I was interested to know how long some of you spend, I made two builds, the obsessed scholar and the Blackguard Agent, which took 2 hours each. They're not quality by any means, so this got me thinking, how long does it take for some of the builds that make it to legendary status?
I would say there is a learning curve. My Songbird took me two weeks to write up (1st build). My Arcane Axeman took me a week to write up (2nd build). My Sternguard took an afternoon to write up, maybe 4-5 hours (3rd build). However that does not include the time I spent looking for my artwork, that adds an hour(s) to my builds.
Quality is a hard thing to gauge, it depends on the nature of the build itself. Here are features that you need to do as a to-do list on whether your build will be something that is unique or an interesting re-take on an old concept.
Now you can bend the order here, sometimes you can pick a set of perks or skills or gear that you find fun to play with then think about a concept or skin basically for it but then you should play test since if you won't, why would anyone else want to?
Present it in the most simplest and cleanest way, don't post long winded reasons why it is awesome, if it is awesome then the descriptions of choices will avail that.
Most of all, if it isn't what you thought it would be, scrap it and try again. I have had quite a few builds I thought would be fun but after play tests they just sucked or weren't up to my expectations, remember it's about fun not just what is mathematically the best build.
These days I don't like to post a build unless I feel I'm actually adding something to the group. It takes me a while, but it does depend on the character, some builds write themselves while others leave me with writers block...
I do playtest all my characters, and when I say playtest I don't mean boost my skills to the desired level and then see how they look. You have to fall in love with a character in order to write convincingly about it and I have no love for toons that walk out of Helgen with 100 in sneak and one handed. If I do boost it will be towards the end of the playthrough, Conjuration for example seems to stall once you get to level 75ish and i'm impatient when it comes to the twin souls perk...
About 2 - 4 weeks of play and then another 2 - 4 weeks to write/artwork for me.
Yeah I've not posted since november. I've done about 4 characters since then but they were just fun generic builds, not something I wanted to post...
I have been writing a build for the past 2 months actually but I picked up Dragonborn and that slowed me down some, I'll get to it eventually...
I wouldn't level a character to 80 unless the build page has perks listed to 80.
I stick with Level 50, I usually get to level 30-40 and the last 10 levels/perks are logically rounded off. i.e I wouldn't just magically have 100 Alteration so it would be already to do with skills being used.
I also agree with Mason on, not powering up characters at the start of Helgen with like 100 Sneak etc, it's not a fair test.
I usually end up with over 100 hours play testing my builds. Writing usually takes me a day when I have nothing else to be doing. Sometimes I start writing when I decide I will definitely post the build(usually at 50 hours +), and continue to add and edit it as I go along, but it all depends on how busy I am with other things.
My process is generally something like this:
1. Come up with basic idea for something to build around (usually a mechanic that I just discovered, or a way of playing I haven't tried before).
2. Spend a few days pre-gameplay coming up with different ways to make a solid build around that something from step 1, especially by giving it a nice aesthetic and either a lore background, or a roleplaying background (I'm usually relatively lax about these, but having *something* there can make a big difference).
3. Come to some kind of concrete idea for how to apply my ideas to a single build, and craft a draft for a perk tree. Usually write a few paragraphs of description, and the build essentials (race, stone, etc.) for reference.
4. Play test that build. Find things that are clearly redundant, find things that could be done better, see if it works on its own or if it needs some sort of extra addition/modification (or, worst case, it's just not as fun/viable as I had hoped, in which case I just forget about it). This takes weeks...
5. Revise my draft perk tree and description based on that play test. This usually takes a couple of days, in which I like to explore new mechanics, tighten up the build, and write a new description.
6. Play test the revised build. This generally takes another couple of weeks, at least. I think all but one of my builds have been posted after one revisal (two play tests). I try not to boost in my play tests, except to avoid tedious grinding, or if I just need to test a couple minor tweaks. (Having a PC would be really nice in those cases...)
7. Write up the formal build itself. I usually spend more time on this than I should, because I tend to format it in Word, but then have to reformat it using the blog formatting system. I usually spread this out over 2-3 days, with a lot of re-reading and structural work, until I have a final draft that satisfies me. Probably 5-8 hours of writing/reading/revising/formatting altogether. I tend to overwrite, then do a lot of cutting, then realize I actually should have included some of what I cut, rewrite it, etc. As you can probably tell, I'm extremely wordy...
8. Post the final build.
9. Realize I've missed out on some potentially useful mechanics, or overlooked a key piece of information, either due to being too hasty with my play testing, or just not thinking outside the box enough during the drafting phases. Usually I only realize this stuff when people post it in the comments, which makes me feel like a prize idiot... So then I end up doing another play test with that stuff in mind, and updating my build with the new info.
I'm currently in that ninth phase for my latest build, and it's been about a week now, and it'll probably be another week before I have an updated/finalized build. And it may be actually significantly different than the first "final" draft. It's definitely significantly different from my original vision, back in the first few steps of the process.
Altogether, I'd say it takes me a good month from start to finish, and possibly several weeks longer for a more intensive build. I also like to make "minibuilds" for my own entertainment, where I condense this whole process into about 3-5 days, and usually skip the revisal stages.
I play my character Midas up to level 81 twice, complete every single possible quest & unlock all location before I post it since I want to see how far does a non-combatant build would be fun to be play till the very end before I publish it.
It took me about 2 months of playing (About 6 hours each day) and about 6-8 hours to wrote about it. It was tiring, but it was definitely worth it to see it reach Category 20 since non-combatant build isn't that popular in TES community.
For low level build, it could took me as little as 2 weeks with 3 hours of gameplay each day.