Quote Originally Posted by Sholah View Post
We had this in 1.0. Yoshi took it away because of his precious WoW holy trinity system. He wants things to be as simple as possible for new players, and that means no customization.
And it was incredibly unbalanced and complex.

And it has less to do with the trinity (which, by the way, isn't his and neither is it WoW's; it started with EQ) and more to do with the fact that ARR is designed for new gamers and MMO players which meant keeping things simple.

But the biggest problem with any kind of customisation system is that there is really only 1 customisation you are allowed to use if you want to join any kind of end game group. There are some players who can pull off unique and interesting choices but for the most part players prefer to look up the "standard" and go with that because they aren't the kinds of players who can understand and appreciate the subtleties of a game. Generally, it's an illusion of choice. Even with the simple cross class choices of ARR, it's very obvious that most of those "choices" aren't actually choices at all.

It's very difficult in an MMO to balance customisation and still have it be true choice. Single player games have it easier because your choices as a player do not affect anyone else. In an MMO, though, those choices directly affect the party you are with. So unless you play solo in an MMO (which isn't really how it works), then customisation is customisation in name only. Just like how having horizontal gear progression is also an illusion; there's still a best set for a given role/action.