Most Elite Dangerous Horizons fans still can’t access to Multi-Crew, the cooperative multiplayer system being introduced in the game’s next expansion, but recent changes to the Update 2.3 beta are drawing a great deal of ire from the Elite Dangerous community. And public contempt for the change has already grown so loud that Frontier Developments felt it necessary to explain the decision on the Elite Dangerous forums.
Announced back in 2015, Multi-Crew will give the Elite Dangerous community a new way to enjoy multiplayer. Once released, Multi-Crew will let up to four players group together on a single ship. The vessel’s owner serves as captain, while the remaining three crew members fill other roles on the ship. It’s one of the most anticipated additions to Elite Dangerous since the game’s 2014 debut. But not everyone is a fan of a change introduced to the ongoing Multi-Crew beta.
This week, Frontier Developments heavily nerfed crew member mission payouts after realizing the existing system could be abused pretty effectively by the Elite Dangerous community. The response has been as predictable as it is negative. But the studio isn’t budging, and Frontier Developments Senior Community Manager Ed Lewis says there’s a good reason for the change.
“We felt it was important to balance the amount of credits you receive after joining a session for a few reasons. Without this balance players would quickly be able to skip the initial progression in the game,” Lewis wrote. “This is something that was designed to teach players how to engage with the Elite Dangerous galaxy, and allowing players to jump into someone else’s ship and earn millions of credits in no time at all would allow them to skip this progression entirely and hop straight into a larger ship, without having learned how to make money in normal gameplay.”
“It would truly change the early in-game progression, and knock the balance of the game for the worse… for both new and experienced players,” he added.
Lewis also points out that the previous payout system flew in the face of the existing risk-reward relationship that influenced many aspects of the Elite Dangerous economy. Crew members don’t have to pay rebuy costs, in the event of an ambush or lost battle, and Frontier believes rewards should match that lowered risk. Otherwise you run the risk of creating an environment where everyone wants to be part of a crew but no one wants to sit in the captain’s chair.
Some have accepted the explanation. Others argue that this is nothing more than Frontier adding content gates to a game previously celebrated for placing few restrictions on its community. It’s unclear whether or not we can expect to see additional tweaks to the system, before it’s made available to the entire Elite Dangerous community, but Lewis does acknowledge that “finding the right balance is incredibly important.” So it’s very possible we’ll see additional iteration before Multi-Crew makes its public debut.
Elite Dangerous is currently available on PC and Xbox One. The game hits PS4 later this year.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes and follow Scott on Twitter for more Elite Dangerous news throughout 2017 and however long Frontier supports Elite Dangerous in the years ahead.
