PvP outside of Deep Desert

TL;DR: this poster wants more tools for factions and for PvP to be more socially engaging than it is now.

I've been thinking about DD design choices and PvP vs PvE mentality.

I have recently first time wondered into the DD and found it lacking. It's mostly empty, the PvP is mostly "boom, rocket death" and then running around, instead of genuinely interesting engagements and so on.

It would be cool, I though, to be able to do PvP with intent.

I to this day do not understand why in DD everyone is hostile to everyone. It would make so much sense for Atreides to not be hostile to Atreides and Harkonnens to Harkonnens. It would fit the setting incredibly well and it would allow for the storytelling to emerge. Right now grifters are just people flying in the DD. But if they had to choose a faction to join, we could have Atreides raids on Harkonnen strongholds or Harkonnen ambushes on Atreides spice crawlers. We could get radars and scanners and early warning system for "enemy aircraft in the sector", which would in fact work with the house system, which would also allow every "allied" character to react. That would also allow the guilds to "hold" certain sectors and defend them from enemies, since there'd be some sort of early warning and not just "200 km/h thopter didn't load, but its rockets sure did".

Speaking about the third faction they're about to introduce, regardless of if they're the House Corrino or Smugglers, their shitck could be that attacking them would either penalize the attackers (emperor is unhappy or smugglers aint selling to your house anymore) or they could be flat out "friendly" until they attacked, but then they'd get a reward on their heads.

I've heard stories of people setting up Arenas on the edge of the PvE zones and that sounded great, so why didn't the devs think of that? It could be a way to participate in Lansraad/Atr-Hark warfare. A PvE zone outside and a PvP zone inside, where you'd bet something (solari, spice, unique schematics, anything) on a fight, as well as hoped to earn a little bit more house reputation or contribution towards the Lansraad. That would also allow us to get some foot on the ground PvP instead of the thopter rockets fun we have now.

What I'm saying is I wish Funcom gave us more from the House and allegiance systems and way more in actually feeling "in control of the DD" instead of "pick a random sector and hope you dont get sniped" or "get in and kill whatever you see". It would allow the players to engage socially without having to already be in a guild, it would lead to more discussions and interactions in the wild. You could coerce the third faction into giving you a part of the profit instead of simply killing them, since that would have consequences, you could build a safe(ish) outpost of your house and protect it to allow your house to gain resources, you could straight out lie to people "yeah, it's a known bug that I'm showing as Harkonnen, cause I betrayed them and it won't sync, I'm actually Atreides" with proper swatches and suit variants.

Funcom, please, just give us tools to do that. This game is the first thing in many years that consumed my waking hours and that I enjoy tremendously, I just want to have more fun stuff to play with and build the narrative in this fantastic world that you've managed to capture and deliver to my monitor.

With love, a random sleeper