Concerning Respecs

I'm honestly against respecs but they can sometimes be beneficial, especially in the case where developers are shifting the way certain things work.

Now, in a lot of games you can pay gold or whatever the currency is to re-adjust your specialization (or 'respec') but it's important to remember that a lot of these games are co-operative based where you and your guild go on raids against AI controlled enemies. PVP aspects are usually tacked on but aren't part of the core experience and isn't where the majority of the player population is going to be associated.

Whereas we have Dust 514, which as yet has no PVE experience and it's entire being is revolving around you making other players dead and vice versa. This sort of gaming environment encourages specialization as being able to switch out on the fly sort of kills any ounce of importance on the field. In a game of Planetary Conquest, the team is only as good as it's contenders - and when everyone can switch out their skill allocations on the fly it's bad for business as suddenly everyone can do everyone's job.

Which, would be okay if it weren't for Dust's unique specialization aspects. A person who's run Caldari Assault since May is only going to know what it's like to be a shield tanker and likely will be left with a sense of confusion as their recently respecced armor tanking playstyle is turned to mincemeat against a Heavy Machine Gun, which receives a damage bonus against armor.

So, your specialization is only as good as your knowledge of it. Respecs to become the FotM (flavor of the month) is a bad idea because it's only going to last as long as it takes for balance passes to be implemented and suddenly you're wanting another respec. Is this the developers fault for not having it balanced in the first iteration, or the players fault for falling in line with what was powerful at the time?

Honestly, I think it's more the player's fault than the developer because they knew what they were getting into and using the "it's all that was competitive at the time" is no excuse because this is admitting that you knew it was broken - which leads to the fact that you knew it was going to be fixed.

Another thing that this sort of mentality does is that it kills any aspect of the player having the skill to adapt to a constantly changing environment. Whenever we fall into what is popular and it gets nerfed, we've spent so much time investing into that tactic that we haven't developed the skills to utilize other playstyles which now seem less appealing because it's not as powerful as the tactic that was truly over powered at the time.

Now, another argument brought up is that when new content is released there should be respecs because the players were forced to play something they didn't want to before the content they wanted was available. I disagree with this as well because, while you are dropping a few million skill points into the suit and playstyle you might not desire at the time, it's in no way to your disadvantage.

I've been waiting for the Gallente Heavy for a long time now but it's not available. This doesn't bother me though because it's still the Gallente and their style doesn't shift much between suits. Be it Assault or Logistics, Gallente still favor armor tanking - so having skill points invested into that playstyle does nothing be prepare me for having it later on. I can also work on my core skills like Electronics and Engineering, of which I've gotten them all to level five. Suffice to say, I'm actually running out of skills to get to level five in order to prepare for the Gallente Heavy's arrival.

Then there's the argument of the "Developer Fault" which is forcing players to drop SP to try out different weapons instead of having militia variants. Again, this doesn't deserve a respec, this just deserves militia gear where it needs to be. It's a self defeating argument, in my opinion, solely because it provides the solution to the problem it's bringing up. But there is one more "Developer Fault" that I think deserves a respec... and it's the only one...

Massive changes to entire playstyles. If it's a balance pass on a single suit, that's one thing, but when the developers go and tweak every single aspect of a particular playstyle (the best example being the recent Vehicle changes announcement) then there might be some grounds for a respec. Scout LAVs are nigh useless as they're just militia variants with a few bonuses attached in the wrong places (acceleration?). When every facet of an entire playstyle is changed than a respec is a good idea solely because of the fact that what the players currently have invested is being completely changed in a way that renders many of the skills completely altered.

Then of course there's the removal of skills. If skills are removed, obvious we want the SP back otherwise it's just a wasted investment - not that I can honestly see CCP ever -not- giving it back because that's just asking for a PR nightmare and they have done this for Eve Online. There hasn't really been a case of skills being removed from play without a total SP reset in Dust 514, but with vehicle changes coming up I notice that a few skills have been nyxxed completely... I'm curious to see how they go about this.

TL;DR - Paying for respecs is a shitty idea and takes away from specialization and the lasting choice of investment. Respecs should not be granted for any other reason than complete playstyle alterations.