Felonu

I think food/water/oxygen would have a good benefit to the game if implemented correctly. As long as it doesn’t feel like you have to struggle to maintain it. If it takes a small amount of resources to maintain your levels for a week or so, and you don’t loose levels while offline it just becomes a minor thing you deal with occasionally, but would add the ability for people to have functionality like farming if that’s what they want to do. It would also add an aspect to longer sieges. Blockades, and blockade runners would have more value with these mechanisms also. I think it is something worth debating the pros and cons.

I don't think extremes are required to see tangible effects, but that is part of the balancing that I'll leave up to NQ. It is NQ's vision that will make this a great game or not. It is also their vision that will determine whether or not it is balanced in a way that I or you will find enjoyable. We cannot represent all sides of the discussion on a forum, because not everyone is involved. I simply pointed out a way that NQ COULD if they decided to make the OPs desire to walk safely in a forest possible. I don't know what the balance is that I want yet. I have never found a game that was PvP oriented for more than a few weeks because I've always gotten tired of not even having the time to figure out how to start the game because of non-stop ganking. I know that because of that I am biased, and I should not be the judge of where balance is.

That doesn't say how it makes less emergent gameplay. Punching a ship would be emergent gameplay that came out of a really lopsided scenario. I think you might have misunderstood that in every one of my examples I specifically pointed out that I was going extreme in one direction or the other. I was doing this to emphasize the idea so that it would be easier to grasp. I wasn't saying that any of these examples should be followed as written or ever close. I was going lopsided like 99% toward one direction or the other, but thought that it would be clear that I wasn't trying to say that it would be balanced that way. I always tried to point out that it will be NQ's job to do the balancing and it needs to fit with their vision.

I never gave an example of the kind of balance I wanted. I gave several examples of unbalanced in both directions. You are correct though that our opinions of balance are probably different, but I have always stated that it is up to NQ to take what they consider balanced in line with their vision. Yes, both will be possible. I have said that I want a balance between both. I provided ways that NQ could do that without implementing any additional mechanics, or artificial gimmicks. Again, I will say that the amount of ore it takes to make a bullet CAN NOT be player driven. It is a base mechanic of the functioning of the game. I keep saying that my idea of how to balance the game has nothing to do with Emergent gameplay, and either you or Zamarus (I'm not sure who at this point, possibly both) has said that my idea would make the game less Emergent and player driven. That is the disagreement about the definitions of player driven and emergent I was talking about.

I explained what I said in the paragraph you quoted... I always said these are things NQ CAN do to adjust balance. I didn't say they should do anything but not make it extremely cheap. What I think NQ should do would be off topic since the OP was asking if a thing would be possible. I was explaining a way for it to be possible. I think, or at least attempted to always say that the balance would have to be decided by NQ. I might have expressed general opinions that you took to mean that I want it to be expensive, but I don't. I want it to be balanced.

That is a misrepresentation of what I said. I don't think I ever talked about wanting anything specific. I kept saying that it would be up to NQ and their vision. I only said I didn't want the extreme the other way. I also said that having PvP be expensive would reduce the amount of things like griefing. I never argued for or against anything except especially inexpensive PvP. -Added for clarification- And what I mean by especially inexpensive is a small ship with a gun on it only takes an hour of farming mats to build, and is able to take out a city.

We all have different ideas of what things like emergent, and player-driven mean. It seems like these differences have become the core argument of this thread. I don't think this gets resolved by us trying to convince each other at this point. I stopped posting here a couple pages ago I think because I said all I wanted to say about my opinions of how the PvP can be handled, but it seems like the discussion hasn't moved at all. We'll all have to see what NQ decides these things mean to them, and their vision. It could end up being a lopsided newbie gank-fest that isn't any fun to try to start for new players, a builder only game where the PvP never gets implemented enough to keep PvP players interested, or an anarchic mess where everywhere outside of the Ark-zone is at such violent war that noone ever feels safe enough to spend time trying to build anything. If any of these things happen I believe the game won't be even close to as successful as it could be, and I don't want it to turn out like any of these thing.

Fair enough.

No it's not. There are no details about what defensive systems will be in place, what offensive systems there are, and how much resources it would take to power/create the means of both. Those are the only systems we're talking about modifying. You can't "regulate" a system that hasn't been build yet. This is talking about how a system should be initially built, and all of these costs have to be something. The discussion is on what the different costs will be.

No it wouldn't... i already supplied the math... it doesn't matter who it is I'm not saying you specify some people are "defenseless" by helping the defenseless you only extend PvP battles some and modify the cost/benefit analysis when attacking everyone (aggressors are risking more than defenders, but have the ability to make that decision before attacking. The defender would have to have something valuable for the offensive to be worth it). I think we should stop arguing these details though. I think people have the information to make up their own minds on what they believe of these systems.

Anyway. I feel like I've said my piece, and instead of discussing options and possibilities we are at the point of just arguing over small details and differences of opinions and viewpoints.

I don't think my proposal would reduce freedom or cripple PvP. How would Defenses being stronger, or not getting as much resources when you gank defenseless people cripple PvP?

