I mean, sure, but at the same time, if picking up a corpse is too easy, then picking up a corpse is too easy, regardless of whether we're discussing PvE or PvP. This is a gothic horror server, not a fantasy action server, making it so my elf friend wizard takes a few seconds more to save my foolish PC from Ooze City is probably OK.
I'm completely with you here.
I'd really rather well-thought out mechanics are added instead of rules. We can't correct mindset problems and toxicity with rules
or gameplay mechanics, players do have to be more understanding of one another, but it has to be a two way street.
I respect that those of you who have been here for years longer than us post-EE new players have seen a lot more variety in your PvP, but as stated before it will be difficult to convince me that exceptions make the rules. Convincing me may be pointless, but a huge chunk of the remaining community still views PvP in a certain light, or rather, the long shadow that gank culture has cast over all player conflict. Attachment is at the core of the problem, but so is OOC competition between players.
A lot of players rightly worry that if they don't play PvP like that, they're going to have to PvP against someone who prefers not to take any chances, and it's not about the fact that they've lost, but rather they trusted the wrong person. The "group narrative" thing that gets pushed every time this comes up, it just falls apart when people have their trust broken. A few people will be convinced to repeatedly take chances on others for no gain and they will be let down each time.
The rules right now allow exceptions to shine as a good example of what to do, and it's nice to know that happens sometimes, but most players aren't getting that far. Most ganks aren't high profile assassinations and abductions, they're just ganks. Most aren't this big, risky, narrative-enriching play, they're the path of least resistance, the quickest and easiest thing to do in order to eject someone from play.
I don't think this has ever been an issue of "all ganks are an initiation before which no hostilities have occurred." It's more an issue of reasonable escalation rarely being chosen as a guiding principle for a conflict, the same with deescalation, and all of the RP surrounding that over just disappearing someone. I don't have to have played assassins as my main character archetype to read posts from players who do, and who admit they are comfortably justified with simply ganking and corpsehiding, then pointing to the rules, no mention of post-abduction RP anywhere, which is, again, not only not a guarantee, but so rare it's not expected.
I also don't think it's inevitable that all conflict breaks down into ganks, but it only has to happen to someone once for them to lose faith in the "spirit of the rules" protecting them any longer. My own experience is not in being ganked and coming here to complain about it, but rather trying to deescalate or negotiate IC. More often than not it goes nowhere, whether it's before someone gets ganked and corpse hidden or after. People just psyche themselves up to the point they want to get the gank and hide over with so they never have to think about it again.
So, circling back to the start of my post, changing the paradigm requires more sympathy from both sides as far as mindsets go. No one player on either side of the fence is to blame for everyone else's actions, and divvying us up into tribes isn't how this should work.
Something that made the whole process seem less gamey and more narratively driven, particularly when its got the potential to be so impactful, seems beneficial to me.
This is where I'm at with it too. The systems surrounding all conflict feel bare. It tends to feel more like a black hole of RP and an afterthought, wherein staff hope players will do right by others, but that's rarely what actually happens, and more people realise it than ever with the server being more populated and connected than ever these days.