Interesting Combat Dynamics

[NoirGambitz]

ranged targets/adds basically what they have in ff7r I think would be interesting

[VenKitsune]

Not sure what you mean?

[Frosthaven]

Not sure what you mean?

I take it to mean mechanics where only ranged can fulfill a step in an encounter.

[Vidu]

I take it to mean mechanics where only ranged can fulfill a step in an encounter.

If thats the right interpretation: They wont do it.

They have a strong philosophy of everything needing to be - in theory - clearable by any party combination, which is a good thing. Even if its unlikely not to find any ranged person, it still would be quite annoying to look for one - or not get paired up with one for a dungeon and basically having to either leave or hope the healer can take care of whatever the ranged person is meant to do while keeping everyone up.

I'm saying this while remembering the very first Coil that started with an encounter where you needed to silence an attack - at this point 4 jobs had a silence and only 2 of those were able to use it reliably: Paladin and Bard (the other two were Scholar, which had a fairy-action and Monk, who had it as an additional effect to one move in their rotation - timing for both was bad and extremly difficult). Each week people would stand in eastern La Noscea and fill the shout with "Coil T1 7/8 looking for a BARD". Not very fun if you ask me... (So yeah to silence for everyone, more or less!)

What we do have - and what I think is a good compromisse that highlights the strengths of ranged dps far better than basically scrweing the group over if theres non present - are mechanics that can be easier fullfilled by ranged dps while they keep their uptime. Hades had quite a few mechanics that you'd assign to ranged jobs to deal with because they were still able to attack while executing the mechanic - any other job could have taken care of it, but at a loss for their dps (which is still better than wiping).
And then there are fights like Leviathan EX and this plant-Hydra (Sablethoot, maybe?) in Void Ark where you get two targets that share an HP-pool, but depending on your job you can only attack one of them (but if you dont have any people of one attack-type, you can still kill it).

I think the game does a good enough job to give benefits to having both melee and ranged dps in your party, without screwing you completly over if you, for some reason, dont. I also dont think that a mandatory ranged job in each group would add anything to the game - except, maybe a bard to every group attempting the content in question and potentially longer waiting times (even though ranged jobs seem to be enjoyed by much, if you limit the pool of jobs to fill a slot, you'll increase your waiting time).

[NoirGambitz]

enemies or adds that can only be dmg by range classes or skill/atks.

[Vidu]

enemies or adds that can only be dmg by range classes or skill/atks.

As I said: Thats probably not gonna happen - at least not as a hard condition to win a battle (aka: you could have one "ranged only add" and one "melee (only) add" but you dont have to beat both them, damaging them both so it adds up to one of the adds HP would be enough)

...and I'm also wondering why and how that would be an intresting mechanic? What would be intresting about making a fight unwinable if you dont have a ranged job? I can see that being an intresting mechanic in a solo game where the game can make sure that you have a character in your party with ranged attacks and you have to figure out that you need to use those, but in a setting where you can end up with no ranged skills (except for the healers dps) it doesnt work that great and I dont think it would be intresting if you basically got told "to win this fight you need to a bring a bard".