A controversial suggestion

[Artorias]

On my first character I really wanted to stick to the theme that Seryn had, he was entirely within the water tree. I barely sparred on him, I'd get really anxious because I lost a lot in the beginning. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, certain combos really just destroyed my confidence and enthusiasm. As a fresh new player with zero knowledge on the other trees, it was rather scary for me. At some point I began to buckle up and accept I needed to get involved in PvP, I did maybe a hundred spars and I got a little experience. I was then cap killed on my first danger and I got into a very bad attitude.

When I made Renfae I told myself I wasn't going to die as easily, I set myself a goal to have a thousand spars under my belt. Experiencing the trees and their combinations has been a blast, but clearly there is a problem. I went in with a build and theme, I've followed them all through and now I'm okay at verbing. My thrill for RPing however has diminished greatly, when I look at the game I see almost everything is decided by whoever can swing the hardest. Quite a lot of the people that do swing the hardest, do so because they've been given relatively powerful advantages over others.

Needless rant on balance / the giving of ECesque upgrades to players below

Whether that advantage be through a weapon with over 75 power + elemental bonuses, or signatures that are wildly more powerful than they have any right to be. I understand that sometimes it is necessary and a lot of times it has been earned, but the standard in place creates EC's ran by Players. Quite a lot of people don't want to interact, when they know that they legitimately can't win unless they get the same types of rewards or become good enough that the advantages matter little.

I'm perhaps rambling but I've kept the same build except for a reshuffle of certain abilities, removing a spell or two from fire to place them into time or armed.

I think the problem is kind of systemic and while I agree that limiting rebirth potential is great, I don't think it will solve the overarching problems. It was mentioned once before in the council chat. "a level 230 3-sig char"

While these are just my thoughts, if you yourself can see the issue in a player character having too much power my question would be; is there any plan on limiting the amount of power you are giving players? Quite a lot of these meta-builds could be traced back to the fact that some individuals just can't be beat by normal means, sure they've earned a reward and put effort in... But in a Roleplaying game, does that reward have to be even more literal power for their character?

Some players are lucky enough to get perhaps 5 power on their weapon, others see three or four times that and possibly even more.

No more rant

I think rewarding builds that are thematic is a good idea, people that actually Roleplay their magics for things they're doing. Whether you're using it in artificing, healing or any number of other things related to personal dev. A good example of one of those players in my own experience is Loramelian, they have consistently used their magic trees in Roleplay from the first moment I met them. 

My suggestion might be wild but considering Artificing and Alchemy aren't exactly combat related, remove the cost to go into them entirely. I think it'd give a lot of players more rp opportunities without having to worry about their builds. I look at them both and shrug, because that five or ten rpp could be the difference between having enough for a sig on an expensive build or not, and that isn't how I should view RPP/Signatures/Crafting/Roleplaying in general as it is a bad mindset. Being able to craft doesn't really give you a huge advantage, but it does open up more RP opportunities.