Suggestion: New kind of Orb of Regret

I've heard enough times that players have problems with their build by being indecisive or experimenting and then having cost consequences to their decisions. The two things I'm hearing more often is about friction with gem experimentation costs and passive tree respec costs. Personally I'm not that negatively affected because I just grind problems away, but I'm also sympathetic for others. :D

Items have weight depending on the fact how impactful the pickup feels like. This is where item scarcity is a benefit, where specifically gold and uncut gems are related to this post. During the campaign on a fresh character the number of uncut gem drops feels impactful because every drop most often can be an instant incremental upgrade either via gem levels or new support gems or combos. Gold on the other hand is a relevant resource in decision making all the way to the end game, where players have to make careful respec decisions vs trade and gambling decisions. The benefit of resource restrictiviness is how it makes decision making important and the game engaging, but inflexibility with the resources makes it feel like there is less room to experiment.

Personally I just stock 3-5 extra skill gems before switching skills and combos to make experimentations. This works during the campaign as well, as the loss of power from not upgrading skill gems is only temporary with how easy it is to play catch up with skill gem levels. I can't say the same for support or spirit gems early on, because every empty support gem slot or an unleveled spirit gem from a failed experiment affects the character power a lot longer. The situation with support and spirit gems could be a design choice, so it is kinda hard to argue against them. But doing it like I did with skill gems might not be as intuitive or manageable to others as well, so the problem is still prevailent to many players.

# The new suggested Orb of Regret
In PoE1 an Orb of Regret grants a respec point on use, can revert a gem to level 1 as a vendor recipe, and with enough orbs one can reset an NPC-reward choice for another one. I want the same and more for PoE2 with the following:

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Orb of Regret
Use on a target to revert a decision made
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The wording is intended. I just wanted to add flexibility to it, with a bit of mystery, and to avoid it being a crafting orb. Just how we've had vendor recipes in PoE1, I wanted the new Orb of Regret to sound like there are multiple uses to find.

As a specification I'm designing the examples with this orb to work with decisions that had no RNG-element to it:
- Using the orb on an uncorrupted gem reverts it back to an uncut gem of equal level, losing quality and sockets in the process
- Using the orb onto anywhere on the passive tree grants a free passive tree respec point one can use instead of gold while respeccing at the NPC.
- Using the orb on Doryani or Hooded One also similarly grants a free respec point
- Using orbs on a campaign map item visualizing a chosen quest reward puts the orbs around the icon, shaking and cracking it, until there are enough orbs to revert the chosen reward to be chosen again. The orbs can be picked back up before the decision is finalized or if the player does not have enough orbs.

And I have additional use suggestions that are not related to the main topic:
- Using the orb on Atlas tree puts the orb in the middle, until there are 3 that are consumed to grant a free Atlas respec point one can use at the NPC.
- Using the orb on a cleared tower in the Atlas removes all the tablet modifiers from the tower, while not allowing to put new tablets in. It's a regret orb, not an orb of extra loot.
- Some NPC:s have regrets of their own, and using an Orb of Regret on them plays a dialogue with the information on their regret. For example with Alva it could be "I regret not knowing my parents better", which could foreshadow a future game story topic.

Then I have additional meme worthy suggestions:
- Using the orb on a socketed Augment (Runes, Idols, etc) on an uncorrupted or nonmirror item deletes the socketed Augment. Not actually useful I know.
- Using the orb on an equipped item unequips it to your inventory
- Using the orb on the skill assign quick slots empties the slots
- Using the orb on volume control from the settings menu mutes volume

# Drops
If I would speculate the needed drop rates for the orb that adds flexibility for experimentations but not make choices irrelevant, I would say 3 drops per early Act then 6 per late Act. Alternatively and crazily it could be 1 per early hour, with up to 5 per hour later on, with Orb of Regret drops not scaling that much from rarity but from player time.

But the thing is if they were part of the common core drop pool then they would eventually make most respec gold costs irrelevant in the long run because players would opt to gains with gold instead of fixing tree with gold. I'm unsure if this would be a good thing or a bad thing, but it was worth to mention. If one were to limit the drops but want to ensure drops for the campaign play, then Trials could be the most common place to drop them, as it would make them the most sensible and comical places to have regrets, which players would eventually meet and target farm. Other locations would have very very rare drops for Regrets, with an added benefit of increasing the perceived value of Trials.

# Conclusion
Giving players room to explore their builds while preserving the weighted tension makes PoE engaging. If implemented properly, this new implementation could enhance both the campaign experience and endgame decision making, making careful experimentations feel like inexpensive encouraged part of progression rather than a costly experimentation risk.

The support it gives for experimentation works best if the Orbs of Regret are otherwise almost worthless while being rare, capped by the respec gold cost value. Which is the reason for other use values in discovery and memeing.

Thank you for your time. If you want to, you can make other and memeing suggestions for the new Orb of Regret.

PS. Holy macaroni I really need to stop writing so long suggestions. I'm unsure if anyone actually reads them like this.