I'm pretty sure this post is going to spark a massive heated debate on both sides of the PVP issue, but I have a simple solution that could easily solve the entire thing. There's a massive imballance between pvp and pve builds due to engineering and the time investment required to fully outfit every part in your build with the required upgrades. On top of the time sink, we have the fact that the upgrades are just so much more powerful than their non-engineered counterparts. This completely decimates people who may have chosen not to buy the horizons pass. Instead of arguing over game modes, we should look at the ballance issues that adding engineering has brought to the table and find ways to reduce the grind required to fully engineer a ship so that more people are better able to survive against fully engineered ships. I am in support of an open PVE mode, but that's not the point of this thread, so let's talk ballance. I'm looking for suggestions here on how to make stock ships a bit better and reduce the reliance on engineering for more casual players who may not have the 10-30 hours to grind out all the rare materials they need to max out their ship, and keep in mind, that's just for one ship.
TL/DR, go and read at the bottom,
If you want to solve the problem, look the incentives for doing certain stuff and and also what consequences certain actions has, in this case, what is the cost of being killed by another player. As the incentive for a player to hunt another player is quite different in most cases compared to why an NPC is going after a player..
For Open PvP and Open PvE
One of the biggest things that is brought up is the cost associated with loosing your ship, not only just the rebuy, but any cargo/bonds/vouchers,/Exploration data etc.
So the loss for the player can be quite significant. Also where you start after getting killed could have a huge impact before as well, and it still have an impact, as seems to matter if it was a player or NPC that killed you. NPC = start closest station, Player = your last docked station.
Imbalance between players, this is also a very brought up topic, as how you have decided to outfit your ship really does matter. No surprise that a ship outfitted for a single kill will outperform any other ship outfitted for other tasks. Engineering did nothing to make this balance any better. One common argument why this is not a problem, outfit your ship properly.... What is talked about very little is the skill difference here, as most of the time, people that are the targets have no experience on this, and those dong this, have in relation done this alot more, and thus we have pretty significant skill skap. And when the attacker missjudges the situation, and ends up loosing, they are bad sport all of a sudden and Combat logg to save their ship/deny the other the win/etc/etc...
Exit game with timer, this is another hot topic, as you can choose to exit the game but if you are in danger, there is 15 seconds timer, before you can leave the game, This have been used by many players to actually escape PvP encounters and now the hunters cry faul for doing this. But FDev have said that this is approved mechanics and maybe the timer can be adjusted, but the function will remain. Often this is grouped together with Combat Logg, where you by other means kills the game process/pull the network, etc, etc, to leave the game instantly. This is an abuse of the game system, and is not allowed according to TOS, problem is that from programmatically standpoint, it is hard to identify the abuse from just real life bad internet connection, crashed game, crashed OS, etc. And FDev have adopted the you are innocent until proven Guilty stance, so we do not punish honest players for things they cannot control, but this also makes it ALOT easier for players to abuse this. Add to this that FDev do not tell you about any actions they might have taken, ie you will not get a we have banned XX for combat logging on you reporting this.
We do also have 3 modes of the game, Solo, Private Group and Open, and here Solo/PG is something the ones that like to hunt players really hate, as that means less players for them to hunt and kill. According to statement from FDev, Open is the most popular mode, and that Solo and Private Group is not likely to be removed. It is
And over years, nothing much have change regarding this.
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So Game modes, they are here to stay, and as much as some people would like a Open PvE, I do not think that is going to happen, as that will bring us LOTS of funky behaviour, as we cannot allow collision between player ships, as this can be abused in so many ways. So the only safe way to handle that is to remove player collisions. Stuff like healing beams, creates another problem, as we obviously do not allow attack damage between players. And the list of things that needs to be changed, and messed around with goes on. So this is why I do not think why Open PvE never will happen.
Imbalance between players and how they outfit their ships, this is never going to be solved. And the notion that you need to outfit your ship properly is most of the time, just hidden Git Gud argument, to justify that you where just bad and that is why you got blown up. But with most arguments, there is a learning curve, some builds works better than others, sadly there is no real way to learn about this in the game, but trial and error. Flying cargo in a shieldless ship is obviously more risky than having a shield to begin with. But skill of the player can mitigate or even overcome such things. I have friend who routinely flies his Cutter in Open with shields. I do not. I have lost my Cutter more than my friend. but then again, I do shoot al pirates that come and hunt me, my friend evades them. Skill and playstyle.
How to exit the game when in danger, I doubt that the system is going to change much.
As for Combat logging, I do not expect FDev to change their stance this either, it is against the TOS, and they will nut pre-emptively punish player for this occurrence. But I do expect that we will see some changes in how they will detect abuse of this, as they can correlate how you play and when certain actions happens, for example, if you "only" loose your connection/process dies/etc when you are in a fight you started and are "loosing", we have a pattern that we can act on. This is what I believe the Karma system is meant to be, to act on what you do and over time react back on you. If this is a correct assumption, then Karma system will never punish you straight away for somethign you did, like C&P does.
TL/DR go HERE
So then we are left with the losses that happens when your ship is destroyed. Here we can actually do things.
Why do people do this to unwillingly participant, because they get a kick out of it, and it gets even better if their victim cries about it, sent a "hate" message etc. We can never truly prevent this without removing PvP altogether, as even in PvP this happens too. To mitigate this, we can reduce the burden on the victim, by essentially making this as costless as possible to them.
*No Rebuy cost
*No loss of NPC Pilot
*No loss of bonds/vouchers/exploration data
*No loss of cargo, any cargo you had when you died, is put back, Any mission specific cargo are restocked at the originating station, we cannot simply restock a ship full of void opals that a hatchet breaker limpet released, as this would allow players to do duplicate these. So this would be an abuse. Player piracy is a thing, and is unlikely to be removed. But griefers who is out to kill you no matter what, will most likely not use hatch breaker limpets.
*New options to respawn, last docked station (for lost mission cargo), last system you jumped from, or closest station.
* Players always have the option upon respawn, to change game mode, evade the "griefer" that way. so get your ship back, and switch to solo, and be on your way. Player can also use their option to block the griefer, and thus reducing the likelyhoood to instance with said player in the future.
So in most cases, the player that is getting killed, loose nothing but some time. So this now makes dying to another player to be more of minor thing, than it is today.
This could also promote PvP activities, if the loss of the ship etc is removed, you are more likely to try and engage in a PvP encounter, even if you are sure to "loose", because what do you have to lose here now? Even the incentive to combat logg in a PvP fight is reduced, as the most obvious reason todo this now is to only deny the other part the "win".
Players can still hate PvP, and do not want to participate in PvP, but atleast they do not have to loose progress, etc, if they encounter it. And they still have the options of choosing in what game mode to play in. And random player encounters are still a risky business, just like encountering a wanted NPC... they might be interested in you or not.