Fun over FORM

[Jojoya]

I noticed it's also a trend in other MMOs,
It's because those hardcore players are most vocal, plus they pointing right things, because they strip everything to math.
I liked begining of aar when everyone was saying warrior better tank because of dps. I was playing paladin tho.
Letter was even better when they added more mechanics to classes. From there it wend down IMO

It's not the hardcore players that are the most vocal about asking for changes that lead to homogenization. They're the ones most willing to adapt and change what job they play if needed. If they usually play a DRG but the party needs a NIN, they'll switch to NIN. The job doesn't matter to them. They just want to beat the content.

It's the midcore players that make up a much larger segment of the player base that are the most vocal. They want to be able to keep playing their favorite job and hate when that job gets excluded from the metas they rely on (and random party invites) because it lacks a skill that's useful to parties. So they start complaining "I'm excluded because my job can't do this, you need to give it to my job".

The dev teams end up stuck in a quandary. Do they do nothing and risk losing those players who are no longer happy because they feel left out of group content? Do they change content so having those certain skills that cause one job to be picked over another no longer matter and deal with the cries of "you're dumbing down content"? Or do they start giving the jobs that lack the demanded skills some of those skills so those players still get a chance to participate and deal with the complaints about homogenization?

It's an unavoidable problem in MMOs, where most players are doing content in groups of random players who are only interested in beating the content as quickly as possible. It's a much smaller problem in multi-player games (not MMOs) because players are more likely to be playing with people they already know and will be more tolerant of bizarre job choices. And it's a non-issue in single player games where your choices don't affect other players so the developers can go crazy in giving you options to make your character feel unique.