PVP - Penalties are not the answer

I've read too many threads where players think that penalties and punishments are the way to ensure PVP match completion. You're not thinking at all. All you're doing is looking for solutions so that you can get the rewards you think YOU deserve.

There are several reasons why you're seeing this sort of activity in PVP.
- CC rules the roost - but way too much. Non-CC classes suffer for this (lower levels, clerics at any level)
- It's difficult to seize initiative once one side has retained it.
- Team imbalance (skill-based) Very hard to resolve; best method would be not assigning teams until 10 players commit, and then balance by performance metrics.
- Spawn camping. And I'm guilty of this. Once one side seizes the initiative and the game becomes lopsided, the bloodthirst settles in and now we push even further into enemy territory.
- Overwhelming butt-stompage results in no rewards for the losers.

These negative experiences make what should be the delicious taste of a well-fought round into an extremely bitter drink to quaff. Adding more penalties is only going to add to the negatives of a PVP round. Rather than getting more casuals into PVP matches (and getting them addicted), you're going to drive them away in droves and create the standard 'carebears vs. pvpers' animosity that happens in these games. When you make an experience punitive, you are not enriching the experience. You really WANT the carebears to peek into the arena and maybe try their hand, but you also want it so that they may want to come back. This is nothing but pure win for the PVP crowd.

Some things that should be considered:
- Buffs for the side that is losing badly. These buffs can only be earned by active gameplay - continuing once more into the breech. Just sitting at the fires until you gain buffs and then decide to play seriously is going to be meta-gamed. But when you get to 300 to 10 ... yeah, in my head I already see where this is going and might as well bail (which I have NEVER done by the way - though I won't deny giving up.)
- Rewards for losing. Active gameplay still gives some rewards, even though you lost (and lost hard). The rewards should be small, don't want to make non-play in PVP rewarding, but there should be something to incentivize me into sticking around. In other threads I recommended creating achieve-titles and appearance gear that you can wear to show that yes, even when you were getting insta-shanked you refused to give up. These rewards need to be something ego-based, not rewards that are going to be gamed (IE I just sit at spawn the entire match and get rewarded for it).

The most important part is to make players WANT to stay until the end of the fight. Even moreso, you want those players, bloodied noses and all, scrapping it out in spite of crappy odds. Penalties and punishments do nothing to encourage this behavior - in fact it encourages people to not play at all.