I always wished EQ had something like this due to many factors, to state a couple:
1 - Varying guild roster from night to night. For example, not having enough clerics on.
2 - Varying guild player knowledge/ability. I been in both "Family" and "Hardcore" guilds. The hardcore guilds roll over events saying it's too easy while the family get demoralized by the same event. It would be nice to accomadate both types of guilds with rewards to suit each type.
I think EQ suffers from the latter more often because the age of the game causing huge ability bloat and outdated information on certain game sites. Obviously, Pantheon will not have this right away, or hopefully ever (if planned right), but it still would be nice to have options rather than one raid fits all.
Not a fan. I think some should be easier and others ridiculously hard. As some have suggested in other threads. Maybe have a large dungeon with different tiers of content the deeper you go. Or the VG idea about defeating bosses in different ways or in dangerous areas netting better loot.
I'd prefer no difficulty settings.
However, I hope for steady difficulty increases (in dungeons), instead of sudden huge jumps in difficulty/requirements. A bad example is a zone where you can get all the way through to the end boss "fairly easily", only to totally lose to him every time (at least before you get great gear). Sure there should be a progression, but no giant leaps in npc strength. For raid zones, this is less of a requirement, because you are not really expected to get through all raid encounters in one go (at least until you really know them in and out and have obtained better gear).
I have to agree with the majority here and say I am against adjustable encounter difficulty. It reeks of "content tourism" which I am strongly against. Having some content of reach for smoe players due to the type of guild they wish to join is perfectly valid. Equal opportunity for all, but not guaranteed equal outcomes. To those who work 80 hours per week, have 10 children, 3 wives, and 15 minutes per week to play Pantheon, you shouldnt expect to experience everything. Extreme example I know, but it should not be encumbant on the developers to ensure all players experience all content regardless of circumstances.
I also agree with the above posters. If I would change anything about EQ it would be that raiding be more similiar to Vanguard. It was very easy for me as a guild leader to create a raid schedule that worked for my guild. I enjoyed knowing the time/date that my raids would take place. The only thing that I didn't always know was which targets would be available. The guild officers would normally log online early and find out which raid targets were still available. Some nights we would raid a little longer and other nights would be shorter but we always had targets to hit and loot to gain.
There should be only one difficulty and or a way make it harder without having normal/heroic modes. ex. Vg or Ulduar from WoW. I agree with Dekaden that no MMO needs content tourism, and not everyone is going to be able to see all the content. An MMO with a real journey is what is missing from the market atm.