Yes, and it pretty much always has. Because the setup has been the same since day 1: more loss than gain from PvP.
Every MER and quarterly newsletter since the beginning has pointed out there’s way more PvE and production than PvP. PvE players basically paid for EVE and kept it alive, while PvP players did their level best to drive paying players away.
If you want more PvP destruction, it needs to be more interesting, more accessible, less likely to produce a loss of game progress. Again, EVE has a very simplistic set of progress axes, basically skills and ISK. PvP would work better if a more robust set of rewards and advancement avenues existed.
At any rate, working with the current minimal reward structure, there’s still ways to jazz it up. For instance, Faction Warfare could stop being the pathetic bottable “Sit in plex to flip it, run away if a fight shows up, get paid” failure it currently is. It should have nice payments for the LP, but LP would only be paid for actual destruction caused. Not kills, because that can be farmed, but actual value of destroyed assets.
Plexing should basically only be used to change the overall environment to one more favorable to your battle. Like Abyss weather effects where you could create speed/weapon/EHP effects by setting up the proper plexes.
There should also be a mechanic for benefitting the underdog side. Otherwise one side will grab an advantage and hold it, and then there’s little reason to fight for the losing side.
A second area that’s underutilized is low sec. There’s a reason gankers hang out in high sec: it’s because they can’t handle the PvP in low sec or other areas where they aren’t protected. Low sec you might find a solo player, or a small gang, or a scout force for a capital fleet that can drop on you. It’s too variable to make it interesting for most people who would potentially go there.
Take something like a mix of the Emerging Conduits we had a while back, blended with Abyssals and WHs. Say that Low Sec starts developing mini-WHs that drop into Drifter/Sleeper space. You can scan them down, but you don’t know what’s on the other side until you go through. The other side can have weather/combat effects (like Abyss and new ones, cap drain, overheat double/half damage, etc.)
Some sites would have exploration, some mining, some combat. There could be a new kind of “chunky” loot drop, say 200-500m3 in size, that when you take it back and reprocess it becomes some of the expensive parts for capital / BS construction.
To take advantage of these would require a lot of scouting and a mix of combat/mining/explo / hauling ships. If the exit takes you out somewhere else (or random) then you can’t be dropped on by massive fleets - combat would have to take place on the way in or inside. And could have WH type limitations on what gets in.
Anyways, I’m sure the PvP crowd will go bananas as usual and scream that this is all complete shyte. The point is, PvP can and should be improved. Eve is marketed as a hardcore PvP game but has so little PvP, so poorly accessible, that most players just ignore it.
CCP doesn’t care, because they know they’re selling PvE / space economy, and the PvP ‘hook’ is just there so everyone can pretend they’re hardcore. But if enough people get loud enough (and if the bottom line gets hit enough), then maybe, just maybe, CCP will spend a little effort on putting the PVP back in their “PvP hardcore” game.