7 years and 300 million put into it. Is it closer to being finished than just starting? Thats the question. I would say from what I have seen its barely 30% of basics in terms of what an MMO should offer. Of course people will try to cite all the other crap that doesnt have anything to do with playability and try and make it like its more than half done. But it isnt. I would say its less than 15% of a 'fully fleshed out' MMO. I am not sure they even have half they ships in the game that they have jpegs for. Then of course the sand worms, tanks, land, and other shit they have taken money for over the years that arent even being talked about let alone actually being put into the test bed tech demo servers.
The ironic thing is, you can actually run a decent space program given that same timespan and budget :P
While i applaud the cost effective approach of the Falcon 9 development (which was in the order of 400 million dollar), i have to point out that this is a single rocket, NOT a space program ;-)
It does beg the question of why they couldn't have put some better thought into prices from the start and avoid these sort of situations, if it was such a simple change.
It is funny though, you were arguing so vehemently in defense of the prices and how it was good for SC and then they go and do this
Because it's usually not the programmers who develop the feature who will spend time reviewing the game earning rates, etc... and conducting balancing?
This comment of yours, "avoid these sort of situations" stuns me, isn't this is an NDA unreleased and undisclosed build where they did this initial balancing on? This situation came from people triggered at a leak that was changed 2 days later. Evocati builds are raw, it's active in dev with from stuff not there, disabled or partial implementations, hence why the NDA makes sense to "avoid these sort of situations".
And I do think the much lower prices, if the most profitable game loops stand, make it too easy to rent ships and live out of renting them, the cost has to motivate saving towards buying the permanent ship.
7 years and 300 million put into it. Is it closer to being finished than just starting? Thats the question. I would say from what I have seen its barely 30% of basics in terms of what an MMO should offer. Of course people will try to cite all the other crap that doesnt have anything to do with playability and try and make it like its more than half done. But it isnt. I would say its less than 15% of a 'fully fleshed out' MMO. I am not sure they even have half they ships in the game that they have jpegs for. Then of course the sand worms, tanks, land, and other shit they have taken money for over the years that arent even being talked about let alone actually being put into the test bed tech demo servers.
The ironic thing is, you can actually run a decent space program given that same timespan and budget :P
Because it's usually not the programmers who develop the feature who will spend time reviewing the game earning rates, etc... and conducting balancing?
And what does that tell you then? That they don't have the relevant information when they intially need it, I find that a bit strange for a basic feature of a game that has been planned and worked on for the last 7 years.
This comment of yours, "avoid these sort of situations" stuns me, isn't this is an NDA unreleased and undisclosed build where they did this initial balancing on? This situation came from people triggered at a leak that was changed 2 days later. Evocati builds are raw, it's active in dev with from stuff not there, disabled or partial implementations, hence why the NDA makes sense to "avoid these sort of situations".
And I do think the much lower prices, if the most profitable game loops stand, make it too easy to rent ships and live out of renting them, the cost has to motivate saving towards buying the permanent ship.
STUNNED!! SPEECHLESS!! SHOCKED!! Like calm down dear...
No one is triggered at the leak. A person can say "Hey, these prices seem high, what do you think?" or a person can go "reeeee, world is ending, reeeeee". Yours and Babs's problem is you instantly assume everyone falls into the latter category. I can only guess that is because you feel so strongly, so emotionally, about the project you assume everyone else does.
My position is they have been working on this for 7 years now, that is a fuckton of time to plan shit out and yet they seem to be making it up on the fly.
I read earlier that apparently they stated in a recent ISC episode they had scrapped a lot of the original design docs, so perhaps that is the closer to the truth than I realised.
Because it's usually not the programmers who develop the feature who will spend time reviewing the game earning rates, etc... and conducting balancing?
And what does that tell you then? That they don't have the relevant information when they intially need it, I find that a bit strange for a basic feature of a game that has been planned and worked on for the last 7 years.
They don't need it, it's not their responsibility. Programming time is far valuable to have them spend too much time beyond superficial balance. After their implement their work with the initial numbers then it's when there'll be people tuning numbers.
