Throughout much of my life, even in games that used the classic RPG Trinity System (healers, tanks, dps), there was no hard requirement that players obey the Trinity by having a "balanced" party. Rather than the game explicitly forcing players to have a tank, a healer, and a few DPS, it would let you play with whatever combo you wanted. And then through experience and iteration, players would generally learn that having a "balanced" party helped them succeed, and so it became standard practice not because it was forced, but because it was demonstrably effective.

As games became more mainstream and tried to pull in more casual crowds, some developers stopped giving players enough rope to hang themselves; if playing with 5 dps is going to result in most players having a bad time, then why even let them make choices that set them up for failure? So forcing a "balanced" party became a fairly normal practice, in an effort to basically put guard rails around the game experience.

I'm wondering if in FF14 we've stepped into a different territory, where "balanced" parties are still forced, but not because they actually meaningfully benefit the player; in fact, it seems like in most content, having a "balanced" party actually makes combat more difficult that in would otherwise be.

But that's just my experience, so I'm curious to hear what yours is. If you weren't forced to have a "balanced" party, would you still do it because you think that's more effective? Or would you find another party structure more optimal? Feel free to specify if you feel it's different for different types of content (especially Ultimates which I have no experience with).

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me so that I can better form my own!