Good.... i guess.... I don't know why that matters. I was answering Hades where he was implying that long drawn out battles would be a problem. I was saying that it wouldn't be a problem. We're talking about a specific way to build one of those tools that has to be built in some form. This doesn't make it less player driven, it just changes how the player driven aspect is implemented.

Great. What is wrong with long battles? To build a proper spaceship it could take weeks or months to design, and build it. Why shouldn't a big battle? You say "that's not going to happen" but it would be one solution, and saying it won't happen isn't a reason for it not to happen. -Edited for clarification- But my solution is if a ship with a large engine takes about 1000 shots to take out, and accuracy for a common cannon is 70% then you shouldn't get more resources from the broken engine than the similar equivelant of the resources to make 1500 bullets. The exact numbers, and balance would be determined of course by NQ and be based on their vision. Now if NQs vision doesn't match that, then I'll be ok with that too. Then I apologize for my mistake. I assumed since it sound to me like you want the game to be mostly PvP based that you must want to do PvP. I don't want to remove PvP from the game, I just want a balance.

I already supplied a solution. It simply has to be worth more to leave most people alone than it is to attack them in standard point and shoot circumstance. This doesn't take anything away from you PvPers except you would have to make a cost benefit analysis before ganking that newbie.

That would just give the PvPers an additional objective to draw more fire on the newbies. But that's not the point. There are options, but they all involve PvP. Again that requires a PvP solution and we're asking for a balance between PvP and PvE activities. Well then we'll have to agree to disagree. That is not the experience I've had with other PvP heavy games. People regularly farm starting areas, especially if it is a PvP based way to farm common resources.

I truly believe that if people have a chance to get more from a newbie with a barely flying craft that can barely make it off the planet than it takes to kill that ship that it will be.

So over 99% of the game should be for PvPers, and the safezone should be the only place you have a chance to not be always killed? Like I said you are advocating PvP to be the feature that trumps every other aspect of gameplay. Remember being in a big org with defenses and protections doesn't actually protect anyone. How about people not demand that almost noone can play the game without threat of PvP shadowing them constantly. I want there to be a middle ground. I want the game to have PvP available everywhere outside the safe zone. I want there to be a possibility of loss if you leave the safety of the Ark ship. I just don't want to feel like you have to be constantly in PvP if you leave.

First, I appreciate your interpretation of the statements, but I don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. Second, I don't have a problem with the game being hard, and I don't think anybody is asking for all risk to be removed. All the OP asked for was the ability to walk through a forest (most likely when noone knows you) and not have every ship that flies over try to kill you just because you're there. Personally all I would really want is for there to be a cost to attacking someone that will make it not worth it to kill every single person you come across. If attacking others doesn't cost much, then people won't need any reason to attack others than that they can. They won't care if they loose sometimes, or they might anger some big org. That is what is fun to some people.

Because that engulfs everything else in PvP. You are doing the exact thing from a different perspective that you accuse @MookMcMook of doing. I think we've all put our points of view out there now, though, and we'll have to rely on NQ and their vision to decide how they implement it.

The most obvious to me are transmitting security docking codes that can be stolen be the dirty rebels to infiltrate the star base!

You are taking the point off subject through. He, and I have said Many times now that the balance is applied before the human element. The power to keep a shield up vs the power of the bullet hitting it, and the cost of the resources of those things. You keep talking about the incalculable value of the Offense, and Defense as a whole. If we were talking about that you would be right in that it can't be calculated, but we're not. The point for some of us is that you just burned down hundreds of hours worth of effort by starting a fire with a almost no effort of buying the lighter. This is a real world example though, and in the real world very few people run around town burning peoples houses down for no reason. In games this is not only common, but almost pervasive and much less stoppable behavior.

This is almost never the case. Because on top of losing the defenses, you lose the structures, and the resources that are taken. If it is exactly equal, then everyone should always be offensive. There will be no reason to do anything else, because you will get more every time than what you expend. Anyway to pull it back to the OP. These ways I describe are ways for what you are asking for. We don't know yet what the balance will be, but many of us others also would like to see it generally feel safe.

Agreed, as I said player skill and tactics are the interesting and fun part of PvP. I really hope there are really cool tactics and really skilled player moments that come out in this game. That isn't a mechanic and can't be accounted for without interfering too much in the game. Overall though, I believe that cost of resources will make the overall gameplay tend more or less PvP focused. If you don't think they matter then you shouldn't have any problem with them making defenses cost significantly less than offenses when everything else is removed.

I never talked about adding regulations or anything else. How much energy it takes to power a shield, and how much metal it takes to make a bullet are all I'm talking about. You are right that people can be cunning and figure out better ways to do defense and offense, and that makes for better gameplay than the other: I have a 100 bullets that cost 1 unit of a very common metal and that destroys your shield that took 1000 units of rare energy source to power. This balance exists because there is no way for it not to exist. Like I said a lot will be determined where NQ puts the balance. If people come up with good strategy and do a good job then they can shift the power toward their side of the spectrum, and that is what makes for good gameplay. My point was that we don't know where NQ will put the balance, and we'll have to see what comes from where they do put it. Hopefully they think about how different resource costs of offensive and defensive measures will affect the game.