homogenization: the process of making things uniform or similar.

It doesn't have to be exact. Their current way of achieving "balance" is to make abilites and jobs as a whole similar.

To continue to use this dessert example. Tanks shouldn't all be ice cream. They should all be completely different desserts. Still functioning and operating under that "dessert" moniker but otherwise are completly different.

Our current model is closer to everything being vanilla ice cream with different toppings.

The base kit is a 1,2,3 combo. Every tank has 3 long personal defesnives cds and 2 party mits. Every tank is going to have a short personal mit that can also be used on someone else (or has an eqvilant skill that can)

Regardless of the bells and whistles, the tanks play so similary mastering one is akin to being 80% of the way there with others.

You can look at the pvp tanks for a more diverse tank set and how they accomplish the role.

It's funny that you do bring up the physical range role as it's one of the more diverse roles moment to moment along with casters. There is still the issue of the damage profile and the macro scale of the designs like snowball described in their first post.