How can that be strange? I'm sure you are aware the economy of the game is far from fleshed out, misses many profession loops and expansions of current ones, it's obvious balancing economy is not any serious concern, it's work that'll have to be redone multiple times as the economic aspects develop.
My position is they have been working on this for 7 years now, that is a fuckton of time to plan shit out and yet they seem to be making it up on the fly.
I read earlier that apparently they stated in a recent ISC episode they had scrapped a lot of the original design docs, so perhaps that is the closer to the truth than I realised.
To me, that would be a gigantic waste of time to pre-plan economy balance numbers beyond the general design of it. Way too many variables to just assume the economy details will work as people theorized on design meetings years before.
They explained as well on that ISC episode, changes happen as they develop the game, sticking to a design document no matter what is damning to the game, this would mean even as they develop and do releases they wouldn't be able to do changes based on player feedback to not put the design documents at risk.
They don't need it, it's not their responsibility. Programming time is far valuable to have them spend too much time beyond superficial balance. After their implement their work with the initial numbers then it's when there'll be people tuning numbers.
Haha what a load of bollocks. If programming time is so precious then getting it right the first time would be far more important than having to go back and redo it.
How can that be strange? I'm sure you are aware the economy of the game is far from fleshed out, misses many profession loops and expansions of current ones, it's obvious balancing economy is not any serious concern, it's work that'll have to be redone multiple times as the economic aspects develop.
It's strange because they have talked for years about the work they've been doing on the economy. They've talked about having it all running in house and yet here we are, after 7 years and they are making it up on the fly.
To me, that would be a gigantic waste of time to pre-plan economy balance numbers beyond the general design of it. Way too many variables to just assume the economy details will work as people theorized on design meetings years before.
I don't know. It seems that you could certainly have your core areas that you figure out, combat, trade, exploration, for example and then you balance the other stuff so that it falls in line. There's no need to pre-plan every single thing down to each UEC.
They explained as well on that ISC episode, changes happen as they develop the game, sticking to a design document no matter what is damning to the game, this would mean even as they develop and do releases they wouldn't be able to do changes based on player feedback to not put the design documents at risk.
Convenient isn't it. Put out these extremely detailed plans to sell your project and then reign them in when reality bites, leaving people with a highly watered down version of what they were initially sold.
Gamers lose their shit on graphics downgrades and here's CIG neutering the very mechanics of the game lol
I feel like these conversations shouldn't even exist anymore. It's an official train wreck. They are selling off portions of the company to investors. They lie over and over again to their fans. They've pushed back the release of SQ42 for 4 years - who knows how many more? There is no end in sight after all the promises made and broken.
We are looking at ineptitude on a cosmic scale. It's time to put down the pen and ignore this strange beast.
I feel like these conversations shouldn't even exist anymore. It's an official train wreck. They are selling off portions of the company to investors. They lie over and over again to their fans. They've pushed back the release of SQ42 for 4 years - who knows how many more? There is no end in sight after all the promises made and broken.
We are looking at ineptitude on a cosmic scale. It's time to put down the pen and ignore this strange beast.
In other news Infinity: Battlescape EA launches on the 27th.
They don't need it, it's not their responsibility. Programming time is far valuable to have them spend too much time beyond superficial balance. After their implement their work with the initial numbers then it's when there'll be people tuning numbers.
Haha what a load of bollocks. If programming time is so precious then getting it right the first time would be far more important than having to go back and redo it.
It may be surprising for you but programming time is expensive, this is why studios hire people like QA who are paid FAR less to work on bug-testing and so forth what the programmers do.
By your logic, the programmers themselves would do QA as well to "get it right the first time", but in reality doesn't work like that, they do a more superficial review on what they do and pass it on to QA.
QA can also do fine-tuning for balance and return feedback beyond just issue reports, which is something I did before.
How can that be strange? I'm sure you are aware the economy of the game is far from fleshed out, misses many profession loops and expansions of current ones, it's obvious balancing economy is not any serious concern, it's work that'll have to be redone multiple times as the economic aspects develop.
