PvP means Player vs Player:
- BGS is PvP
- Power Play is PvP
Everything except exploration
is PvP.
If BGS and Powerplay are to be considered PvP then, at best, they are asynchronous indirect PvP (in which no players are directly affected by other players) - which can be simply considered to be "playing the game" as both features are pan-modal, by design, for all players to affect regardless of game mode.
.... and exploration data can be used to affect the BGS....
Whoever wants to play the game solo is fine. Having the influence over BGS and Power Play with wings in Private groups makes the game just about who can grind out more hours.
Of course it's "fine" to play in Solo - that's one of the three game modes that has existed in the game design from the very beginning, i.e. when the Kickstarter launched back in 2012. Just as it is "fine" for players to affect the shared galaxy in Solo - as the galaxy is shared by all players, not just those who choose to play (some of the time at least) in Open.
Elite is advertised as making your own narrative - what content is that when you barely meet anybody outside CGs and Shinrarta?!
Frontier can't provide players with other players as targets - it's up to each player whether they want to play among other players. If Frontier were to force players to play together in a single mode then I doubt that as many players would continue to play the game - and players can't be forced to play.
Just make engineering finally much less of a grind by lowering the amount of mats needed for grade 5 engineering. It should be easy to engineer another build when you see that the current one was bad.
Engineering is a topic all of its own.
Couple that with removing Private Groups and changing the blocking mechanism to block all chat and not to influence instancing => boom game will be immediately much better
Private Groups have, like Solo and Open, been part of the game design from the outset - we've been told to play the game how we want to, not that we have to play the game how other players may want us to.
As the block feature has existed since before the game even launched and has only been strengthened and made easier to use over the years, I don't expect we'll see it removed.
.... just as I don't expect that we'll see Private Groups removed just to satisfy those players who can't accept that other players don't need to play with them to play the game.
Regarding the claim that "boom game will be immediately much better", one wonders who it would be better for? It would not be better for those who don't want to engage in PvP in a game sold to all where in-the-same-instance (isti)-PvP is entirely optional.