Creative Studio 3 is working on multiple projects at once.

[Azurarok]

I bet they totally hired more developers to take on these extra projects, right?

Not sure if this is sarcasm (sorry if so) but I'd expect the new hires to be the ones put on sustaining XIV while the veterans are the ones working on the new projects. It would better explain the disconnect between the devs and playerbase imo.

With how formulaic the patch process is I think it'd make more sense to train them through it, at least.

[Jeeqbit]

I'd expect the new hires to be the ones put on sustaining XIV while the veterans are the ones working on the new projects.

This is the factual truth if you actually read the credits.

Many veterans are just "supervisors" on FFXIV now, so they can still chip in or oversee everything and make sure it goes right, but they are primarily making sure the newer employees are doing it correctly and the way that they would and training them.

Likewise, veterans that still work a lot on FFXIV were "supervisors" on FF16.

When we talk of new hires here, though, we are talking since Heavensward. They started moving people over to other projects as far back as Heavensward, so many of the newer employees were being trained in Stormblood and working on Stormblood and continued to.

They've continued to train people since then as well because I've seen it discussed in detail in the lodestone blog.

With how formulaic the patch process is I think it'd make more sense to train them through it, at least.

The job advert for content designers literally said "design a sample dungeon that is in the same style as the dungeons in FFXIV and lasts about 20 minutes" and said to make it the same difficulty as current FFXIV dungeons.

So they aren't allowed to go too wild with it or make it ultimate difficulty or something like that. From the moment of applying they're asked to follow the formulas.