It's strange because they have talked for years about the work they've been doing on the economy. They've talked about having it all running in house and yet here we are, after 7 years and they are making it up on the fly.
They have talked about economy since the start, they still talk about economy now, it doesn't change the fact the overall design of the economy is still translation into implementation as relevant features are added. Economy will not be seriously balanced now beyond superficial reviews, neither should it be new features will continue to impact it, and so will players.
There is no "making it up on the fly", the design is what gives the direction and plan of what is wanting to be achieved, what for example this thread was made upon are details that would be silly to set in stone on design documents, the whole game economy and the players will influence that balance!
That video on the economy from 2013 still applies today, the fact the specifics of what is designed change over time does not mean the big picture of what is designed and is to be achieved has changed or isn't there.
From that to say they are making it up on the fly like there is no design just because the specifics of features/mechanics designed change as they get implemented (and after) is silly. It means that design is updated as stuff develops, and details are not released early anymore for that very same reason.
They don't need it, it's not their responsibility. Programming time is far valuable to have them spend too much time beyond superficial balance. After their implement their work with the initial numbers then it's when there'll be people tuning numbers.
Haha what a load of bollocks. If programming time is so precious then getting it right the first time would be far more important than having to go back and redo it.
It may be surprising for you but programming time is expensive, this is why studios hire people like QA who are paid FAR less to work on bug-testing and so forth what the programmers do.
By your logic, the programmers themselves would do QA as well to "get it right the first time", but in reality doesn't work like that, they do a more superficial review on what they do and pass it on to QA.
QA can also do fine-tuning for balance and return feedback beyond just issue reports, which is something I did before.
Rpmcmurphy is talking about if the programming time is so expensive then a smart game company will have the design docs fleshed out so that when the programmers get to the ship rental prices they already have numbers to put in that will be closer to what the design docs say.
QA can come in later and do little tweaks to balance everything out later on. Instead of programmers putting in wild crazy numbers and then having to go back 2 days later and adjust it and probably overcompensate to take into account any community backlash which just makes everyone’s job more difficult.
Picture your job and your boss giving you a vague project to do. You do it to the best of your ability and then they come back and finally fill you in on the details and you end up having to redo over half your work. If they just gave you all the details up front you could get it right the first time and then spend any extra time on tweaks and bug hunting
It may be surprising for you but programming time is expensive, this is why studios hire people like QA who are paid FAR less to work on bug-testing and so forth what the programmers do.
By your logic, the programmers themselves would do QA as well to "get it right the first time", but in reality doesn't work like that, they do a more superficial review on what they do and pass it on to QA.
QA can also do fine-tuning for balance and return feedback beyond just issue reports, which is something I did before.
Yes I am fully aware it is expensive which only highlights the necessity of having all the relevant information when needed so that revisiting code is kept to a minimum. That is my point.
Measure twice, cut once.
My logic has nothing to do with programmers being QA, stop trying to create a strawman.
I feel like these conversations shouldn't even exist anymore. It's an official train wreck. They are selling off portions of the company to investors. They lie over and over again to their fans. They've pushed back the release of SQ42 for 4 years - who knows how many more? There is no end in sight after all the promises made and broken.
We are looking at ineptitude on a cosmic scale. It's time to put down the pen and ignore this strange beast.
In other news Infinity: Battlescape EA launches on the 27th.
I feel like these conversations shouldn't even exist anymore. It's an official train wreck. They are selling off portions of the company to investors. They lie over and over again to their fans. They've pushed back the release of SQ42 for 4 years - who knows how many more? There is no end in sight after all the promises made and broken.
We are looking at ineptitude on a cosmic scale. It's time to put down the pen and ignore this strange beast.
In other news Infinity: Battlescape EA launches on the 27th.
Is that game like SC?
No. More like a combination of Planetside 2 and Dreadnought. Early Access ... so far only the space part is being shown. Looks nice.
Rpmcmurphy is talking about if the programming time is so expensive then a smart game company will have the design docs fleshed out so that when the programmers get to the ship rental prices they already have numbers to put in that will be closer to what the design docs say.
