2. Meaningful PVP - One of the reasons I bought Elite was because I thought PVP would be good. But I quickly found out that Elite is like an MMO in which a level 150 can attack any level 1 that just finished the tutorial. This is just bad gameplay design. When I bought elite I figured there would be "safe zones" or some form of consequence for killing lower level players. I am not saying new players should be immune from damage, but there are a lot of different ways to make PVP meaningful and fun.
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A way to fix it is to have high security systems in which NPC enforcers can kill any player that ganks another player. NPCs would obviously need to be buffed. You should still be able to get away with this but it should be really hard for the ganker. If a player ventures out of high security systems then all bets are off and they can be killed on site without consequence.
I do not have a lot of prior MMO experience, but what experience I do have was with games far harsher than Elite. Now, I'm not saying this to disagree with you - because I do in fact agree with your points above - but rather to mention that Elite is, actually, quite "carebear" in many ways compared to other MMO games.
The whole 95% rebuy insurance thing was really eye-opening for me when I learned of it. Likewise how you can't actually lose your ship permanently, or have it or any of its items capable of being picked up. When you consider how easy it is to earn money in this game, this impression is only increased. My initial takeaway, before I'd even begun playing the game, was that loss was supposed to be pretty meaningless - a minor impediment, if any, to gameplay progress. Nothing I've experienced in my ~350hrs since has changed that impression.
They did make killing near stations pretty risky for the ganker - the station guns will easily finish you off unless you're very lucky. Likewise near fleet carriers. And of course, if you're already wanted in the system by the faction that controls the station, the security forces will attack you if your ship is scanned. But besides the ATR - the "Super Space Police" which I've still never seen in the game (I guess my notoriety hasn't gotten high enough), the NPCs are pretty weak if you're in a fully engineered murderboat.
Anyways, I wonder if FDev don't think that they've created that "protected starter system" vis-a-vis the existing Pilots Federation starter zone? It seems like they're quite eager to shunt people out into the wider, wilder world as quickly as possible - that's certainly what happened in my case, after only 3hrs of gameplay - but is the existence of the current starter systems enough for them to feel they've ticked the box? I honestly don't know.
One thing is for sure: the existing "high security" systems are anything but. Telling me, a ganker, that the police are coming in 90 seconds is meaningless when most of my "emergent content experiences" last 40 seconds or less (and to be clear, I attack
every target I see, not preferentially trying to prey on the weak or otherwise).
The same goes for flying around in allegedly "Hostile" systems, or having a "Wanted" status in a system. It just doesn't matter, and I pay absolutely no attention to it. Beating NPC interdictions is literally trivial - it's just another immersion timer, like the Braben Tunnel when jumping from low space to supercruise. First we roll to the left, then we roll to the right, then the NPC despawns and I forget about it and return immediately to my depredations.
Honestly, it's much more exciting when there's a real chance of failure and death. That's why it's so fun when people fight us - we are in fact actually looking for fights, after all. If the space police were actually a problem, it would make our "job" a lot harder, and might force us to operate in lower security or anarchy systems. But instead, it's just another case of FDev having an idea but not seeing it all the way through. Shrug?
With all that said - actual PVP is very fun in this game. Yesterday, I had the great fortune of facing off against one of the best PVP pilots, and I want you ganker-haters out there to know that he absolutely destroyed me. But it was good practice, and I will try to learn and improve. This kind of fighting is what I signed up for - the ganking is fun, too, but finding actual PVP and trying to master it is going to be the best. I've finally got my FDL engineered enough that I can participate, and I'm really looking forward to it. Have plenty of credits in the bank for rebuys, too.
