SE FFXI developers out of touch with reality

So, I came across an interesting article about Pandemnium Warden, an interview with the devs that created it. They talk about the testing that they did for it, and the expectation of what was required to beat it.

Some choice quotes from the article

- "Suteki explains that with 32 members, he was able to take down PW, although it took his team four tries to accomplish this."

- "Sase reveals that he originally anticipated players would need between 36-54 people."

- "Ito says they use the equipment appropriate for the task... Paladins will wear Aegis, for example."

So... what do we have... if you have a team of 32-54 relic holders, you might be able to defeat Pandy at about 1/4 of the time. Let's ignore the fact that I've almost never seen a shell with 30+ members (Einherjar being the only exception), much less 54 people, and that I only know 2 relic holders (that I'm aware of), let's just look at the time taken to actually POP PW.

Some interesting data from ZeniBailout & ZNMs in general:

- Total number of PW pop items obtained: 1

- Total Zeni spent since we started: Between 475-500k

- Maxmimum Zeni obtainable per soul plate submission: 98

- Maximum number of soul plates submittable/hour: 10/hour, or a max rate of 980 zeni/hour

- Best case minimum time spent farming zeni: 475,000/980 = 485 hours

So... 485 hours of farming just to get 1 pop item. To get a full pop set, that requires 3x485 = 1,445 hours of zeni farming alone, assuming you get the max zeni for each plate submission, and not counting time taken to pop and fight the various tiers.

Divide that by an average linkshell of 18 people and you'll get about 80 hours of zeni farming to obtain a pop. That's just to obtain the pop. Remember, the developers expect 32+ people before you're able to win.

Now let's look at their team... assuming you have 32 relic holders with appropriate equipment, it took their team 4 tries before they were able to beat it.

- 4 tries = 4x 1,445 hours of faming = 5,780 hours of faming

- Split the farming out over 32 members = 180 hours of farming

- Number of working hours per week = 40

- Weeks to perform this testing = 180/40 = 4.5 weeks

So... if the QA team was actually testing PW without using cheats, they would have a team of 32 people working for over a month in order to test this properly. Given SE's stance on cheating and how they like to ban people, they spent appropriate resources to test this ultimate monster of theirs, so let's assume that they actually did this. Just a fun fact... Japan minimim wage is 4,712 yen per day ($47.34/day). They have 32 members working for 4.5 weeks. Assuming a 5-day work week, that's 4.5x5x32x$47.34 = $34,084.80 spent in wages to test PW.

We should fully appreciate the investment that they made in PW!

And that... is why we'll probably never fight PW!

Famitsu interview with SE Developers was found at: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=18647