QA can come in later and do little tweaks to balance everything out later on. Instead of programmers putting in wild crazy numbers and then having to go back 2 days later and adjust it and probably overcompensate to take into account any community backlash which just makes everyone’s job more difficult.
Picture your job and your boss giving you a vague project to do. You do it to the best of your ability and then they come back and finally fill you in on the details and you end up having to redo over half your work. If they just gave you all the details up front you could get it right the first time and then spend any extra time on tweaks and bug hunting
That makes no sense still.
This is seen in games with early access all over, even closed betas of MMOs, there are major balance undertakings even after release for months of patches, the "design docs" that are created on the design meetings is not where they will find out the best numbers to balance the game.
A smart game company will have, like MMOs have, pre-release testing so they can do stuff like telemetry and get player feedback (internally or publicly) that is core to prevent major balance issues at release, and even with that process they still happen.
Your last bit is silly, balance is not redoing work, the rental feature, the shops system, the trading system, the ships, the fps weapons, mining, etc... do not have to be redone for numbers to be fine-tuned, a fine-tuning that happens AFTER the features are released and put on testing, and as seen on economy & pvp games it continues to happen after a game releases.
Yes I am fully aware it is expensive which only highlights the necessity of having all the relevant information when needed so that revisiting code is kept to a minimum. That is my point.
Measure twice, cut once.
My logic has nothing to do with programmers being QA, stop trying to create a strawman.
You might expect that this game balance should "be done right" from numbers theorized on design meetings before the implementation, instead of what they are doing that is putting the features in testing with initial numbers, and start tuning balance as they go, this happens on every front.
On the MMO genre, with even with alpha tests, and beta tests, the balance front tends to continue to be reviewed on updates at times lasting months after release, the mere fact the players have a huge impact on it makes absolutely so sense to me how your expectation is that they'll be able to get solid numbers from design documents, and over that, at this stage of dev. This argument to me needs a reality check.
Rpmcmurphy is talking about if the programming time is so expensive then a smart game company will have the design docs fleshed out so that when the programmers get to the ship rental prices they already have numbers to put in that will be closer to what the design docs say.
QA can come in later and do little tweaks to balance everything out later on. Instead of programmers putting in wild crazy numbers and then having to go back 2 days later and adjust it and probably overcompensate to take into account any community backlash which just makes everyone’s job more difficult.
Picture your job and your boss giving you a vague project to do. You do it to the best of your ability and then they come back and finally fill you in on the details and you end up having to redo over half your work. If they just gave you all the details up front you could get it right the first time and then spend any extra time on tweaks and bug hunting
That makes no sense still.
This is seen in games with early access all over, even closed betas of MMOs, there are major balance undertakings even after release for months of patches, the "design docs" that are created on the design meetings is not where they will find out the best numbers to balance the game.
A smart game company will have, like MMOs have, pre-release testing so they can do stuff like telemetry and get player feedback (internally or publicly) that is core to prevent major balance issues at release, and even with that process they still happen.
Your last bit is silly, balance is not redoing work, the rental feature, the shops system, the trading system, the ships, the fps weapons, mining, etc... do not have to be redone for numbers to be fine-tuned, a fine-tuning that happens AFTER the features are released and put on testing, and as seen on economy & pvp games it continues to happen after a game releases.
Yes I am fully aware it is expensive which only highlights the necessity of having all the relevant information when needed so that revisiting code is kept to a minimum. That is my point.
Measure twice, cut once.
My logic has nothing to do with programmers being QA, stop trying to create a strawman.
You might expect that this game balance should "be done right" from numbers theorized on design meetings before the implementation, instead of what they are doing that is putting the features in testing with initial numbers, and start tuning balance as they go, this happens on every front.
On the MMO genre, with even with alpha tests, and beta tests, the balance front tends to continue to be reviewed on updates at times lasting months after release, the mere fact the players have a huge impact on it makes absolutely so sense to me how your expectation is that they'll be able to get solid numbers from design documents, and over that, at this stage of dev. This argument to me needs a reality check.
