I can’t answer that question, because I play almost exclusively in Open.
So I’ll answer the related question: “What would tempt you to be the
aggressor and/or fight back in PvP?”
The TLDR answer is, essentially, “Nothing.” For me, there are three sources of friction to actually fight back in PvP, outside a “vanilla only” tournament: extreme risk/reward imbalance, opportunity cost, and the high cost to entry.
The first, the extreme risk/reward imbalance is rather simple: I’m a transport player by nature, so any PvP scenario I’m likely to be hugely imbalanced in the attacker’s favor to begin with. In addition, I’ll be risking hundreds, if not thousands, of merits and kilocredits, for the sake of less than a hundred? That’s not a risk I’m barely willing to take even in PvE, where the odds are typically in
my favor, and I can easily escape if I bite off more than I can chew.
The second is the opportunity cost: Is a PvP fight, especially between two meta-builds, be worth my time and be fun? The answer is a resounding NO on both fronts. PvP is an endurance contest, first and foremost, and that kind of thing is not my definition of fun. Plus, in the time it takes to resolve the conflict, I’d be able to earn ten times the merits I’d earn in the fight.
The last is the high cost of entry. The NPCs I typically encounter don’t require the heavy engineering required for PvP meta-builds. G3 engineering provides over 90% of the benefits of G5 engineering, at currently 2% of its cost, and is sufficient to
escape from a PvP attack. Furthermore,
escaping from a PvP attack requires much fewer modules be engineered, relative to the attacker. Finally, I’ve always found that I can easily gather sufficient engineering materials alongside the activities I enjoy, rather than having to go out of my way for them. In short, if I wanted to actually
fight back, I’d have to grind, and I’d rather not ruin my game that way.
