1898 réponses à ce sujet

[DarkAmaranth1966]

Well, there are workarounds that seem to help with the banter. I've had 1 1/2 successful playthroughs (one on PS4, 1/2 on PC), where I had banter as it's supposed to be: something every 10-15 minutes, except for the Western Approach, which is bugged.

The workarounds I used were:

• keeping the journal and codex clear of "unread" (marked with a star) entries
• after traveling to a new zone, I waited for the autosave, then reloaded that autosave and played from there
• only keeping about 5 save files
• playing offline
• I never acquired the horse

I bet a lot of these don't have anything to do with banter but after I got a nice amount of banter I didn't want to stop doing them for fear of breaking things again, lol. This was also before the latest patch, which seems to have broken banter even more? If you don't want to try all of them, at least keep the journal/codex clear - pretty sure that's one workaround that actually helps.

If you're on PC, try the mod everyone is talking about here, it's your best bet - if you don't encounter the banter bug, you won't need to hit the button at all, but if you do, you have a way of jump starting it at least.

 

DarkAmaranth, thanks for getting into it! I agree that there are different things people talk about: the actual "banter bug" where there is next to no banter (this includes any and all comments except for scripted ones) and the people who think that only conversations between companions count as banter - the latter group might actually experience a "normal" amount of "banter" because environmental comments count as banter too (and why shouldn't they?).

Could you explain what the "various events that reset the timer before it reaches zero" are? I think people who actually have almost no banter might hitting those events more often having the chance of banter reset every time. If we could figure out what these are people could actively avoid them maybe?

 

The biggest one that surprised me was NPC remarks directed at the party, even remarks that you cannot respond to. ( "Inquisitor." from the requisition officer or a townie and, similar things.) Of course combat, traveling to a new zone (and entering a mini map area, like Valamar, is considered traveling to a new zone.) And, of course, any comment from any of your party members all reset the timer.

 

So, vanilla game to get it to fire basically yo would have to travel to a banter zone, say Crestwood, get away from NPCs, stay out of combat and wait up to 15 minutes for the first banter, then up to 15 minutes for each banter after that.

 

That is where I see the problem. What gamer is going to avoid NPCs and combat in this game for 15 minutes on a regular basis? That's why I think the timer needs to PAUSE, not reset, when NPC talk or combat occurs.

 

Yes, ticking the box in CE gives you a very talkative party. They get repetitive but, better a bunch of kids repeating themselves because the just can't shut up than silence. I can envision Quizzy saying "Do you guys ever shut up?" and getting a three voices in unison "NO!" LOL

[Kalshane]

I've been watching what CE does and, when Banter actually triggers. Of course in non banter areas the timer goes to a negative number and stays there, as it should so that banter is impossible there. It returns to a random number between 60-900 when you re enter a banter enable area. (700 if Hinterlands) It has to count down form there and, hit 0 for banter to trigger. Banter does happen at 0 99% of the time but, it is clear now, that environmental and remarks that get no response from other party members do in fact count as banter. (Doesn't matter what we consider banter, it's what the program considers banter.)

 

So that sends the timer to a random starting point again. Mission related remarks also count. Add the 5% of the time that the counter hits 0 and no banter happens, plus various events that reset the timer before it reaches zero and, the comments most do not consider banter being counted as banter by the game, I see why so many think there is little to no banter.

 

There is plenty of it recorded and, in the game, getting to hear it is another matter. IMO, the easiest fix would be to turn resets into pauses. That way the timer only starts at a random number when you first enter a zone from a no banter location and, after a banter occurs. That would mean at most 15 minutes between banters and, I think that is acceptable.

 

Thank you for this explanation. So, outside of the 5% of the time when it just doesn't trigger (which I'm not sure why that would even be the case and may be the legitimate bug here) people experiencing the bug (myself included) may simply be unfortunate enough to keep encountering reset events frequently enough it never gets to fire. It would also explain people who leave their characters just standing in camp and never get it to fire if the counter resets every time the Requisition Agent happens to wander by and say "Inquisitor".

 

I agree that the reset was a really poor implementation choice. Pause would have been a better option, but if that wasn't feasible for whatever reason, a much shorter timer if the main timer is "interrupted" would be preferable.
 

[silksieve]

The biggest one that surprised me was NPC remarks directed at the party, even remarks that you cannot respond to. ( "Inquisitor." from the requisition officer or a townie and, similar things.) Of course combat, traveling to a new zone (and entering a mini map area, like Valamar, is considered traveling to a new zone.) And, of course, any comment from any of your party members all reset the timer.

