paid respecs have the horrid potential to unbalance the game and people will likely complain over the price.

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So you essentially want to pay for something you're eventually going to get for free anyway without any garuntee of stability in a game that relies on a progressive development cycle that favors sweeping changes to core mechanics almost overnight? If that's the case, I have a bridge to sell you.

It makes the game P2W.

Eve Online, the game we are now directly connected to, has been around for 10 years straight and had had only one respec in it's entire lifetime. There is no respec system in Eve Online (no, the neural remap is not a respec). Many players in Eve Online have always demanded CCP to give them paid respecs but CCP ignored them (thankfully).

Also, if you're too lazy to use the search function then I can see many trolls coming to this thread.

PS: Eve Online has had constant changes to its skill tree, ships, modules, weapons, etc.

Still does.

You want paid respecs? Okay, I'll give you paid respecs.

Banned Neural Defrag Unit
First off, $25 worth of AUR for one of these puppies. Not negotiable. You want to spec into the FotM then you need to pay out the nose.

Next, 10% SP penalty. Completely rewiring your memories hurts. A lot. The penalty increase by 10% for each paid respec you have bought in the last 60 days.

Lastly, you take a 50% penalty to passive and active SP gains for the next 60 days. Nueral defrag units are banned for a reason. Until your brain figures out how to poop and talk out of the proper holes again you are not going to learn advanced combat techniques at any appreciable rate.

If you are okay with the both requirements, sure, you can have your respecs.

Yes, but there are no items (besides boosters) that you can currently get in-game with AUR that you can't get by paying ISK.

And the AUR gear only allows you to use STD gear, which anyone can invest into with about 3 matches worth of SP; or gear of a higher tier, which is only serving as an early access pass or a way to save ISK.

This game is pay to get ahead, but it is not p2w. Anything besides boosters that you buy with AUR can be payed for in ISK with an amount of time investment and SP.

Plus, I'd rather just use imaginary space currency than my own real life wallet to restock my fittings. (Unless you live in Iceland. ISK there is the "real deal")

I can give you one proper argument on how respecs will unbalance the game.

METRICS

CCP relies on the constant stream of data to determine which weapons to balance out with either a buff or a nerf. We have already seen first hand what happens when too many people spec into one thing. Heavies come to mind and those heavy players who have been here since closed beta will confirm it for you.

Back then heavies reigned supreme and thus almost everyone specced into them. As a result, after so much QQ in the forums about it, the heavies got nerfed... big time. So much nerfed that they became useless for almost an entire year until early last month. Laser Rifles became the next victim and even the tanks. Now the ARs are in the cross hairs and the Logibros are raging over the possible removal of the light weapon slot because people kept complaining that too many logis are acting like assaults.

As you can see, when too many people spec into one thing, it can skew the data for CCP to rely on. Paid Respecs will just add to the problem when almost everyone pays their way into speccing into the next flavor of the month. Seemingly "ok" weapons become seemingly "OP" and seeming "UP" weapons get "overbuffed" instead while the seemingly "OP" weapons get "overnerfed". This will just further hinder CCP's ability to properly see which weapon is actually OP and which ones are actually balanced.

I'm not sure if Atiim described it well, but I can say this...

Militia suits in the hands of skilled veterans will wreck Proto AUR suits any day.

And as someone else already pointed out, you have entered a culture that is famously known throughout the MMO industry as New Eden or the Eve culture. This culture has three basic rules that have remained unchanged for 10 years.

1. Adapt or Die
2. Don't use what you can't afford to lose.
3. Accept the permanent consequences of your choices.

Your choices here have to matter. I have skill points invested in books that I don't like but I have to live with that mistake. In fact, I'm glad I made that mistake because it taught me how to be careful with my choices. Besides, ultimately those wasted SP became an investment instead in case the skill books they affect become balanced again.

Without this third rule, no one will learn anything. We practically live in the harshest universe in MMO history. Welcome to New Eden.