen an alliegence would automatically side with their faction upon disengaging into the area. if the faction they've sided with isnt involved in this battle, then the former applies, and they can just take a side.
the event ends when either megaship explodes, causing a catalystic explosion that knocks all the ships back and does significant damage to shields, but limited damage to hull (because dying to that would be annoying - but also you'd feel immersed , and feel like you really did take down a huge ship). the reward will split amongst all the players of the winning side. here, dying would force you to rebuy your ship.
i think my idea #2 is the better one tbh, because it implements things like powerplay to give it a reason to exist, because right now, it kinda doesn't, but also be super cool to seel hundreds of ships battling it out in a massive scale space battle. because thats what this game is missing. but it also is my favirote because it wouldnt be that hard to implement, as it's using elements that are already in the game, including assets, the messaging system, the mega ships, the factions, and just spawning in a bunch of ships.
the only problem is with this is lower specced pc's might drop frames when there's 2 mega ships and 400 npc not including players all firing lasers and missiles and stuff.
not exactly the best ideas, but it's the best i can come up with in 10 minutes..
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