Quote Originally Posted by Jeeqbit View Post
There are 19 jobs. But let's be generous and include Blue Mage (20 jobs), the new jobs (22) and the new limited job (23).

Let's divide 2 years and 7 months or 929 days (the time between Endwalker relase and Dawntrail release) by 23. The result is 40.39 days spent designing each class/job, which is a lot.

Let's assume this task is split between 2 people doing 11.5 jobs each. The result is 80.78 days spent designing each job.

The point is, unless they are doing a lot else with their time, they would have plenty of time to do this task.
That's just not how MMO development works =(

It takes a long time to brainstorm up a cloud and basic design brief

It then takes a long time to integrate those ideas into a somewhat cohesive and functioning whole

It then takes a long time to tune that whole into something that functions and isn't going to faceplant/break the game

It then takes a long time to validate that whole and make sure the designer isn't being blinded by their own impressions

It then takes a long time to QA and bug fix said whole

It then takes a long time to adjust and correct things based on QA feedback

It then takes a long time to QA yet again etcetc. I could go on.

MMOs take utterly insane amounts of time to develop and evolve. Suggesting that 40 days is 'plenty of time' is wildly removed from reality sir. Vanilla WoW took ~4-5 years, Everquest took 3 years, FFXIV 1.0 took ~5-6 years, FFXIV 3.0 took ~3 years, BnS took ~5 years, SWTOR took ~5 years, SWG took at least 3 years and so forth. Despite all that time in the oven, how many MMOs can you look at on release that felt complete right out of the gate?

And this is before I cover the absolute horror story that is creative block and the other human factors of grinding so much out of such a small team over a long period of time.

Ps, keep in mind that I used to work for Bullfrog/EA etc. Been there, done that etc. This isn't conjecture on my part.