Deeply Delving Dungeons

You can find Part 1 here.

You can find Part 2 here.

Ok, just so we’re clear, this isn’t the final part of my ME2 review. I was just listening to the latest episode of Podtoid where they discuss the latest Mass Effect and had a few things I wanted to mention before they escaped my notice, a few shortfalls to be precise. Just think of this as part 1.5 as it deals heavily with the story aspect of Mass Effect 2.

One of the biggest problems that this game has is a problem inherent to narrative game play of any sort, that being the player’s tendency to meta-game or use outside knowledge (or tools) in order to further themselves in game. At its most basic level this can be simple foreknowledge that a character in the game world would not rightly have access to though it can also present itself in the form of meticulous stat tracking (and by stat tracking I’m speaking more along the lines of statistics that are hidden from the player for the most part that can determine the likely outcome of certain scenarios in-game) or by reloading your game in the case of an unfortunate turn of events (not a series of events though, that’s under copyright). You get the basic idea.

My positive reaction to the game’s ending would have been greatly diminished had I meta-gamed (well, meta-gamed more than I had up until that point, some habits are hard to kick) and reloaded my save when Tali fell to enemy fire. Sure, I could have gone back in there and done things right gosh darnit, but then the ending wouldn’t have had quite the impact that I ultimately felt it did. The temptation was there, don’t get me wrong, but I knew (despite all my years of gaming training telling me otherwise) that doing so would have been a cop out and disrespectful to the story as a whole. But that isn’t what I’m going to nitpick; this problem of reloading saves is a very difficult problem to solve without removing a lot of player control and doing so tends to foment resentment.

Rather, my problem lies with the Conversation System as a system, including the accompanying Paragon/Renegade statistics. The dialogue mechanics are just far too opaque, they’re practically begging players to meta-game. This hearkens back to my desire for proper RPG elements to be completely stripped out of the Mass Effect series as I wish there was no obvious indication of your Paragon and Renegade scores for reference. Unlike the first game where improving those stats would open up new tiers of the associated skill (which effected the buying and selling and items), in the second game they do nothing outside of determining the extent of your facial scarring (which, as amusing as it was, was a very contrived and pointless mechanic; there are no goddamn Sith in this universe!) and whether or not special dialogue options will appear. So get rid of them! Being able to track those stats only serves to encourage meta-gaming, not just in terms of being able to track your character’s ability to access the special dialogue options but also in terms of pre-directing the flow of conversation in order to maximise your P/R output.

Which brings me to my second quibble: stop making the special dialogue options so colour-codedly obvious and trivial to access!

In Mass Effect 2 if your Paragon or Renegade score is high enough you will notice certain dialogue options in conversations are sort of “lit-up” either in blue (if you have a high enough Paragon score) or in red (for Renegade). These are the special dialogue options I keep mentioning and believe me when I call them special as they tend to be win buttons of a sort, allowing you to bypass messy situations with ease and/or significantly boost your rewards. These are powerful options yet they are painfully obvious when they’re available!

I’ll be speaking from the POV of a Renegade player here (not having spent any significant time with a Paragon in either game. I know, I’m a bastard, but it’s just too much fun!) and as a Renegade I always like to think of my specialty as violent interrogation, and when I think of interrogation I like to think of Jack Bauer, hence my character’s namesake. An interrogation by Jack Bauer is (usually) not a quick, painless experience. He doesn’t just go up to someone and ask them where the bomb is and then get an answer ’cause he was kind of a jerk when he asked. No, interrogation takes time, it takes encouraging the other party to see things your way, it requires you to get your hands dirty, metaphorically (or literally) speaking. It does NOT take a single frigging dialogue option! You could easily apply this process to a Paragon character as well, only you’ll end being your target’s bestest friend in the whole wide world/galaxy afterwards.

My thoughts on creating a dialogue system has always been to make it for more than simply spoon-feeding the player information (which is how it’s almost always implemented). Bioware does a good job in trying to make its NPC exchanges less like accessing information kiosks and more like talking to a proper person, but they still have a ways to go and I feel the best step forward would be to move the P/R system away from its currenty meta-ey state and into something more resembling game play (and something a hell of a lot more engaging). I’ve already mentioned the first two things I’d do, namely hiding the conversation tracking stats from the player and not being so blatant with its P/R options, but there are two more things I think would help out immensely.

First of all, look at conversations (at least the kind of conversation that would require extreme measures like P/R responses) as duels. Both parties are looking to get something out of this exchange and they should both be pushing their respective agendas forward (even if that agenda is simply not being shot in the facial region). A lot of this falls to the writers as they would have to create dialogue exchanges that almost feel precarious by presenting many options for pressing the NPC for more information by maintaining a fleeting advantage in the conversation while also not giving the NPC any openings to throw the PC off their game. Creating such a subtle interplay in conversation would be anything but easy but it would be well worth it if they can pull it off. Think of it like putting up a barrier between the player choosing the Investigate option and actually being able to pry that information out of their target (not always though, some people should be more than happy to help out).

So how would you accomplish this from a mechanical perspective? Well, I think that these hidden conversation trackers (i.e. Paragon, Renegade, and in this system’s case some sort of stat that tracks who has the advantage in the face-off) should be completely hidden first of all, as I’ve mentioned earlier, otherwise it will feel too gamey and not “cinematic” like it should. Secondly, and most importantly, I think they should divide these trackers into Global and Local variants.

The Global tracker would basically be what we have right now; it undergoes lasting change as a result of your actions and also serves as a tonal baseline for any encounter you enter into, which is something it doesn’t really do at the moment, the game instead opting to start every conversation with a neutral Shepard.

The Local tracker on the other hand would be a special conversation-specific instance of the P/R system (that would also incorporate the Advantage tracker) that changes over the course of an encounter. Essentially what you would have to do (from a Renegade viewpoint again) is take the baseline that your global tracker gives you and through the options presented you would try to direct the course of the dialogue. This way a high-Renegade character might have to work down his baseline if he/she wants to try and charm someone. On the flipside you would also have to work yourself up during the conversation in order to do anything truly intimidating (or conversely reassure the creature you’re talking to that you’re an alright kind of a guy/gal), taking advantage of any existing notoriety to make things easier or possibly even ending up with a far more difficult struggle if your (hidden) Renegade score isn’t quite high enough.

I could go on about this for hours and such a system revamp would be more than deserving of such attention, but I hope you understand what I’m trying to get across here. It’s not just enough to hide these statistics from the player, you also have to create a dynamic enough environment that feeling out the mechanics becomes more trouble than it’s worth. Anything less and players will meta-game like crazy and many of the more powerful scenes in your game will lose all of their dramatic impact.

This sort of turned into a dialogue system rant but there’s just one more meta-problem I want to mention. The NPC Loyalty system. Don’t tell us if our teammates our loyal. Just don’t. Seriously. Keep us on our toes, make us keep guessing.

That is all.