What does development do?

We’ve gotten a lot of questions asking about the development process, what the difference between design and development is, and what a Magic developer does on an everyday basis. One of the reasons I’m excited about this blog is to get to be more open about our process and share it more directly with all of you.

First off, let me acknowledge that “developer” is an overloaded term. In the games industry, “developer” usually means “software developer”. When we refer to a person in Magic R&D who is a Magic developer (or “core developer”), we mean that person is a game designer who specializes in the second half of set design, with an emphasis on game balance, polish and competitive play. In contrast, when we call someone a Magic designer (or “core designer”), we typically mean someone who focuses on the early part of a set’s design, the top-level vision for that set, new mechanics, and creating cool, individual cards.

A Magic set goes through different stages. First, it starts with exploratory design, which is a partnership between the design team and our creative teams (art and story). We explore broad topics like what the story and flavor of the set will be about, and what types of mechanics we should try.

Next, the set moves into the design phase. The set’s design team usually consists of three core designers, one core developer, one creative team member, and one person from outside of R&D. In design, the focus is on determining the themes and mechanics and populating the set’s initial file with cards. Early on there’s a lot of experimentation, and sometimes whole themes are rejected and replaced. Toward the end of design, things start get to locked down and prepared to hand off to the development phase. A set is a little more than halfway through the process (time-wise) when it hands off to development.

When the design team hands off to the set’s development team, the set usually has a full file worth of cards (though not always), and we’re usually pretty confident in the themes and mechanics. Then the development team starts their work. A set’s development team usually consists of three core developers, one core designer, one creative team member, and one other R&D member.

During development, the team focuses on executing the vision that the design team set forth. Here are some of the things we work on and questions we ask ourselves:

• Do we have confidence we can balance these mechanics at various levels of play (casual/competitive, limited/constructed)?
  
• Are the themes well-balanced across the colors? Is there enough for each color to do?
  
• Is there enough in the set to appeal to different types of players (Timmy/Johnny/Spike)?
  
• Is the set at the right complexity for a new player to learn the game?
  
• Does the set contain the right level of depth for experienced players?
  
• How wordy are the cards?
  
• What does the set contribute to constructed? New decks, themes, individual cards?
  
• How does the set do when we do focus testing with people who have never seen it before?

As we work on these things and others, we will find some things are working well and others aren’t. For example, sometimes a theme that the design team thought was working was only working because those cards/colors were overpowered and were outshining everything else in the set. Or sometimes a mechanic requires too large of a portion of the set to support it and doesn’t leave enough room for players that like other things. A big part of why we have two different teams look at the set is to get a fresh perspective and reality check on what’s working and what isn’t.

One area where the development team does a lot of work is on the rare and mythic rare cards. Because the design team works on the early stages of the set, they are often more focused on the mechanics, themes and a foundation of lower-rarity cards. When a set hits development, there’s often still a lot of work to do on making fun, exciting rare cards.

So with all this iteration and rebalancing, you might ask how much a set changes during the development process. It varies from set to set, but I’d estimate about 80% of cards change in some way (mana cost, power/toughness rebalancing) and maybe 30-60% of cards get redesigned entirely. That might seem like a lot, but remember that because it’s later on in the process, we have a better picture of what the set still needs, especially as pertains to competitive play. Also, the art and story teams often weigh in and ask us to add cards to represent characters or story moments that this set was missing.

Toward the middle of the development phase we start focusing more on standard constructed playtesting (which we call our Future Future League, or FFL). This helps inform when we need to change or design new cards, as well as smaller tweaks and number rebalancing. I’m sure in a later post I’ll get more into details about our FFL process.

What I’d really like to emphasize is that design through development is one continuous process with lots of people contributing. Some folks get the impression that a set’s design is the creation of all the cards, then development gets a finished set of cards, plays with it a little and changes some of the numbers. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. All sorts of R&D members contribute card designs at all stages of the process – core developers design cards during the design process, designers design cards during the development process, and art and story team members design cards as well. And when we say a card was changed or redesigned in development, that wasn’t something irregular or alarming in any way. That happens to the majority of cards in every set.

So that’s a bit about our process. What else does a core developer do beyond being a member of a set’s development team? Here are some of our responsibilities:

• Be a member of a set’s exploratory design or design team
  
• Playtest standard constructed in the FFL
  
• Play in draft playtests and give feedback to the set lead
  
• Design new cards
  
• Suggest design tweaks to cards that make them more exciting or fun
  
• Review new sets and leave comments on cards in Multiverse (our internal card set database)
  
• Discuss and maintain the banned and restricted lists (except Commander)
  
• Read articles, forums and social media to keep up to date on community 
  
• Discuss rules issues and other long-term Magic changes

So…wow. That was quite an info dump, and this post ended up longer than I intended. Good job staying with me along the way. I know that there’s no way I can fully communicate all the details of our process or my job in just one post, but if you hang around and read this blog, hopefully you’ll get a better understanding of what it is we do, why we do it, and what we’re thinking about when we make important decisions. Thanks for reading!

-Ian