The last bit is silly? Throwing out over half your work because your boss had no clue what the hell the final product should resemble is silly? I’m simply saying they clearly screwed up if they were already overhauling the values for ship rental prices. If they had an idea how the economy was going to work and what they are looking to achieve with the final product then the numbers would be closer.
Most games where I’ve been an alpha tester and beta tester generally already have the values down for items (with exceptions) and they unleash the testers to find glitches and game breaking bugs so no one can exploit the economy. It’s been rare where a vendor item changed radically in price from testing to release because that game company knew what the hell their final product was going to look like.
In my opinion CI continue to look like the amateur company they are. Will they eventually get to a final decent release? Who knows really but I’ll forever remain a critic with CR at the helm due to his past
Most games where I’ve been an alpha tester and beta tester generally already have the values down for items (with exceptions) and they unleash the testers to find glitches and game breaking bugs so no one can exploit the economy. It’s been rare where a vendor item changed radically in price from testing to release because that game company knew what the hell their final product was going to look like.
Balance is a wide monster, and a HUGE front of an MMO balance comes from players playing the game, there is a reason why MMOs are constantly balancing and rebalancing, especially when economy driven and with PvP as is.
Players playing the game constantly "break" the way the developers intended something to work, in MMOs you would aware of this when people create builds that become too OP and render other stuff useless, or when players find ways to profit, being successful etc that "break" how the devs want it to be, this is all too common for people who play this type of game.
MMOs usually do not need to update shop prices, they to balance by nerfing/boosting earning rates on the actual game content, and if you played enough of them you know this happens constantly way beyond titles in alpha/beta stages of dev.
So yeah you can ignore all that to arguing they don't know what the final product should resemble because they did, are and will continue revising numbers, as it is only logical for a game like this.
You might expect that this game balance should "be done right" from numbers theorized on design meetings before the implementation, instead of what they are doing that is putting the features in testing with initial numbers, and start tuning balance as they go, this happens on every front.
On the MMO genre, with even with alpha tests, and beta tests, the balance front tends to continue to be reviewed on updates at times lasting months after release, the mere fact the players have a huge impact on it makes absolutely so sense to me how your expectation is that they'll be able to get solid numbers from design documents, and over that, at this stage of dev. This argument to me needs a reality check.
And there you go again... You really are trying to create and argue against a scenario which no one else is talking about... You need a fraking reality check!
Tweaking is obviously a thing, no one would argue with that. But to put something in which is way out of spec is what we are talking about here.
Like +/-20% is one thing, being 100% over is another, is that making sense for you now?
Funny that people bitch about rental prices that are still in constant flux anyway.
While the fact that new ships come in an already flyable state - negating the old "OH THEY ONLY SELL PIXEL PICTURES !" argument - is conveniently forgotten and undiscussed.
Does not fit the anti-SC propaganda playbook ;-) , neh ?
Funny that people bitch about rental prices that are still in constant flux anyway.
I addressed this idiotic sentiment only a few posts up. No one is triggered at the leak. A person can say "Hey, these prices
seem high, what do you think?" or a person can go "reeeee, world is
ending, reeeeee".
Assuming the intent is the latter just shows your bias towards other posters, no one elses.
While the fact that new ships come in an already flyable state - negating the old "OH THEY ONLY SELL PIXEL PICTURES !" argument - is conveniently forgotten and undiscussed.
Does not fit the anti-SC propaganda playbook ;-) , neh ?
Are you high? You make a post about people making a big deal over nothing and then in the very next sentence make a big deal over nothing.... wtf?
You might expect that this game balance should "be done right" from numbers theorized on design meetings before the implementation, instead of what they are doing that is putting the features in testing with initial numbers, and start tuning balance as they go, this happens on every front.
On the MMO genre, with even with alpha tests, and beta tests, the balance front tends to continue to be reviewed on updates at times lasting months after release, the mere fact the players have a huge impact on it makes absolutely so sense to me how your expectation is that they'll be able to get solid numbers from design documents, and over that, at this stage of dev. This argument to me needs a reality check.
And there you go again... You really are trying to create and argue against a scenario which no one else is talking about... You need a fraking reality check!
