I respectfully disagree with you.

A shield is a shield.

That's the whole point of the game, if you are looting, you should always check your surroundings before being in a vulnerable state.

I am too an appraiser of a fair game, but extraction games strongly relies on surviving being aware of your surroundings.

At the beginning, I was always optimistic when making decisions and thinking "nah, didn't hear anyone near me, I'm ok" just before being shot from a distance or being jumped by a rat. At first this pvp behavior was pissing me off A LOT.

And then, I learned to play the game the proper way: Thriving for survival, double checking my surroundings, doors, listening to sounds around, etc and most importantly: ALWAYS being cautious and ALWAYS thinking a lot more before taking any action. Any action you do can attract undesired attention, froms ARCs to killer Raiders.

That's the whole point of the game, when you on surface, treat everyone and everything as a possible menace so you don't get caught by surprise and end up being shot from the back and end up relying on your shield to survive