No - FFXI has several ways you customize your character.
-sub jobs: You pick one other job to complement your main. There are metas, but most jobs have at least 2 compelling options to choose from that drastically change how the job plays.
-Merit points - You gain a limited number of points that you can spend to upgrade almost everything about your character: Base stats, HP/MP pools, enmity+/-, Critical hits, spell interruption down, plus job-specific bonuses, like unlocking new spells, adding points into these spells to make them more potent, extra job abilities and passives, and for many jobs there is no 'best' option, it all comes down to playstyle and preference. For example, you can choose to play a red mage that focuses purely on physical DPS through their potent self-buffs, or focus on support by giving yourself super-accurate debuffs and long-potency buffs.
-Mastery points - Similar to merit points, but you can eventually cap this out. These act twofold, where you can upgrade specific spells and passives with minor bonuses, but after you reach certain thresholds (i.e. spend 1200 mastery points), you gain huge bonuses for your character that drastically change how the job plays. It is purely a system that rewards you for dedicating yourself to your job of choice, and lets you focus on which aspect of your character to upgrade first
and finally
-Equipment - Equipment offers bonuses to specific job abilities and spells, making them act in ways that they didn't before. Things like turning a one-time status prevention spell into one that lasts for an entire fight. Equipment that restores MP based on the damage or healing that you do. Ultimate weapons for every class that give bonuses you can't get anywhere else, and you can swap entire equipment sets during combat to mitigate a large aoe, or make your weaponskill do massively more damage than normal.
It has so many ways that you can express your skill and dedication to a job in ways that FFXIV neutered. If you have played both, you'll see the huge dichotomy between the two.