Yes right now without the system loot mechanic this behavior is a problem in space. But only with certain players that are actively here to work out their desire to cause other people problems.
For simplicity I'll continue to refer to them regardless of motivation, as griefers. The are plenty of players here in game that are space pirates for this reason, as much as (in some cases more than) any actual loot they might be getting.
These people would rather see you lose your shit all over space chat and maybe even ragequit than get any loot from you or your ship. In the current system, it's a limited problem, and probably no more common than it is (in relative %) than it is in normal society.
The current pirate line about "We're playing the way MA intended" currently rings through space as the battle cry of group of people who, given the choice, have chosen to be thieves and griefers. And MA did give them the choice.
Add a system loot mechanic and this becomes a seriously confusing issue. At that point MA is actively encouraging players that would never turn into thieves or griefers to go around randomly griefing players as they try to go about their business.
One players interaction with the provided game system is another player's EU nightmare.
I understand you've had to repeatedly clarify at this point you're not really talking about a gamewide implementation.
However "existing PVP areas" include most of amathera as well. In sum total this may be a part of the universe that's larger than most of the other planets and zones (Stations/moons/instances) combined.
Even confined to space, an environment most players avoid as carefully as necessary, I see incentive to do what amounts to griefing in the course of normal gameplay.
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For example I run into another player at skyflails, and he decides to show off for 90 seconds. I've got 25 minutes of trouble now before I can try to get back to what I was doing. That may be most of my remaining session, or discouraging enough to stop me early.
If I get back half an hour later and he kills me in another 90 seconds, I can honestly tell you in that moment you, him, MA, space and all of y'all can fuck off I'm logging out for a couple of hours. Maybe days.
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TBF in the end the most weighted argument I can see is that I don't think MA can pull these various conflicting drives together into a system without losing EU completely along the way.
I'm here for a avatar skill/experience based, non-linear sandbox MMO. Dabbling in optional PVP is an occasional bit of fun for me.
Spending my entire allotted gameplay being wrecked by people who want to show off their space sim skills or being left with no reasonable option but to schedule my gameplay around the bus routes is a huge no go.
Admittedly, I'm staring at a half a glass of water here, and calling it half empty. I can't call you wrong for saying it's half full.
In the end though, even if you take time to gather feedback and hammer out the finer points of a system that the majority of players agree would be, at least, interesting enough to try, I fear the end of EU would come before MA had it implemented as envisioned.
Edit: added specific example of "unintentional" griefing encouraged by this system.
Here is some intentional griefing on amathera. "We don't hate sweaters we just love PK".
90 Kills just on the top 5 HoF and
>26 pages of fallout<
This does still happen occasionally, but it's usually one or two people who have found some sweaters in a yellow zone.
