I'd prefer pvp to be organic not sociopathic.
There is sportsmanship, competition, fun... in pvp, for most people except for those who are morally offended by it. I was morally offended by it, at times, in 1. I didn't mind dying, but depending on how it unfolded, the person could leave a bad impression on me. I guess they still can, but I can shake it off just like I would in a game, like in fighting games where people continue to hit your body after you are KO'd. It's just poor sportsmanship. Clowns who don't win much winning and playing with their food.
The more calculated PKing gets, it becomes about saving up your points, putting that against loot, it becomes a real number crunch and the only thing you can compare that to in real life is sociopathy. That's the only people who benefit from that. People are still gonna get killed, people are still gonna get looted, offended, but the people who make it into a system, choose their targets, etc, like you said.
Sometimes you might kill someone 100 times at a priest because shit got real. I haven't lol, but I'm saying, things escalate, you know? Might be two people fighting and killing each other and giving each other MCs. Let them fight it out. Let them have their pvp. What does this system favor, going for 'whale' targets that are easy kills, that's not pvp, either. That is actually ganking and only favors ganking. If you get into pvp, you have to forget about the numbers and fight it out. Or you have to stop when the numbers go a certain way. That's not healthy pvp imo. Pvp is more than ganking people.
Sure some people play bandit, and that system would work for people playing bandit, but there are other types of pvp. Imagine spending hours running parcels thinking about how many people you can kill. You don't think that's a weird way to program the mind? lol. Sure, you see the number go up as you kill people, too, but that's an extra layer. You aren't doing good deeds, you are time sinking so you can kill more.
I recently watched insomnia, ever seen that movie? Cleaning the body, clipping the nails. You don't see the parallel?
A dynamic war dec system would work, but since there are so many tags, and people will continue to MC you, it doesn't... it never will. Other than the people who are calcing out time used running parcel vs loot they can gain or parcels v amount of pets you can blow up, who is enjoying the system? It's stupid, sure, to go red or neg rep with how punishing it can be, but there should be many situations that develop that are just not 'those sort of moments.' Territory wars, 1v1s... I'm not saying there is a large amount of respect in the MO community, but it'd be nice to know pvp could occur in an environment where it was 'supposed to', in that moment, and not linger like a war dec. People are gonna lose loot, people are gonna give MCs, whatever, but in that moment, it's pvp. That's the fun part of the game.
The only thing parcels do is favor people whose playstyle IS PKing/ganking and getting gains from it. The gains they are getting aren't tertiary, per se, but they are primary. Where as in 'pvp' the loot you get or whatever is just another thing, it's just another risk you take, too. People are fighting for a reason, or sometimes just to fight, to see who is better, whatever, but it's still a far cry from Mr. I ran 10 parcels so I'm gonna kill 10 people and laugh all the way to the bank. It's a really bad system. It's vile. It assumes all pvp is the worst kind of pvp and, as such, pushes it towards that kind.
Tell me where I'm going wrong in my thinking.
And if you're going to read my post, please read the whole thing.