Tweaking is obviously a thing, no one would argue with that. But to put something in which is way out of spec is what we are talking about here.
Like +/-20% is one thing, being 100% over is another, is that making sense for you now?
No it does not make sense to me. One thing is areas where the general metric is established and re-used, this goes from ship stats to mission payouts to an fps weapon/armor. This is a whole new aspect on a wip economy on itself that requires looking at the whole picture to set a standard for it.
Maybe it's because I'm more used to it, where the programmer does the first implementation with placeholder numbers because the most important next step is the testing of functionality, next feedback is given on stuff like the numbers getting updated.
I think that is exactly what happened here, and I do not shame them for doing it like this, they have a live running alpha that provides a constant stream of feedback and telemetry that they are making use of.
Most games where I’ve been an alpha tester and beta tester generally already have the values down for items (with exceptions) and they unleash the testers to find glitches and game breaking bugs so no one can exploit the economy. It’s been rare where a vendor item changed radically in price from testing to release because that game company knew what the hell their final product was going to look like.
Balance is a wide monster, and a HUGE front of an MMO balance comes from players playing the game, there is a reason why MMOs are constantly balancing and rebalancing, especially when economy driven and with PvP as is.
Players playing the game constantly "break" the way the developers intended something to work, in MMOs you would aware of this when people create builds that become too OP and render other stuff useless, or when players find ways to profit, being successful etc that "break" how the devs want it to be, this is all too common for people who play this type of game.
MMOs usually do not need to update shop prices, they to balance by nerfing/boosting earning rates on the actual game content, and if you played enough of them you know this happens constantly way beyond titles in alpha/beta stages of dev.
So yeah you can ignore all that to arguing they don't know what the final product should resemble because they did, are and will continue revising numbers, as it is only logical for a game like this.
You’re arguing about something completely different now. MMO’s evolve over time so yeah tweaking is required and as they introduce new content they might unbalance something else.
Right now you are arguing about balancing a game that has released a expansion and changed a bunch of stuff vs a game that has yet to leave alpha and getting the numbers horribly wrong
Funny that people bitch about rental prices that are still in constant flux anyway.
While the fact that new ships come in an already flyable state - negating the old "OH THEY ONLY SELL PIXEL PICTURES !" argument - is conveniently forgotten and undiscussed.
Does not fit the anti-SC propaganda playbook ;-) , neh ?
Have fun
We can still argue about selling jpegs when jpegs from years ago still aren’t in the game but most of us get headaches when we try to follow the fanboy logic and the amount of twists and turns taken to try and make it sound like a good thing
Comments
This comment of yours, "avoid these sort of situations" stuns me, isn't this is an NDA unreleased and undisclosed build where they did this initial balancing on? This situation came from people triggered at a leak that was changed 2 days later. Evocati builds are raw, it's active in dev with from stuff not there, disabled or partial implementations, hence why the NDA makes sense to "avoid these sort of situations".
And I do think the much lower prices, if the most profitable game loops stand, make it too easy to rent ships and live out of renting them, the cost has to motivate saving towards buying the permanent ship.
(Edited to clarify)
How can that be strange? I'm sure you are aware the economy of the game is far from fleshed out, misses many profession loops and expansions of current ones, it's obvious balancing economy is not any serious concern, it's work that'll have to be redone multiple times as the economic aspects develop.
To me, that would be a gigantic waste of time to pre-plan economy balance numbers beyond the general design of it. Way too many variables to just assume the economy details will work as people theorized on design meetings years before.
They explained as well on that ISC episode, changes happen as they develop the game, sticking to a design document no matter what is damning to the game, this would mean even as they develop and do releases they wouldn't be able to do changes based on player feedback to not put the design documents at risk.
We are looking at ineptitude on a cosmic scale. It's time to put down the pen and ignore this strange beast.
By your logic, the programmers themselves would do QA as well to "get it right the first time", but in reality doesn't work like that, they do a more superficial review on what they do and pass it on to QA.
QA can also do fine-tuning for balance and return feedback beyond just issue reports, which is something I did before.
