While the LE does its job of preventing starting players from being ganked by higher level vets quite well, the bianary On/Off system of PvP means that either you are fully leveled and equiped for PvP, or you are ganked by the former. What if there was a system that isolated players of similar level so they didn't have to worry about players much higher than them?

This suggestion is relatively simple: as two players attempt to damage each other, detemine their level difference, and apply a percentage resitance if the difference exceeds a threshold. So, if a /59 gets into a fight with a /62, they will hit each other with full force, but if those /50s and /60s atttempt to fight /30s, all damage will be (for example) halved so that the /30 will be able to withstand and escape the gank. Exact values and level thresholds will need to be determined through playtesting, but the community should be able to suggest whether they want a more gradual scale (like a 2-5% damage reduction per level) or hard level cutoffs (no damage reduction if within +/- 10 level ranks, 50% + level difference reduction if > /10 difference). My preference would be on a system close to the latter (with a more graudual resistance buildup).

My hope is that this system would encourage a 'growing into' PvP by new players, as they'll have the opprotunity to test their skills, builds and tactics against other similar leveled players without having to worry loosing to playeres far beyond their means of combatting

Balance Notes:
- Level rank woulld have to be used; Battle rank is too easily manipulated to be a fair measurement
- Damage reduction would have to be both ways; If you can't hurt me because you're so much higher than me, I shouldn't be able to hurt you either. This should prevent "Death of 1000 noobs" situations

Open Questions:
- Hacking: How to deal with much lower leveled players hacking quickbelts and Outposts? Do they loose their resistance if hacking? Could this issue be addressed by just rebalancing hacking such that you would bring capped hackers (200+) into the PvP fights makning them vulnerable to everyone else around?