I know it's too late for changes to SR2, so these are for SR3 (should there be one). These are based on observation made throughout the game and especially during the house cleaning time this past week:

1.Shark exerience vs diver experience - Initial diving on a new shark has greater chance of attack (you're not familiar w/shark). The more you dive on shark, the less chance of attack (you become familiar with patterns, etc). The more experienced the diver, the less chance of attack (even on new shark, experienced divers know better what to expect). Divers that have vast amounts of experience have slight increase in attack (they get too confident and therefore careless).

2.Research points - There is too much randomness in the calculation of research points(there were times when I made more points with a rested diver than with a fully rested diver). The more experienced and rested the diver the more the research points gained. The points should progressively diminish as fatigue sets in. Also, the more familiar the shark, the more research points gained until the shark becomes agitated.

3.Combination of research methods - If you use a method that stimulates the shark into a feeding mode (i.e. decoy) or irrates the shark (i.e. catch and release) a solo, double, or triple dive should be more dangerous for at least a few dives to allow the shark to calm down. Therefore, the attack chance should be increased if certain combinations of research methods are use concurrently. Cage dives should rarely cause a diver to get injured (based on reality) and surface research should never generate an attack unless you program in a random fall overboard for a new inexperienced diver. These two methods would obviously generate fewer research points.

4.It would be helpful to have different experience levels or rankings for divers (beginner, intermediate, experienced, master, etc). The levels could be achieved through a combination of total number of encounters and total research points gained. The higher the level, the less the chance of an attack

I could go on, but for the sake of brevity will stop here.

sinbad

Sinbad those are good points and perhaps it isn't too late, maybe if sharkrunners-dev1 gets a quick peek at this something could be done. Maybe not all, but something. Because if this new season gets wayyy tooo harddd then players will get wayyy tooo fustratedddd and will start dropping out.

I hope they listen to your suggestions, they are based on sound logic.
My only suggestion is that the game could be changing information and or sharks to make it interesting even after getting all badges and visited evry shark on the game.
As I said in another thread I just made it to the top 100 a couple of days before the game ended and once there I went up very fast because none of the other players where active.
My point is that the top 100 should be a very active environment on which if anybody stops playing they get bumped out quickly, I hope that SR2 does the trick.
It is a pleasure playing with people like you, this forum is one of the things that keep the game interesting, Thank you all!