We definitely need a faction system. Some kind of territory control game. Right now, pvp in this game suffers from the same stigma as every other survival pvp game. I like to call it TRS, the rust syndrome. Kill on sight with the friends you bring with you and don't bother interacting in any other way. Now, if we were restricted to a certain number of NPCs vs actual player faction members for example, then people would be inspired to go out there and meet new people instead of shooting new people. Survival games in general seem to be treating pvp like it's call of duty. Shallow experience. If pvp were about rebuilding civilization instead of just shooting individual survivors it would be much more interesting. You would have territory wars over good loot spots. But instead we have KOS stuff wherein you find someone's base and destroy it, or if the owner is online, plop down a mobile spawn point and keep coming back because the only viable tactic is to decrease enemy wellness until they don't want to play anymore.
I personally wouldn't even bother balancing for the type of KOS pvp. It's a waste of time. Call of Duty and those sorts do it much better. I would try to develop a deeper pvp experience. One in which whole factions intimidate, fight or diplomacy their way through conflicts with other large groups. You know, kind of like how it would be in real life.
Star made does this exact thing pretty amazingly. They have a section of their forums for faction level diplomacy and many factions use it. They have faction diplomacy between servers even. It's not uncommon for a faction to start a war and have other factions from other servers jump over and fight. It's almost like all the servers are part of one big universe. It is extremely cool and if something like that were implemented here I think it would lead to some pretty amazing pvp experiences.
