This was not really a thread that needed to be necro'd, was it? More badwrongfunning about game balance and dismissing the idea that people will play the characters they want to play regardless of a potential minor decrease in efficacy. "How dare game developers ignore perfect balance in their game system!" "Melee is a trap option exclusively for suckers!"
It is a tad ironic how uptight we can get over one fighter build edging out another by, what was it, 4 hps of damage, or one weapon edging out another by a half-point of average damage, when D&D has much more profound imbalances going on.
I guess it's just easy to measure.
What I'm reading are a lot of posts... have identified an actual, honest-to-god issue with the game balance as design (you really can't refuse to acknowledge it exists, it clearly does...) and who have shared their personal fixes to the problem...
And if we get to that point, and don't go too far beyond it, we're fine, really. Here's a balance issue, can we get past the reflexive denial to talk about ways of dealing with? Can we now just go and apply whichever of those ways appeals, rather than campaigning to get WotC to force it on everyone like some sort of fanatical activists?
Seems like most threads never fight their way through the denial, or else they devolve into OneTrueWayism... or both, without ever hammering out any useful ideas.
Sometimes both, while generating a few good ideas that get lost in the morass.
The trick here is, what does "balance" actually mean?
To me, balance means that no given option is so obviously better than any other options that it makes no sense to choose those other options.
That's a logical, but pretty low bar. I prefer as many options as possible be 'viable' which is probably less cut-and-dried, and 'meaningful' which can be a tad subjective (meaningful to /someone/, somewhere, would be fine, really).
But between ranged and melee? Meh. This is not an issue I'm seeing.
It's certainly not to the point that melee is untenable. Ranged may edge out melee by the numbers, and be more flexible due to so many risks and restrictions having been removed, and the few remaining ones being removable with an (optional!) feat or two - but it's really as nothing compared to melee vs casting (nor ranged vs casting, for that matter).
For one, you're giving up other options as well - no defensive style, for example
Style is a choice in itself. Choosing any style gives up the others. If melee types got to choose two styles and ranged types only one, then you'd be giving something up...
Plus, the ranged guy needs something in front of him or her. The argument that they are "just as good in melee" isn't really true. You're limited to finesse weapons (d8 rapier at best) and have no feats or abilities which add to your melee capablilities.
In theory, a fighter's supposed to be able to throw his feats to non-combat pursuits without being unacceptably bad at combat, and, if you do have the right ranged feats, you can just keep shooting in melee, anyway...
Plus, if you actually play standard array PC's, you're limited to a 16 Dex, 15 STR (presuming human) at 1st level. You're going to be spending two feats to get that Dex to 20, 2 MORE feats to get those ranged feats - we're looking at very high level characters here.
STR and DEX are prettymuch even, there. A couple of killer feats, a 20, costs you the same and takes as long to mature, whether it's 20 DEX and SS/X-bow or 20 STR GWM/PAM.
AP's are so easy anyone can succeed?
Except where they're unaccountably lethal, sure. ;P
Difficulty in 5e isn't found in the mechanics. It's found in what you do with them.
You could say the same for balance:
Balance in 5e isn't found in the mechanics. It's found in what you do with them.
Just house rule that Dex doesn't add to ranged damage. Problem solved. 
