sorry to say this, and I am trying to be constructive but...
A game that is sold as a MMO is not a real MMO if someone can attack my bgs in solo and I can´t hunt him.
On the other hand, to make BGS and poweplat open only, the crime and punishment system should be redesigned from Zero, the system is simply too soft against outlaws.
regards
I think part of the problem is that originally the background simulator was just that, in the BACKGROUND. Frontier didn't designed it to be a game that CMDRs actually "played", but CMDRs started to figure out for themselves how to "play" the BGS, and later Frontier leaned into this by adding tools to help players with this unexpected gameplay. Had Frontier known from day one that the BGS would be its own game, they might have done some things differently.
By the way, the BGS is, strictly speaking, PvP. It doesn't matter what mode you're in, you're playing against other CMDRs, because AFAIK there is no other input into the BGS except the actions of CMDRs. As for hunting people down, I do sympathize with the argument, but the BGS is "bigger" than that. I can't hunt someone down to fight inflation and rising gas prices IRL, all I can do is contribute to markets with my spending habits and investments. As for the politic side of the BGS, if I want my party to win an election IRL, I can't go around slashing the tires of the opposition and expect that to actually work in my favor (if anything, it would work against me). Instead I just got to roll up my sleeves and go door-to-door promoting my own candidate, which Elite provides equivalent missions for.
Personally I prefer the BGS as a
background simulator, as I grew tired of the constant grinding required to try to move markets and change political influence and everything else. The final straw was when a huge player faction decided they wanted my humble, totally ignored up-to-that-point home system. There was no way I could fight against that, even if BGS was Open-only. Playing the BGS is a full-time job, spreadsheets and all. I get why some people love it, but it's definitely a niche, and it's not the end-all, be-all "If you're bored with Elite, just play the BGS" endgame content that some claim it to be, at least not for everyone.
I do, however, like the idea that my random actions affect the world around me in somewhat logical ways, just like my spending and voting habits IRL. I'm also glad that I don't have to worry about player "mafias" roughing me up just because I want to buy a pack of Twinkies at the local gas station, which is one of the excuses gankers use ("you're messing with
our BGS") to attack people in Open.