I have a theory: -> some of the hostility toward PvP has less to do with game design and more to do with what PvP does to a player’s self-image. Star Citizen makes it easy to create a personal headcanon. You might imagine yourself as a decorated UEE veteran, an elite bounty hunter, a hardened mercenary, or an ace pilot who has survived countless battles. Against NPCs, that fantasy usually remains intact. They are predictable and, given the current state of the AI, frequently offer very little resistance. You get to feel powerful, competent, and in control of your story. Then another player enters the equation. That player has no script and no obligation to treat you like the protagonist. They might ambush you, outfly you, exploit your mistakes, or simply defeat you. Suddenly, the legendary ace pilot is just another person who lost a fight to some random pirate. That can be uncomfortable. It is much easier to conclude that the encounter should never have been possible than to accept that the universe does not revolve around your character. To be clear, Star Citizen has legitimate PvP problems: inadequate consequences for criminals, poor risk versus reward, combat logging, unfinished security systems, and actual griefing like pad-ramming. Those problems deserve criticism and better solutions. But fixing PvP is not the same as making PvP entirely optional. Star Citizen was always designed to be a PvX Game, and that is what makes Star Citizen fun and special! A shared universe requires other players to have agency, including when their decisions interfere with your plans. If everyone can opt out whenever another player threatens their preferred narrative, Star Citizen stops being a shared universe and becomes a collection of private headcanons with a multiplayer chat attached. Squadron 42 offers the curated hero story in which the universe is built around your character. Star Citizen should be the place where you are not always the hero. Sometimes you are the hunter, sometimes the target, and sometimes you simply lose. That uncertainty is what gives success any meaning. So how much opposition to PvP is genuinely about flawed game design, and how much of it comes from the discomfort of discovering that you are not the main character? If your ace-pilot fantasy only survives while everyone else is an NPC, PvP may not be what failed the test. EDIT — A clarification after reading the replies: A surprising number of people have concluded that I must consider myself the main character, or that I believe other players owe me content. That is almost the exact opposite of what I enjoy about Star Citizen. I like being one small cog in a vast universe. I do not need to be the greatest pilot, the hero, or the person around whom everything revolves. Other players being more skilled, more organized or simply more dangerous gives the universe weight and gives the player room to improve. Their agency also works both ways. They can escape from me, outplay me, bring reinforcements, hunt me later or completely ruin my plans. I am not entitled to a fight, a kill, loot or victory merely because I chose PvP. Wanting peaceful gameplay is completely legitimate. Expecting unconditional immunity from other players throughout a shared open-world PvX game may not be compatible with that game’s premise. The real question is not whether involuntary PvP should exist, but whether the game provides enough security, consequences, counterplay and meaningful ways to manage that risk. (As I have mentioned before) I am also not claiming that every objection to PvP comes from wounded pride. The word “some” in the title was deliberate. Complaints about bugs, cheating, poor balance, weak security systems, inadequate consequences and excessive time loss are entirely legitimate. But if the proposed solution is a universal veto over hostile player interaction, then we fundamentally disagree about what a shared universe is supposed to be. If the proposed solution is better security, consequences and counterplay, then we probably agree far more than this thread suggests.