Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[Ladon]

Surely they can have homogenised gameplay whilst still having unique things for each job though? There’s already good examples of jobs that have a lot of homogenised elements but whose unique traits are just as satisfying (putting aside any balancing issues for now. Dancer has all the standard trimmings of the ranged DPS role but still feels fun to play as a job and not just as a role because of the unique elements it has (like Steps / Improvisation / Curing Waltz).

Surely they can homogenise gameplay without it coming at the cost of job uniqueness. I mean, there’s more than enough room for them to have both the ‘standard role’ kit and stuff that differentiates the job from others in terms of the number of abilities we have now. I feel like they should try to find some kind of happy medium between the two at the very least

You’re right that stuff loose class compositions can’t work in FFXIV because of the party design. But at the same time, even if every party is limited to the 2 melee 1 ranged 1 caster paradigm (if that’s what it even is), I feel like they can still make jobs feel different from each other within that restricted paradigm

I’m not sure I am seeing the level of homogenization you are describing. Yes tank defense is very homogenized now for basically the reason I described, all tanks have to be able to tank with the same effectiveness. There are basically two types of tanking: mitigation and avoidance and everyone should be well aware you can’t balance the two...so every tank in this game is a mitigation tank with the same tools. But offensively the four tanks are very different in mechanics.

Let’s look at the other jobs: RDM, SMN and BLM all play very different. Same with MNK, NIN, DRG and SAM. DNC, BRD, MCH? Yup all unique play styles.

What about healers? Well just like with tanks, healer offense has been mostly homogenized. This is likely so they can make the healing style unique but effective for each job without having to factor how healing downtime is spent for each healer.

Now if you are thinking about them introducing stuff like reverse damage shield healers, or pure buffer or pure debuffer jobs than it can never happen with the 8 person compositions because it’s impossible to also design encounters that account for those types of jobs being or not being present without the diminishing impact 40-50 player compositions offers.