Thank you.

PO is still new, the devs haven't really stated where they want to go with their game in the long run, so all those causal suggestions still have a place here.

Attrib respec, skill delearning, quick-travel, automated mining, chat bubbles, macros and add-ons, joining multiple corps, instantiated PvE buildings, what else? As long as we don't have orcs or elves, everything can be alright, as long as it's balanced and that enough players find this entertaining.

Maybe it won't be Eve On Earth, but is that a problem? Different games have different playerbases. Hence more money to draw from.

You forgot the third choice: no renewing. Of course some players don't mind at all the system, but you have to take in consideration that some players do. Even if they are aware they can't spend months doing nothing, every skill point they spend, they have that feeling of wasting something. At least I do. I felt exactly the same with Eve learnings and I was happy to hear they removed them. My guess is that I wasn't the only one.

And as for Eve attribute system, it doesn't exactly compare with PO attribute system, since you can't actually stop training and collect your skill points, so even if the workings are very similar, that little bit of difference balances a seemly pointless and maybe frustrating system into an reason to play to get more of these attributes points. I know this may not seems like something important for some players, but trust me, it is for some others.

Of course, like everything it's a matter of numbers. If we are in the range of near 10%, then most won't mind. Probably. I can't really tell. But I'm pretty sure that if the numbers can be considered negligible, then maybe it would be worth it to remove/rework the system to avoid the risk of frustrating some players? As for me, I'll be ok with whatever decision is taken on this, since a lot of other points make me love the current state of the game. But what about someone who's considering whether to subscribe after his 4 days trial? Maybe a respect once a year will be enough for him, but again, I don't know.

That's my real question: is it really worth it?

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.

Useless? This would change a big part of the game: all those semi-afk activities, such as mining, farming low level bots or chain-transport missions which are a non-negligible of the game economy. This would radically differentiate the gameplay from Eve, but would also make multi-account exponentially more powerful.

I would love this.

But, of course, the multi account issues kill the very idea, I guess.

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.

As I explained in another topic, I would be in favor of a possibility of a slow progressive respec. To be able to select an extension to 'unlearn' and slowly earn back it's EP price, at a fraction of the EP normal earning rate (50%?). Think of Eve skilling process in reverse.

This would allow players to fix any early mistake they could have done and allow players (even vets) to change a consequent part of their build. Yet having the unlearning rate a fraction of the EP gain would prevent people for totally respecing in short time (the "shortness" being relative to the age of their account). So no FoTM builds (which is basically the main argument against respec), but maybe FotY orientations.

The most important part of this would of course be the whole "don't worry, you can respec anyway". And that is certainly a selling point.

But it creates exactly the same mechanic: one where the further you push back the acquisition of useful skills, the more skill points you get.

And that's this very mechanic which is horrible for a game: most players want to optimize their playtime, so they will try to make the most use it, hence hurting greatly their fun on a short time-scale for long-term benefits.

Don't even hope that players won't use the mechanic. They used it while hating it in Eve, why would they act differently here?

Don't give players tools to hurt themselves.

I suggest the link to this thread to be replaced with a link to Robot wants Kitty.

Having these warning logged would help against symptoms, but not solve the real problem: mining (at least in low level safe zones) is basically being semi-afk for 30 minutes.

A more rational long-term solution would be to have a real permissions system, with user groups.