FFXI's gear swap was like having extra skills.

[Icecylee]

new system that works like gear swaps without all the space, make them like materia, u collect them the same as gear from drops,nm, dungeons what have you. but instead of adding them to gear, u add them to your spells. long as u get the right ones it turns to key item that u can then turn it active to any spell. kill nm > drops dark element materialwanabemat > now can activate it to any spell or move > turn it on for u'r stun!! > done. same thing little less of the work an hastles and no blinking or making long macros lol.

This is right on the money. Gear is kind of a terrible design space for slowly but surely increasing the potency of every single one of your available abilities - different sorts of gear are there to accommodate different play style or let you prepare for challenges you know in advance. Mid-battle gear swapping is silly.

If all you really want if for there to be a time consuming way to buff up the entirely of your ability pool set, that's what you should be asking for; quests or drops or whatever that upon completion/acquisition increase the effectiveness of the specific abilities themselves.

[Teakwood]

This is right on the money. Gear is kind of a terrible design space for slowly but surely increasing the potency of every single one of your available abilities - different sorts of gear are there to accommodate different play style or let you prepare for challenges you know in advance. Mid-battle gear swapping is silly.

If all you really want if for there to be a time consuming way to buff up the entirely of your ability pool set, that's what you should be asking for; quests or drops or whatever that upon completion/acquisition increase the effectiveness of the specific abilities themselves.

This. A thousand times this. I'm a long time player of XI and I actually enjoy what the retarded baroque gear system allows you to do, I just think it is so far from optimal that we should not be even considering implementing it again. There are better, more interesting ways to explore that design space!