Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[linay]

I'd rather have to play GNB/BLM/MNK/WHM or whatever the most powerful jobs in each role are for raiding and be able to mess around with other jobs which have fun and distinct identities outside of raids (and maybe even raid with those jobs in groups that can accept being 5 seconds slower to finish the raid, or clearing a day or two later) than have a choice between GNB1,GNB2,GNB3,GNB4/BLM1,BLM2... etc. If the jobs don't each offer something unique and worthwhile (and I don't consider different animations or weapons unique and worthwhile) then there's no point in having multiple of them.

That's not to say that balance isn't good, and that we shouldn't try to make sure all jobs are close enough to the same effectiveness to be able to be taken by whatever group, but there have to be limits.

Instead of there being no point in having multiple jobs, I think the point is to not require you to level multiple jobs. At least in FFXIV it's easier to try another job as you can do all of them with one character, unlike with some other MMORPG. But even then, unless you're someone who like to level all jobs and can switch at will whenever the balance changes, it's still easier for people if they can stick to one job and know that it's always viable. Of course being viable doesn't necessarily mean having to be the same as another job, but depending on how developers decide to approach the matter, I would prefer they err toward all jobs being viable rather than to all jobs being different.