FFxiv could use a big change in game design but what about balance

[Valence]

The problem is that everyone has a different idea of design and balance for "their" job, healers being the penultimate example given the constant back and forth between those who want more healing and those who want more DPS, and that's just discourse within a single role.

Ask five different MCH mains what they want done with MCH and you'll get five different answers (I know I sure as hell don't want it to be a buff bot), same with virtually every other job where if you put it to vote, you're not likely to get an unanimous outcome on how they want the job to play. And even if you DO get something that takes the majority of votes, it'll likely just result in fewer people playing the job anyway because of all the disappointed people who didn't want it to be changed that way (see MNK and BLM this expansion alone, not that anyone asked for the changes by the way), while the number of new people picking it up will continue to be an unknown toss-up. (Did making tanks nigh-immortal really up the queue times anywhere?)

Even the whole "oh just make one job within a role easy and make the others complex" falls flat immediately because no one wants "their" job to be the derpy one. Again, look at healers, and you'll find a lot of WHM mains that DON'T want to be the glue-eater and want the buck passed to one of the others, and sure enough you won't find any takers among SCH, AST, or SGE either.

I don't rightly know a solution to any of it and I'm not paid to find one regardless, and the only options seems to be for us to either continue dancing to Square-Enix's tune (quite literally given the "DDR" nature of encounters and rigidness of jobs), or find another MMO because they seem set in their ways even all these expansions later, and jobs are still being molded around said encounter design with BLM being the latest example. (With MCH probably not far behind as they inevitably make it like the rest of the physical range jobs.)

I agree with the whole conundrum overall, but what do you mean MCH not far behind? MCH has already gone through the same chopping block. It was one of the first to eat it alongside DRK, actually.
Or maybe we're gone full circle already and what is a braindead and uninteresting reworked design has actually become enlightened in comparison to the newest additions?

[JohnConstantine]

My knowledge of MCH prior to late-Endwalker is limited as I didn't play before then, I just know there was something about ammo and giving away TP and uh... turrets were *almost* like SMN/SCH pets I think?

MCH used be a priority-based job, like old HW Summoner. That's the simplest way to explain it.

Right now, I think a lot of players literally cannot envision job design that isn't [Opener/2-min] -> [builder-spender].

The terrible irony is that even as some people complain about homogenization of some roles, they're willing to accept it happening to others, because Square-Enix has created a situation where NOT conforming gets you left out in the cold. BLM was just "fortunate" that Square-Enix didn't leave them to languish for very long, and that's probably because of Yoshi-P bias.

This community has absolutely zero solidarity. There's a reason I tell people to just quit the game, because the community itself is one of the biggest problems. The DPS players all made fun of healers back in ShB, back when they were complaining. It's honestly pathetic to witness the infighting. Players tearing at each other's necks when they all have their own grievances at the game. It's like the prison experiments where the prisoners end up fighting each other and not the prison guard.

[Valence]

but will probably be forced to wear another's skin entirely, in this case turning into BRD/DNC with a gun.

I'd take it to be honest. At least it would be closer to what it used to be on its original premise.