Some choices were made for players. E.g. players who wanted a Caldari rifle in 1.0 didn't have the option. They could either sit on their SP until 1.7 (how fun is that?!) or spend it on some weapon they didn't necessarily love using, just to stay competitive.

I will accept the "live with your choices" argument when my choices actually matter, and only I get to make them.

We're immortal mercenaries that have our consciousnesses stored digitally...
We utilize micro-wormholes to instantly teleport into battle...
We keep banks of genetically blank clone bodies in storage...

Please don't compare the real-world with a futuristic sci-fi setting. You aren't comparing apples to apples and you just end up looking silly.



Whether the AR is useless, useful, or "dead" is not the question. CCP did not have a full weapon list on launch so players skilled into whatever was available at the time. Don't muddy the issue.



The time is takes to skill into a prototype weapon is one argument for a refund... it isn't the strongest argument, which is probably why you choose to focus on it instead of the more viable arguments CCP lead us to believe that X, Y, and Z weapons were available Uprising 1.0. They didn't even hint at weapons A through W being released, or when they would be released. Because of that players specced into the weapons we had available to us at the time. Not because they fit our playstyles, or because we thought they would be great FotM weapons.

I know I wouldn't have put a single SP into the SMG if I had the magsec SMG available to me... And I even own an SMG BPO.

It is not the players' fault that CCP did not have a complete weapon list in Uprising 1.0. When we have full racial weapon parity CCP would do well to refund the SP in the weaponry tree.

When/if CCP adds higher "tiers" of weapons that is not the same as fleshing out an incomplete weapon list. In one scenario you are adding missing content, content that SHOULD be there but isn't. In the other scenario you are adding new content that piggybacks off of existing, fully realized content.

When they add whole new spectrum of weapons. For example, let's say EWAR ends up falling into the Weaponry tree somehow. The same logic I used above applies... they aren't adding missing content. They are adding totally new content.



I'll make this simple: when all four races have parity within the weapon list that exists as of 1.8 then we no longer need respecs from that point onward. Any choices players have made will be valid, and will not have been made for them by CCP, at that point.

Generating more SP to skill into weapons that now exist isn't the issue. We've already established that getting into a prototype weapon isn't difficult. That isn't the argument here.

Hardly...

But I have a feeling you aren't going to be swayed by anything I say anyway. If you have read my posts in this thread and still don't see why a weaponry respec is needed (not now, mind you, but after we achieve weapon parity) then you must have gotten lucky and fallen in love with one of the Uprising 1.0 weapons.

We're weren't told on launch day when, or what, would be available in the coming patches.

If a new player had been told that the CR or RR would be available by 1.X patch they might save their SP (as you are suggesting) until their racial weapon of choice has been released. They weren't offered that.

Not to be terse... but good for you? I honestly could care less how you view your SP. The fact is we were allowed to skill into weapons before we had the ability to make an informed decision about those weapons.

You say choices matter. You say choices have consequences. You aren't wrong, but we weren't given enough choices.

What are you proposing we should have done? Made our characters then let them sit for months until we had the full list of weapons available to us? Some fun that would be! I bet new players can't wait to run MIL fittings for more than a year while CCP adds in all of the missing content. I can see the tagline for Dust 514 now, "Dust 514, the wait is real!"

How about we agree to disagree? There are some fundamental issues we strongly disagree on ("missing content" is a good example). We both feel one way or another about respecs and you can't argue with emotion.

I highly doubt CCP is ever going to read any of the respec discussions anyway Chances are they have already made their decision.

But I do want to bring up one parting thought... these two sentences here...




...are not good for the community as a whole. We're already a small community; let's not encourage players to leave simply because they feel slighted by something. Mind you, I'm not going anywhere, but some newberry might get discouraged and take your advice... then we a lose one more squadmate or redberry. Even though Dust infuriates the ever living **** out of me sometimes, I want to see it survive.