Have you heard about IRC?

Lockingbro and Saberwing are online now and do their best to address your questions directly.

I've seen IRC mentioned by several people...but what is it, exactly?

A direct audience...you'll have to go through my secretaries secretary first.

Secretary's secretary*** YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

D'oh!!

It's about time people appreciated a fair deal when they got one.

They changed the dropsuits. Your dropsuit SP is being refunded.

End of story.

They are changing weapon proficiencys and equipment as well as weapon damage along with weapon ranges in 1.7 .. no SP Refund ...

Having played FPS games for almost two decades now, I have not found a more accessible dev community.

Because the weapons are being rebalanced. There's a difference between a balance pass and a complete overhaul.

A balance pass is what happens when stats are tweaked, sometimes a little, sometimes a little more, in an attempt to change what's already there to make them more balanced and promote diversity of fittings and tactics. This happens in every patch in Eve and Dust, sometimes with overall good feedback and sometimes with harsh criticism. Today, Eve Rubicon 1.3 dropped, putting a hard cap on drone assist and smashing some very widely used fleet doctrines right in the balls with the nerfbat. There's a fair amount of opposition to this change, but we'll just have to see how it goes. In the meantime, I dare you to head on over to the Eve forums and demand a refund of Drones and/or Spaceship Command skillpoints in light of this nerf, and watch how quickly you get laughed down.

A full rework is what happened with vehicles, and what's happening now with suits. Vehicles were added, removed, and changed completely, and now the number of dropsuits available is almost doubling (to what many believe should have been there right from the start) as well as a major iteration on dropsuit bonuses. In light of such major changes, CCP opted to provide a partial SP refund to those skill trees. While I have my reservations about this, I understand and accept their justification.

Things get buffed, things get nerfed. Such is the way of games like Dust, and you can't expect any form of respec just because your favorite gun is having its damage or range reduced. They added a few new weapons in conjunction with the balance changes, but that effect is pretty small compared to the dropsuit roster expansion. New ships were released in Rubicon 1.0 in addition to balance changes, nobody complained because it was just 2 ships among many, much like the new weapons are 3 among a fair number, as opposed to at least a 50% increase in the number of suits.

Maybe, maybe we'll get another vehicle respec when all the racial LAVs/tanks/dropships come out, but after that, don't count on it. Other classes like speeders or fighters will almost certainly be released with all races at once, at which point it's creating new areas, not filling in existing holes, and we'll all have equal opportunity to spend any future SP on any of them.

TL;DR - Suit changes are major and the respec is justified. Weapon changes are relatively small in comparison and not enough to warrant one.

They are changing weapon proficiencys and equipment as well as weapon damage along with weapon ranges in 1.7 .. no SP Refund ...

It's half arsed and hasn't been thought through .. Just like your reply

It's about time people appreciated a fair deal when they got one.

They changed the dropsuits. Your dropsuit SP is being refunded.

End of story.

Rebalances don't get respecs. Never have.

Role changes on the other hand, the kind the dropsuits got & weapons didn't, do warrant respecs.

The proficiency might warrant a reduction to its skill multiplier, and that's about it.

snip

Rebalances don't get respecs. Never have.

snip

Because the weapons are being rebalanced. There's a difference between a balance pass and a complete overhaul.

A balance pass is what happens when stats are tweaked, sometimes a little, sometimes a little more, in an attempt to change what's already there to make them more balanced and promote diversity of fittings and tactics. This happens in every patch in Eve and Dust, sometimes with overall good feedback and sometimes with harsh criticism. Today, Eve Rubicon 1.3 dropped, putting a hard cap on drone assist and smashing some very widely used fleet doctrines right in the balls with the nerfbat. There's a fair amount of opposition to this change, but we'll just have to see how it goes. In the meantime, I dare you to head on over to the Eve forums and demand a refund of Drones and/or Spaceship Command skillpoints in light of this nerf, and watch how quickly you get laughed down.

A full rework is what happened with vehicles, and what's happening now with suits. Vehicles were added, removed, and changed completely, and now the number of dropsuits available is almost doubling (to what many believe should have been there right from the start) as well as a major iteration on dropsuit bonuses. In light of such major changes, CCP opted to provide a partial SP refund to those skill trees. While I have my reservations about this, I understand and accept their justification.

Things get buffed, things get nerfed. Such is the way of games like Dust, and you can't expect any form of respec just because your favorite gun is having its damage or range reduced. They added a few new weapons in conjunction with the balance changes, but that effect is pretty small compared to the dropsuit roster expansion. New ships were released in Rubicon 1.0 in addition to balance changes, nobody complained because it was just 2 ships among many, much like the new weapons are 3 among a fair number, as opposed to at least a 50% increase in the number of suits.

Maybe, maybe we'll get another vehicle respec when all the racial LAVs/tanks/dropships come out, but after that, don't count on it. Other classes like speeders or fighters will almost certainly be released with all races at once, at which point it's creating new areas, not filling in existing holes, and we'll all have equal opportunity to spend any future SP on any of them.

TL;DR - Suit changes are major and the respec is justified. Weapon changes are relatively small in comparison and not enough to warrant one.

Its changing what the skill does

How can changing what a skill does not warrant an SP refund ??

How can tying in equipment to racial logi suits not warrant an sp refund of equipment ??

PS changing weapon range and damage changes a weapons role .. obviously its primary role is to kill but changing how it does that based on range and damage directly affects how it fulfills that role thus weaponry should be refunded as well

Windows of opportunity = vehicle refund

Why does increasing TTK and changing suit roles not merit an infantry SP refund ??

The Optional Respect was the result from the Dropsuit Command still tree changes due to rebalances.

They dont even have to hide

They just ignore and trot out the lolcpm when needed

I already found more accesable and thats Adhesive/Meteor.
CCP with their lies and hiding behind words can go somewhere.
BTW i want to start open discussion with some head on CCP about their progress and their desicions.
No some hiding behind IRC or forum.
Just give me mail or tel. number.
What they did today is outrageous and filth, basicly its spit to community face.

I've seen IRC mentioned by several people...but what is it, exactly?

A direct audience...you'll have to go through my secretaries secretary first.

(Or just jump on IRC. Tweet me. Find me in game, or speak to me on the forums. :)

Edit: And yes, there will be a "mission statement" by CCP Rouge. We're fleshing out these details but as I've alluded to in the past, this will come and you will be hearing from him (and more regularly) soon.

like myself Most players here are retreads. I don't see a direct meeting doing any good whatsoever.

Seriously people, what other devs interact with their community even as much as these do? Their job is to make the game, not hang out here going back and forth with us.