What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[Ameela]

If you design the enviroments within the game well then it becomes incredibly difficult to have that one mandatory skill set or build set.. And then the choice is real it's not an illusion.

Then that just means you pick the best spec for the environment/raid you're going to.
It's just like how O3S has tanks being required to use Awareness (and Interject depending on the party) or they're going to have a harder time, or in O4S everyone is advised to take knockback immunity abilities, same with O5S and to a lesser extent O8S.
You can't NOT take those role skills when doing those fights because they're the only way to achieve optimal play and you'll be laughed at if you don't even try to do so. Back when it was relevant if you insisted that you'd rather take Convalescence instead of Awareness into O3S to hopefully off set the Crit damage with more potent healing because it's part of your playstyle you'd probably be kicked on the spot.

[PyurBlue]

Then that just means you pick the best spec for the environment/raid you're going to.
It's just like how O3S has tanks being required to use Awareness (and Interject depending on the party) or they're going to have a harder time, or in O4S everyone is advised to take knockback immunity abilities, same with O5S and to a lesser extent O8S.

FF14 as it is now would work out this way, but I think Dzian was speaking in a more general sense. Say if Savage wasn't the exact same fight every time, but could the encounters could vary. Assuming that everything was correctly balanced, there wouldn't be a best skill/skills. You might choose them based on what mechanics you feel the least confident in, which would vary from player to player.

I'm not sure how to best make customization relevant in FF14 but as a general concept I don't think it's all that hard to implement.