Speculation: Using Social Links to Improve Gaming

So, nobody read the the last article, but that’s okay, because I still have more to say.  One of the things I touched upon is how well the Social Link’s worked for Persona 4 and how well it could work for other games in the genre.  As an example, I’m going to be using Mass Effect, specifically 2, as a means of showing how the game could be improved by using the Social Link, or a system similar to it, in order to help tie the rest of the game together.  As an aside, the germ of the idea was planted in my head by Egoraptor in an impromptu AMA he did on the Game Grumps subreddit.  I couldn’t actually find the original comment, because it is SUPER buried, but he said it first.  So, without further ado, here we go.

Image Copyright Atlus and Anime International Company Inc.

One of the reasons I’m using Mass Effect is because Yu and Commander Shepard actually have a lot in common, at least, as far as RPG protagonists go.  They’re primary interest is about connecting with their crew and trying to make their lives better.  They’re also courageous ultimate heroes, to which no one can really compare in universe to, but that’s more of an RPG trope than anything having to do with what they have in similarities.  The other reason is because Mass Effect is billed as a game about choices and character, and yet, it doesn’t do as good a job.  I choose 2 specifically because I think it’s far and away the best in the series, and because while the optional stuff is technically optional, it’s not really.  I wrote about it in Game Anatomy how the Loyalty Missions did a really good job of tying Shepard to her party, but I feel like there could have been more, and the Social Link system is the way to do it.

So, one of the problems with the game is that Garrus is always calibrating.  I mean, normally Vakaraian makes the best boyfriend in the game (sorry Gay Male Shepard fans, but it’s true and you know it, but at least Cortez is a close, close second), but he spends all his time in the back fiddling with the damn guns.  Part of this is because the game is open and he quickly runs out of shit to say.  The other problem is that his story is a few conversations, with no wrong answers, a mission that, by the standards of the game, is okay at best (and I can’t remember, despite having the wiki entry on it open and reading it) and then he bones you (or you get high fives if you’re a dude?  I don’t truck with stuff that’s not canon).  I mean, that’s it.  I guess in 3 we get a pretty tearful ending, but that happens regardless of what I do.  Commander Shepard deserves better than this.

She deserves better.  Image copyright EA, Bioware and Bleeding Cool

With a Social Link style system, I’d actually have to talk to Garrus about who he is.  See, Garrus wants to be Batman.  He’s a trained soldier who wants to use his training for violence for a good purpose, and he acts as something of a foil to Wrex, Tali a little bit and even Shepard herself.  He doesn’t really know what his purpose is, because his whole life has centered around violence, and that’s kind of an inherently destructive thing, but what he wants is to help people.  He’s tried everything: the military, the police, even working with Shepard once before, and with the exception of Shepard, none of it has worked.  He says it’s because he only sees black and white, but Garrus is really less of a moral absolutist than he lets on.  His issues are many fold, but one of the major ones is that he doesn’t really see the big picture.  It’s why Fade betrays him, it’s why his crew is wiped out and it’s why everything falls apart on him.  He can’t see the bigger picture.  Here’s the thing though, he’s got talent for being a squad leader, but only if he’s loyal (only Miranda can survive being squad leader without being loyal).  With Shepard’s guidance, he can actually do it.

In the vanilla game, all Shepard has to do is run him through a mission and he’s good.  That…sucks.  No, seriously, it sucks and it’s only partially because Garrus’s loyalty mission is among the more boring in the game.  A Social Link system would set up the discussions to be timed at certain points.  If you haven’t reached those points, with flags both in the game and in Garrus’s in-game story, when ever you talk to him, all you get is a couple of pre-recorded lines.  First, these lines change.  Each step of the way, he’s going to have a different set of lines, plus he’ll have a few generic ones that, since it’s Garrus, are actually hilarious.  Also, unless he has something very specific to say, he’s not going to start the dialog cutscene, and will instead speak as if he were a regular NPC.  This, by the way, applies to all of the members of the crew.  I’m just using Garrus because he’s the best.

When the player gets to the flagged sections, then they have to have a real conversation about what happens, and Shepard needs to actually try to help Garrus with his problems.  She needs to show him what it takes to be a leader, and this means the player is going to need to make choices.  These aren’t Paragon or Renegade choices, but they can be, although, for simplicity’s sake, let’s make it so her stock responses are different based on which side is the highest, but whatever, this is a fantasy, let’s go all out.  There are also Paragon and Renegade versions of the right choices.  Here’s the thing, you need to tell Garrus what he needs to see.  The problem is his world view, he knows what he wants, but he doesn’t know how to get there, and Shepard can’t just placate him.  That’s not her job.  Instead, she needs to show him how to be the right kind of leader, to see the forest and the trees and know how to communicate both to his people.  If you screw up, the game flags two choices, the back up conversation, or it goes forward.

If it goes forward, the storyline continues.  If the player fucks up, then you get a second chance.  In this second chance, it’s a different conversation, not a replay of the last one, which is built on the choice Shepard gives.  There could actually be a number of reasons for this: a Paragon Shepard choosing the correct Renegade choice and Garrus not buying it, saying something that is outright stupid, or just confusing the poor bastard and making him doubt himself.  This second conversation will only advance if Shepard is willing to tell Garrus what he needs, but if it fails, then you can’t ever make Garrus fully loyal.  You can get his mission, you can still make him your boyfriend and maybe he’ll survive the Suicide Mission, but he becomes and unknown factor now.  If you screw up, a third line of conversations run through the rest of the game.

Perhaps, for the forgiving players, maybe if Shepard corrects her choices, she can get back to the top conversation track and make him fully loyal.  That’s going to be complicated, but not impossible.  One the whole, this, I feel, ties the game in more together, and makes the shooty-shooty parts less distinct from the talky-talky bits, and that’s a huge hurdle the game had overcome.  Now, if only there was a way to fix that third game.