Whenever I play an rpg I often gravitate towards creating a charismatic, silver-tongued character who can talk their way out of situations or simply bend them to their advantage. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is no different, except where other games might have a Charisma stat or a persuasion skill, DE:HR has the Social Enhancer Augmentation.
The Social Enhancer is a Cranial augmentation that costs 2 Praxis points. I know, there’s a strong temptation to spend Praxis points as soon as you get them, but this is worth the bit of saving up you have to do. This augmentation aids Adam in certain conversations, providing more options and if done successfully more benefits at the end of the conversation.
This was taken from the xBox 360 version and not PC, but the screen’s the same.
I’m not sure whether this is the same for everyone, but I didn’t get a game manual with my copy. It wasn’t a downloaded copy either, I just didn’t get a manual with mine, so it took me several tries to figure out just how to use it.
The first thing you’ll notice after you’ve bought the social enhancer is that when you enter certain conversations your interface will look slightly different. You see a small box with Alpha, Beta and Omega, each with three little blips underneath, secondly there will be a little real-time graph running showing how close you are to persuading the person you’re talking to. You’ll also notice that a brief psychological profile will be displayed, giving an idea of who you’re dealing with, and the type of person the are.
As the conversation starts, you will be given three options of conversation, such as ‘Placate’, ‘Refocus’ and ‘Defend’. Each of these options will either bring you closer or further away from being able to persuade your conversant. If you choose correctly, you will see the real-time graph move upwards and become greener, choose incorrectly and it will go down and become more red. Depending on how the conversation goes, you may need to change tactics. Clues about how you should deal with a conversant are given in the psychological profile.
As you are spoken to you may see the alpha, beta, omega bars flash with either one,two or three bars. These give you the character type you are dealing with. You should keep a running total of how many bars were shown under each type as the conversation continues.
At a given point in the conversation, you will be given the option of releasing pheromones from the social enhancer aug by pressing the space bar. After which you can choose from one of three conversation options which are based on the character type. For example option one may be perfect for alpha’s but should never be used for omega’s, option two may be perfect for beta’s but never used for alpha’s etc. You’ll know which type of character you’re dealing with from counting up the alpha, beta, and omega bars.
You can always save just before the conversation if it goes badly, and have another try. I had to until I got the hang of it.
That’s it really. The social enhancer is not as complicated as it might look at first.
If you want to see an example there’s a video below which I found quite useful.
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
The colours don’t mean anything. I suspect it’s just another way to make it easier to distinguish between the different personality types. For the conversations only the total number of bar flashes count.
w00tman
13 years ago
Hi, thanks for the info regarding CASIE. 🙂
I also never got a physical manual with retail copy of the game, but keep forgetting to read the steam downloadable manual – lol
I’ve just augmented Jensen with the CASIE Aug right after meeting with Zeke Sanders. However, although I’ve had several conversations with characters since, I still haven’t experienced any CASIE visuals/options. Do you remember the first conversation that did actually have the ability to use CASIE?
Funnily enough it was the conversation shown in the video above. I think I’d just come back from the mission where you take down Barrett, which gave me the Praxis points to buy the aug.
I was told by Pritchard it was David Serif himself who had had set up access outside the standard security protocols. When I confronted him, that was the first time it came up.
There may be other moments before that point where you get to use the SE, I’m not sure.
As a side note the real-time graph showing persuasion levels doesn’t always show. i can only assume that there isn’t a need for it in every SE conversation just the potential plot changing ones maybe?
Needles
12 years ago
I don’t understand why NO blog or wiki seems to answer my question.
When you first get the Persuasion Augmentation the game tells you what type of dialogue option should be chosen for an alpha, beta and omega. The game never mentions it again.
In short, there is no specific dialogue option for which pheromone to use, follow the psych profile to make an educated guess on how to deal with that person. Choosing a good conversation option may extend the conversation or reveal more information. In any case ‘blips’ will be shown, that should be counted. Enabling you to choose which pheromone to use at the end of the conversation.
any idea what the different colors under the alpha/beta/gamma mean?
The colours don’t mean anything. I suspect it’s just another way to make it easier to distinguish between the different personality types. For the conversations only the total number of bar flashes count.
Hi, thanks for the info regarding CASIE. 🙂
I also never got a physical manual with retail copy of the game, but keep forgetting to read the steam downloadable manual – lol
I’ve just augmented Jensen with the CASIE Aug right after meeting with Zeke Sanders. However, although I’ve had several conversations with characters since, I still haven’t experienced any CASIE visuals/options. Do you remember the first conversation that did actually have the ability to use CASIE?
Funnily enough it was the conversation shown in the video above. I think I’d just come back from the mission where you take down Barrett, which gave me the Praxis points to buy the aug.
I was told by Pritchard it was David Serif himself who had had set up access outside the standard security protocols. When I confronted him, that was the first time it came up.
There may be other moments before that point where you get to use the SE, I’m not sure.
As a side note the real-time graph showing persuasion levels doesn’t always show. i can only assume that there isn’t a need for it in every SE conversation just the potential plot changing ones maybe?
I don’t understand why NO blog or wiki seems to answer my question.
When you first get the Persuasion Augmentation the game tells you what type of dialogue option should be chosen for an alpha, beta and omega. The game never mentions it again.
Anyone know what they are?
From my understanding they’re just an example.
In short, there is no specific dialogue option for which pheromone to use, follow the psych profile to make an educated guess on how to deal with that person. Choosing a good conversation option may extend the conversation or reveal more information. In any case ‘blips’ will be shown, that should be counted. Enabling you to choose which pheromone to use at the end of the conversation.
Hope this helps.