I just wish everyone would stop equating bullying with more general PvP. I'm happy to engage in combat with whoever; what I'm not happy with is running the risk of being one-shotted by someone who has a massively engineered combat ship when I'm in my Cobra MkIII when I've been playing for 3 weeks. There should be some sort of filter or screen whereby a hugely OP combat bully can only engage people within a certain range of their rank and ship capability. Maybe those n00bs would show up as NPC to them?
Yes, the option to switch off PvP would assist me to move unmolested through the galaxy, but it's simply hiding the problem. Ganking isn't PvP it's toxic, bullying, sociopath behaviour which brings nothing to the gameplay of anyone; neither the ganker (bully) nor the victim gain anything from it. PvP combat isn't necessarily about evenly matched opponents, I agree; but it is definitely NOT about using the next generation of (PAYING) Elite customers as tin cans on a wall.
And Frontier have already all the needed tools to give players more options. they could create a second open mode, where we have PvP flag system, or straight blocks PvP etc, etc, for the normal players, this would probably be a really good change, but then we get to the problematic player group, the gankers, who will find ways to grief other players, we have seen time after time how this very small player group destroys the game for everyone.
Station ramming how a few players makes the game worse for the rest of us...
Back in the days, it was not criminal to ram another player to death near a station, favourite ship of the day, The Orca, fast and deadly with lost of HRP's..
So once this got enough attention, new rules around stations was added to the game, speed limits around the station, if you where speeding and collided with another player and that ship got destroyed and you survived, you where guilty part and the station would deal swift justice on you too.
Did not take to long for players to learn about other effects of ramming another ship, we could transfer momentum. ie, I could ram your ship and make it go a little bit faster... if I hit you from the right angle. So now these station rammers, could switch to very cheap sidewinders, boost into your ship flying at the speed limit, transfer a little extra speed to you as they exploded, and now that they died, you survived, and if you where unlucky enough thaht they pushed into speeding, the station now opens fire, and send you to the rebuy screen too for killing that poor innocent griefer...
and removing collisions in elite would in my oppinion be a pretty bad change overall. just to deal with a very small amount of players... other MMO's have for the most part, removed all player to player collisions, becuase they are so abusable for griefers... blocking access to vital places, like quest givers etc. any narrow corridor, doorway, etc could now be blocked off. but sadly this is probably the only real option, as it does not take to much skill, and you only need a cheap sidewinder, so no engineering needed. pick another copy for $5, and the go and harass players for the evening, having a blast with your friends, about how much grief you are causing them, and then a couple of days later, when all the reports get handled, your account get banned. who cares. it was just the cost of a burger, for an evening. and if you are console, you have unlimited amount of CMDR's, just create a new playstation/xbox profile, switch to the new profile and you can do this over and over again...