Please don't.

Please don't.

if you didnt think ahead before you bought and used aurum, then your a dumbass.

this is not the end of loss, but just the beginning.

If this is a full respec, you should have to give up 25% of your lifetime SP.

An interesting idea. I know in EVE Online, if you are killed while in a clone that is not fully up to date, then you can loose a percentage of your skill points. Since there is no clone upkeep mechanism in DUST514, maybe this would be a way to accomplish that style of skill point "sink."

But if there is a 25% loss, do you also mean that there should be no AUR cost for the respec? So the idea would be that if a player doesn't want to pay AUR for a monthly respec, then they can instead pay 25% of their current skill point total to get one? Would this idea still be compatible with the respecs for AUR?

Interesting ideas...

I'm leaning towards the direction of respecs just costing ISK and AUR. But whether we ever get them or not, new players should be allowed to respec any time they want in the academy and a mandatory one upon graduation.

I've heard this before... Please elaborate on your reasoning. I'm all ears. ;)

No, respecs should not be made available at all, the only, and i repeat only time that something like that should happen is when they overhaul the skill tree, if only certain skills are being changed then refund the sp in that skill if the change requires it, putting in a pay to respec scheme skips a little too close to the p2w line imo. sp investment is significant, you should not be able to just wipe it away whenever, if well timed it have serious repercussions in a pc battle, it will enable those who pay aur to respec into whatever is the current FOTM gear, effectively turning it into a p2w cycle. an eve saying comes to mind, no sp is wasted, a 100,000 you dump into a useless skill might end up saving you a lot of time if you later decide to switch to a role that gets usage out of that skill.

But in a world of console gaming, is it reasonable to assume that players will stick with this game that long if they are unable to correct the mistakes that they made at the start?

And being an EVE player I agree with you on this. In my mind, given enough time, my DUST toon will one day be able to use most proto gear taht I care about using while being able to use the advanced versions of almost everything in the game at some point (maybe years from now, but whatever). So while people complain about how one weapon or vehicle gets nerfed, I just point out that it all goes in cycles. Today it may be bad, but give it enough time and it will become useful again.

But in a world of console gaming, is it reasonable to assume that players will stick with this game that long if they are unable to correct the mistakes that they made at the start?

But here's the thing though. Console gaming is changing and so is the culture. How can one be certain that respecs are ever going to be needed once the culture has changed?

Wow, yeah. That's actually a very good point that I'm hoping a dev is reading... Newbies have no idea what to spend skill points on when they first start and shouldn't be penalized for experimenting. So maybe provide them with an optional free respec upon "graduating" the academy stuff.

Pretty much. They got things sort of right with the academy the first time around. Having a safe little sandbox for newberries to get a feel for the game was only a temporary solution since matchmaking wasn't their top priority but could have been built upon to enhance new player experience. Looking at how things are now, people curse out blueberries, but a lot of them really should still be in the academy because they literally don't know any better. I proposed my ideas before, but I'll post them here to in case if a Dev is reading:

-100,000 WP or 5,000,000 SP needed to graduate. (Whichever happens first)
-Make public battles available after 25,000 WP while still enrolled in the academy to gauge skill level.
-Ban anything above standard and basic gear in academy battles.
-Starter fits of every specialized militia frame with militia variants of all existing weapons to encourage role diversity.
-Unlimited and free respecs while enrolled in the academy with no penalty.
-Add tutorial based secondary objectives that teach basic skills like menus, using equipment and vehicles with rewards.
-Accelerated SP gain until 5,000,00 SP with no weekly cap whether in the academy or not.
-Free and mandatory respec upon graduation with a prompt reminding the player that there will be no more respecs.

Not bad, OP. Not enough to convince me resets for AUR is okay, but I like the limits you placed on it.

My favorite respec idea is, and always will be, DUST Fiend's slow rolling respec idea: You get one bankable respec point per week. One respec point undoes a single rank of a single skill.

That way it's a balanced, gradual process, and you can't just hop on the FoTM every month once the patch notes come out.

I thought it was a brilliant idea, gotta give the dude credit.

Things I like about Respec for Aurum: gives players a choice, gives CCP income

Things I dont like about respec for Aurum: adds to the Pay to Win argument

Comment: if CCP allows players to sell Aurum for isk ( the way they do with Plex) this could help to reduce the P2W contention

I personally think

1) It should cost 100,000 aurm

2) It should make you lose 30% of your total SP

So you are saying that it should not only cost AUR, but also skillpoints... As someone else already pointed out, skill point accrual can be equated to AUR expenditure for boosters that earn you skill points faster anyways. So in a way some players are already paying AUR for skill points (at least to get them faster). So if skill points can be equated to AUR, the by making a respec cost both AUR and skill points are you not just saying that it should just cost more AUR?

To say this more simply... Let's say (I don't have real numbers) that 30% of a character's skill points were gotten by using both passive and active boosters that were purchased with AUR. So in your above example:

1) They pay the 100,000 AUR.
2) They pay the 30% skill points which originally cost them more AUR from the boosters that they used.

So the total is 100,000 AUR + the AUR spent on boosters.

So why not just simplify and give a solely AUR based cost instead?