Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (It's 04am for me, I don't have the head to translate everything myself into English. Please excuse any possible errors.)
I was thinking of opening a subject on a (very) similar subject, but I will rather contribute here.
First of all, I would like to share an experience that has happened to me several times:
For the skins that interest me I find myself forced to farm the worst quests in the game, (in my opinion) namely the merchant alliance quests. It's long, it's boring and each trip can only go to one place.
Recently, as a result, I wanted to make a quick solo trip, had two chickens and a snake to found, nothing very hard to do. Since I'm playing for fun and really enjoying the atmosphere of the game, the trip lasted about an hour before I came back to the outpost with two empty crates and the requested animals. But, obviously, someone else (whom I had met during my trip but who had not attacked me while I was looking for my chickens) was present and as soon as I approached the port, I was shot. Of course, I took off straight away.
Except, the ship chased me. I literally took him to the other end of the map before I had to turn around and start getting shot. Not being able to manoeuvre, repair and fire at the same time, I knew I was screwed and so I killed my animals before scuttling the ship, preventing them from having any reward.
As a result, they got absolutely nothing, I failed my trip and I wasted 1 hour of my time.
Now the question: was this interaction interesting or even just fun? Personally, it was neither one nor the other.
Before the PvP players took out their forks, I would just like to point out that currently my best moment in game was a trip with friends aboard our brigantine.
We had been attacked by different ships on the round trips of several quests that we did. We sank our opponents after hard fighting before bringing our chests back to the outpost where no one attacked us and where we could be proud of our game session.
Now same question: was this interaction interesting or just fun? We had a lot of fun and I hope our opponents did too.
I regularly read that making outposts of safe areas (either by simply cancelling the damage or setting up guards or anything else) would kill the PvP, but from what I've seen, it would only kill those who camp instead of looking for ships to loot. Most people who ask for this mechanism do not want to get rid of the risk at sea. They want to get rid of the risk of putting more than an hour of game in the garbage because of a guy camping out the outpost where they have to unload.
We're at a point where you can't even leave your ship at an outpost to finish a tale (and hear the narrative) without having all your barrels looted and having to spend time re-storing. Again, it may be funny for the person who does it, but not for the person who is wasting time because he or she wanted to follow the story.
For me, that's what needs to be changed. Developers can't change players' mindset, no one can, but they can create mechanics to ensure that everyone can have a minimum of fun and progress. Not just those who camp the outposts.
If there is a better solution than an Outpost Safe Zone feature, I would be glad to hear it. But I can't find any. (In advance, please, no "Git Gud" equivalent. It does not advance the debate, quite the contrary.)