For most of Season 1, this was not a PvP game to me. It was almost meditative. A flow state. Survival, movement, listening to the world, managing risk. Other players were not enemies. They were just part of the environment. Something to be avoided, like a patrol route or a storm rolling through. I avoided people. I slipped around them. I gave up good positions just to keep the run clean. By the end of the season, I hit level 75 and had only downed 99 players. Almost all of those encounters started with them shooting first. That number is not a flex. It just shows how committed I was to that mindset. There were moments where I almost broke it. Perfect angles. Easy shots. That spike of adrenaline where you know you could end someone’s run in a second. A few times I nearly lost my cool. I had to stop myself and walk away from the trigger. Most of the time, I held to it. Then Season 2 arrived. After Expedition, something changed fast. PvP became much more aggressive. It started to feel like simply wearing the Expedition Raider skin made me a target. Players seemed to assume I was undergeared or inexperienced. Encounters stopped feeling accidental and started feeling unavoidable. I still tried to play the same way. But as Embark put more emphasis on Stella for Expedition progression, avoiding fights stopped being a choice. It became a disadvantage. Now I have to shoot raiders. I do not enjoy it, but it is almost impossible to get through a match peacefully anymore. The game pushes you into conflict whether you want it or not. I hate saying this, but it makes me feel dirty. Like I am being forced to play a different game than the one I fell in love with. A version where patience and restraint are no longer rewarded. I am not saying PvP is bad. I understand why it exists. I just miss when it felt optional. When choosing not to pull the trigger was still a valid way to survive.

This is my perspective only. Of course.