They have talked about economy since the start, they still talk about economy now, it doesn't change the fact the overall design of the economy is still translation into implementation as relevant features are added. Economy will not be seriously balanced now beyond superficial reviews, neither should it be new features will continue to impact it, and so will players.
There is no "making it up on the fly", the design is what gives the direction and plan of what is wanting to be achieved, what for example this thread was made upon are details that would be silly to set in stone on design documents, the whole game economy and the players will influence that balance!
That video on the economy from 2013 still applies today, the fact the specifics of what is designed change over time does not mean the big picture of what is designed and is to be achieved has changed or isn't there.
From that to say they are making it up on the fly like there is no design just because the specifics of features/mechanics designed change as they get implemented (and after) is silly. It means that design is updated as stuff develops, and details are not released early anymore for that very same reason.
QA can come in later and do little tweaks to balance everything out later on. Instead of programmers putting in wild crazy numbers and then having to go back 2 days later and adjust it and probably overcompensate to take into account any community backlash which just makes everyone’s job more difficult.
Picture your job and your boss giving you a vague project to do. You do it to the best of your ability and then they come back and finally fill you in on the details and you end up having to redo over half your work. If they just gave you all the details up front you could get it right the first time and then spend any extra time on tweaks and bug hunting
This is seen in games with early access all over, even closed betas of MMOs, there are major balance undertakings even after release for months of patches, the "design docs" that are created on the design meetings is not where they will find out the best numbers to balance the game.
A smart game company will have, like MMOs have, pre-release testing so they can do stuff like telemetry and get player feedback (internally or publicly) that is core to prevent major balance issues at release, and even with that process they still happen.
Your last bit is silly, balance is not redoing work, the rental feature, the shops system, the trading system, the ships, the fps weapons, mining, etc... do not have to be redone for numbers to be fine-tuned, a fine-tuning that happens AFTER the features are released and put on testing, and as seen on economy & pvp games it continues to happen after a game releases.
You might expect that this game balance should "be done right" from numbers theorized on design meetings before the implementation, instead of what they are doing that is putting the features in testing with initial numbers, and start tuning balance as they go, this happens on every front.
On the MMO genre, with even with alpha tests, and beta tests, the balance front tends to continue to be reviewed on updates at times lasting months after release, the mere fact the players have a huge impact on it makes absolutely so sense to me how your expectation is that they'll be able to get solid numbers from design documents, and over that, at this stage of dev. This argument to me needs a reality check.
Most games where I’ve been an alpha tester and beta tester generally already have the values down for items (with exceptions) and they unleash the testers to find glitches and game breaking bugs so no one can exploit the economy. It’s been rare where a vendor item changed radically in price from testing to release because that game company knew what the hell their final product was going to look like.
In my opinion CI continue to look like the amateur company they are. Will they eventually get to a final decent release? Who knows really but I’ll forever remain a critic with CR at the helm due to his past
Players playing the game constantly "break" the way the developers intended something to work, in MMOs you would aware of this when people create builds that become too OP and render other stuff useless, or when players find ways to profit, being successful etc that "break" how the devs want it to be, this is all too common for people who play this type of game.
MMOs usually do not need to update shop prices, they to balance by nerfing/boosting earning rates on the actual game content, and if you played enough of them you know this happens constantly way beyond titles in alpha/beta stages of dev.
So yeah you can ignore all that to arguing they don't know what the final product should resemble because they did, are and will continue revising numbers, as it is only logical for a game like this.
Even IF that was to happen, they wouldn't be anything close to the lie they sold. Expect a meaningless placeholder at best.
Maybe it's because I'm more used to it, where the programmer does the first implementation with placeholder numbers because the most important next step is the testing of functionality, next feedback is given on stuff like the numbers getting updated.
I think that is exactly what happened here, and I do not shame them for doing it like this, they have a live running alpha that provides a constant stream of feedback and telemetry that they are making use of.
Right now you are arguing about balancing a game that has released a expansion and changed a bunch of stuff vs a game that has yet to leave alpha and getting the numbers horribly wrong