Quote Originally Posted by Lumadurin View Post
I genuinely think this is the way to go. Because frankly we're at about the limit for the number of things one can be expected to manage. Even WoW stops forcing new skills upon you after level 90 or so.
Maybe Paladin could opt into stronger heals. Easing the load on the healers and freeing them to do more damage.
Maybe MCH could opt into stat-boosting darts that it could fire at teammates.
Maybe Samurai could opt into having to land frontal-positionals (high risk due to cleaves, but also high reward).

The key word here is opt. Modify/enhance existing abilities rather than just add more meat to rotations.
Further Devil's Advocate:

1. Are we truly at the limit for the number of things one can be expected to manage, or just nearing excessive button counts? There's a large difference between the amount of things we need actually track, calculate, or make decisions upon and the number of keys required to perform or maintain a mostly thought-free action or state, respectively.

2. WoW has received severe criticism for introducing few new skills over the last 3 expansions and for having fewer actions available to each spec than it had 5 expansions ago. The feedback towards the 90-120 leveling experience is much like that of the 1-30 gameplay experience here, trading just a bit of the "not enough here" for "nothing new" and the "when will it get going?" for "wait... that's it?"

3. Ultimately, any variation is simply going to be treated as another job. Either it will be strong, complimentary enough with/to the strongest to be meta-appropriate, or it will be inferior.

Historically, very few players participate meaningfully in choice-making; far more feel that their choices are made for them, and that the majority of choices are non-choices in the context of any particular encounter or meta, largely because though the setting adjusts -- changing what is optimal with each adjustment -- the bank of options doesn't change with it. Choices are more often felt in-play in the context of the salient, oft-disused components of a job (e.g. NIN's front-positional burst-over-indirect-damage Sneak Attack, use or neglect of Fracture), than via menus. Choices generated through style of play and one's understanding of the situation's needs, rather than out-of-game menu selections, also allow for a greater sense of progression in a given class, spec, or job, so long as the sometimes disused skills are part of optimal play, but are difficult to make a net gain until well understood in the context of the fight, its timings, and one's composition.

4. We already opt for our jobs. We don't have to play new ones. But when on the wrong end of patch balance, swapping doesn't feel especially optional. Because swapping is considered more convenient and accessible than on, say, WoW, being of the "wrong" job is proportionately more frowned upon. When another option requires only a menu selection to recover from, then, it seems safe to say there will be even less understanding afforded players, given the same performance gap as playing an "inferior" job.

Quote Originally Posted by Seraphor View Post
It is a good idea, but how could it be implemented for each class?

BLM: maybe being able to spec between Thunder, Ice and Fire, being able to increase the potencies of only one within each tier. (You actually could be an 'ice mage', your rotation probably wouldn't really change, except more of your damage would come from your blizzard spells than a 'fire mage')
In the same vein, what's there to prevent Fire from being the go-to choice for every <Fire> sort of fight, Ice for <Ice> fights, and Thunder for <Thunder> styles of fights? Or, what if they are actually close enough that the optimal would dip between the choices based on the execution of the particular attempt/run of the fight, but you're unable to adapt with it because the choice is assigned to an out-of-gameplay menu instead of, say, Enochian?

<That's as much Devil's Advocate as I can do for now, given that I actually love customization and am just still trying to figure out its potential issues for myself.>