Quote Originally Posted by JTSpender View Post
Except... this doesn't actually work in an MMO. Nobody is going to invite that to a party. You have to *actually* fill a role. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand the power of hybrid characters at being "the right thing at the right time" when everyone else is locked in their role... I play a lot of hybrid characters and I've seen this firsthand. But people still need/expect you to fill a primary role. Being forced out of a role because of diminishing returns is kind of bad and defeats the whole purpose.
This is not unequivocally true, there are examples in MMOs where pure hybrid characters work. It's actually more of a player construct, a preconceived notion that's been perpetuated that they don't work. One of the reasons it's a commonly accepted idea, is that in practice a hybrid class is more difficult to play.

One of the major issues with hybrids playing "plug the hole" is that they can never actually plug the hole with any level of effectiveness, without being broken. If a hybrid can tank as well as a tank, heal as well as a healer, or nuke as well as a nuker, what's the point of any other class?

On the other hand, make them weaker at all of those things, and they can never perform the role well enough to make the difference.

A stance that allows them to temporarily excel at a task, and diminishes over time would solve that problem, though it would require some fine tuning.

Tank's dead? Take over until they're raised and rebuffed. Suddenly a lot of people are at low health? Help out with heals. Anything else? Cycle between magic and melee damage. The reality is it's all about tuning group content so that there's enough flexibility for that class to have a use.

Bringing a Red Mage along, if they had skills like this, would be giving your group flexibility and a safety net, and perhaps losing a fraction of efficiency in a situation where everything goes 100% as planned.

Certainly, this sort of rotating through roles would require a great deal of player skill, but the reality is all classes are not equal in terms of required skill. I don't mind playing a class where people have low expectations due to a general lack of skilled players, as long as I can excel at that class enough to surprise people. Not like there isn't a precedent for classes like this in FFXI.

TL;DR

If you've already decided that it doesn't work, you're not thinking hard enough. Perhaps my solution isn't the answer, but there is an answer.