I can see the frustration, unfortunately I can't feel very sorry for anyone that didn't take the 5 minutes (if even?) to get the planner and map out a bunch of skills and then optimize. Or ask someone in help chat before blowing your entire wad of EP. Seeing the large player base from eve here, nothing should have been all that hard to grasp (or that surprising). Re-spec shouldn't even be considered until much later IMO. That's how I see it at least; a certain amount of consequence tends to make the game a lot more enjoyable..

But, you're in luck. You can delete characters for free until the 7th!

For me the problem lies in the strange way attributes affect Ep progression. I have two accounts: 1 pure combat and 1 pure indi. When I created them I didn't put much work into planning them but I've read up on the forums that "pure" is the way to go so thats what I did.

Yesterday I started wondering if there are any alternatives I've missed so I spent 2-3 hrs on the planner and guess what... everyone was right.

There is simply no scenario in which putting attributes into anything else than pure indy or pure combat is worth it. Well there is one build I managed to come up with. It's combat build specialized in the electronic warfare ONLY, which is better off if you put a little bit (e.g. just last choice of spark ) in the research and developement but only if you skip any weapon skills (which makes it kinda pointless imo) and the return is few days worth of EP anyway!

All other builds whether is pure mining indy, pure production indy, all combat builds etc is severly gimped if you make creation choice other than 4x combat or 4x indy.

So my question is why put attributes at all? The simpler and less painfull solution is to just make people choose between combat or industial class. Yea it's less sandbox but right now the freedom we have is an illusion. We're only free to have a same char as everyone else or a gimped char.

Or just fix the attribute system so the primary attribute for the given skill bears less weight comparing to the secondary attribute for the same skill than it is now. That would enable some more flexibility in terms of builds. For example almost all mining skills have Mechatronics as a secondary attribute. Wouldn't it make sense to be better off putting at least few points into this attribute if you want only mining char and thus be a little different than other standard builds (right now its all indy)?

Agree with OP. They should offer a stEVE like option to respect once a year.

It's a problem. It's going to keep being a problem. It's not going to go away. Too many are going to choose the game respec option. Click, what was that sound? It was the game losing money, cause this hasn't been fixed.

I am pretty sure that this is the first idea in this thread entirely solving the problem of having to wait enough attribute related to a skill before upgrading it, to optimize your character.

Now the hard part will be to balance it so that for a given set of skills, every learning order has the same total EP cost (hence total learning time), otherwise still fall in the problem of having to wait before taking some skills if you want to maximize your char.

Doesn't having an attribute just mean less ep is required to acquire a skill? So if it takes 10.000 ep into one genre of skills to raise attributes enough to lower the skills from the same genre about 0.1%. So thered be no reason to hold ep and wait? This is in no way time based really, if you don't spend the ep you don't reap the benefit

Edit: total learning time shouldn't matter as long as its more than most individuals will ever see. If it takes 3 years to max industry and 4 to max combat, no onesreally effected. By the time that rolls arouns we should have doubled the amount of available skills

There really should be no attributes at all.

Character specialization should be defined by skill choices over a lifetime, not day 1 character creation. Think about it, what added value do attributes provide? Some skills take longer and some shorter? But then they sell you re-specs because you change your mind? Why not just have no attributes at all. If you want to specialize in production, go ahead and specialize in production by choosing production skills. If you want to specialize in combat, take combat skills. If you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, knock yourself out and spread your SP around.

Attributes are needed for none of these things. The only thing attributes do is exacerbate the imbalance between those who have a mastery of system mechanics at character creation and those who are trying a new game without knowing much about it.

I was under the impression that attributes only affected the amount of EP needed to purchase an extension?  If someone wished to have a hybrid character, couldn't they do so if they were willing to take the extra time for the extra EP needed?  It seems that many people are concerned with making their characters perfect, when we are not even sure if the mechanics will stay the same in the long term.

MMO's are filled with min/max'er personalities... people want to have the most with the least amount of time spent -- sounds about right.

Then what's the point of having the attributes in the first place?

No, it doesn't, since some attributes affect nearly no skills. The only available options are 4 in military or 4 in industry. And that's the problem.

Add a respec and you only worsen the problem, as you will incite players to delay skill learning until they can respec their attributes to minimize the cost of the skill they want.

heh, i was thinking of the attributes as a bonus, moreso than a hindrance... though I seem to be in the minority..

You want to spec (at first) in combat? ok, take the attributes geared toward combat, and you can be "effective" quicker. Though it will cost you later as you will train crafting at a "normal" rate..

Again, i'm pretty ignorant on this topic... And I'm more than sure i will be corrected ; )