Trolling is still interacting and its cause is that death has no punishment.
Besides such people probably won't fit in any faction or are looking for something else than pvp only and won't participate no matter what as long as competing with other players is the requirement.
True, trolling or similar activities is an casual style of play. Nothing wrong with that as long as it stays in reasonable measures. Penalty of death shouldn't be linear, that was discussed on one of the update topics.
Invalid argument, it's wrong to presume that all of the players dislike competing, or dislike competing for the same reasons. Of course there is the part of players who really doesn't like to compete at all, but I think it is a very small percent. There is a difference, currently a lot of players aren't fit for any faction, because of what is tied to competitive style of play, not much and much at the same time. Looking at what logistics are necessary, alt amount, we all know the issues witch are necessary to work out for the greater good, so more players can enjoy competing without unreasonable amount of time consumption, grind respectively.
Point still stays, if there would be something more tied to TC, more players would be interested in participating in such activities.
Too much work still. I'm dealing with new recruits in our faction and biggest issue they have is the amount of farming needed. It always goes like this:
Recruit: "Hey I leveled this, am I ready now?"
Me: "No, you need to level this, this, this and this and farm this and this"
After that we don't hear from him again or see him idling in ncr.
Well ...
If you present all that to a new player like I think you do, no wonder why they don't see any point or goal for that. I hope you don't encourage them to start off with multiple combat alts just to participate somewhere. That is besides the point actually.
Point is, if you really are right and farming would be the major problem, the accessibility of equipment for common player in the 3 month period to enjoy the game properly, it would a matter of evaluating the problems and applying appropriate solutions to the shortened Wipe period. In other words testing. Much of what we talk is very plausible, it would be better if we see it in practice.
I'd say, will see.
Doesn't have to be so extreme. Current situation could be helped in rather easy ways like I mentioned about the top tier items. Loot is always worth looting if you'd have to work for it otherwise.
Sure, anything is welcomed for the common player to enjoy the game better, as long as the changes are in reasonable scales.
But if there are those achievements everyone is after, why is stuff so big deal? You can unlock those achievements only by dominating the wasteland with brute force which means victories in pvp.
Don't simplify things to just - victories. It's not only about victories, look at what is behind them, it's a struggle about resources, diplomacy, experience, organization, the ability to adapt and work together to achieve goals efficiently in hazardous environment, smart way of saying it's cool to dominate the harsh wasteland. The whole process is interesting. Something like that never gets old, if there is proper motivation for that and the initial suggestion is just an extra fuel for it. Statistics would allow factions to look at their own success, ranking in any game is fun and extra motivation to do better, an exact date of time to try again upon loss is even better for that. Something like that is common in other popular games.
That's because they didn't know how to play. There wasn't for example fonline character planner made by Opera that is incredibly helpful when designing builds.
Bad example. Look, after first few months of playing, I was making builds purely from memory and I didn't know shit about planner, everything happened through wiki, the character creation process is very simple once you get to know it. Character planner is just comfort, but that doesn't ultimately mean that players without it would be bad or something. Of course players back then were more inexperienced, but doesn't mean the game was suddenly a lot easier for them, quite the opposite.
But big gangs and hardest turbofarmers will have those bases, items, cars, everything while those who farm slower, won't have.
They will, just not as fast as others. It's all part of the wasteland domination theme. That is why some precautions of decreased resources for the strongest/fastest factions at start of Wipe can come in and decreased statistical advantage, so other players have better chance to catch up.
Turbofarmers will be turbofarmers, can't make features so guy doesn't sit near PC 24/7.
advanced workbench
I personally really like that I have to organize some protection to go craft some large amounts of something and it is always exciting to meet players at that moment(though that rarely ever happens). I'm from a large faction and we don't control any workbench, I'm sorry.
Though your right about infrastructure, that is required to do crafting without much hassle, for any new player/common player that is a lot more complicated, forcing him to not only travel around the wasteland to obtain the resources, characters, professions, blueprints and only then allowing to use the advanced workbenches and even then at the cost of risk. It is a bit overkill, to be honest. For what I care, the advanced workbenches might be in safe places too, not tied to some reputation restrictions and some unnecessary bullshit.
... group of judges. Then the GM adds the winner to the scoreboard or stat board whatever.
I'm like more than sure that something like that is not going to happen.