 

So, vanilla game to get it to fire basically yo would have to travel to a banter zone, say Crestwood, get away from NPCs, stay out of combat and wait up to 15 minutes for the first banter, then up to 15 minutes for each banter after that.

 

That is where I see the problem. What gamer is going to avoid NPCs and combat in this game for 15 minutes on a regular basis? That's why I think the timer needs to PAUSE, not reset, when NPC talk or combat occurs.

 

Yes, ticking the box in CE gives you a very talkative party. They get repetitive but, better a bunch of kids repeating themselves because the just can't shut up than silence. I can envision Quizzy saying "Do you guys ever shut up?" and getting a three voices in unison "NO!" LOL

 

Does combat actually reset the timer?  Sometimes banter fires right after combat, which leads me to think there's a pause function for combat.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

Most of the time it resets but, if it hits zero at the same moment you initiate combat, then it fires as soon as combat is over, as if the reset gets overridden by entering combat. I think that's because most characters have potential remarks they shout during combat so, banter is supposed to stop to let that happen. If you notice, when banter fires right after combat, no one remarks during combat. Banter will also continue into combat if it starts before you initiate combat.

 

There are also quite a few banters Inquisitor gets to respond to and, I know a lot of people have never heard any of those. I've found 4 so far but have not had all of the companions out long enough in all possible combinations to run all of the banter the game has yet. Of course more banter becomes available in each area and, as you progress through the story - they can't remark on what hasn't happened or where they haven't been.

[DAOnut]

Click on the link above and you'll find the Cheat Engine banter mod
 
- ...... and then the banter table in it
- Go back into your game and click num1 or num8 (depending on the table you are using)
 
P.S.: If you already knew all this I'm sorry. I just want to help

I have a tkl keyboard, so no "num" keys. Can I edit the CT file with notepad and change the activate key to something like "O" (for Open your mouth and say something)?
Thanks!

[Hazegurl]

Ah so clicking the box makes it fire off like crazy? I didn't know. The first time I used it I had the box ticked and didn't hear anything until I pressed the hotkey so I thought the mod did something awesome and unintentional this time around.  

[Hazegurl]

CE is blood magic, use wisely and try not to abuse your new powerz.    Seriously, they will hunt us all down for it.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

It's all available on the CE site but, I do think it should only be used for Single player. Not everyone wants to use CE so, it should be kept to single player ONLY. I'd hate to be the one w/o CE in a PUG so, let's keep it to SP only. EA may block it if we don't.

[silksieve]

Most of the time it resets but, if it hits zero at the same moment you initiate combat, then it fires as soon as combat is over, as if the reset gets overridden by entering combat. I think that's because most characters have potential remarks they shout during combat so, banter is supposed to stop to let that happen. If you notice, when banter fires right after combat, no one remarks during combat. Banter will also continue into combat if it starts before you initiate combat.

 

There are also quite a few banters Inquisitor gets to respond to and, I know a lot of people have never heard any of those. I've found 4 so far but have not had all of the companions out long enough in all possible combinations to run all of the banter the game has yet. Of course more banter becomes available in each area and, as you progress through the story - they can't remark on what hasn't happened or where they haven't been.

Well, no wonder, then, because it is extremely difficult to go 15 minutes without getting into combat.  Have you noticed if "combat awareness" affects the timer? (The red enemy dots show up on the compass, but the party is not in active combat.)

 

Also, I'm glad that they designed banter to continue into combat if it fires right before; this was an improvement over one of the annoying things of DAO/DA2, where combat would actually cut off banter.

[silksieve]

Although, it's interesting that the combat remarks are considered banter/dialogue, because I notice they are controlled by the "sound effects" volume rather than the "dialogue" volume slider.  (I usually turn the sounds effects fairly low, and can hardly hear combat remarks.)

[Sola Gon_]

Ok Bioware, here is the deal: I put next to bold hair in pink on to all my characters, set all graphic settings to low, praise all the shiny mess awesomeness like crazy and you tell me about the hidden command line parameter to enable party banter. DEAL?

 

What would you sacrifice/offer to have party banter back?

[wertysy]

What would you sacrifice/offer to have party banter back?

50€. Oh wait...

[turuzzusapatuttu]

What would you sacrifice/offer to have party banter back?

 

I would sacrifice Alderaan, if that meant the return of party banter.

 

[foldingcranes]

I really miss the way party banter used to be in previous games. In DA:I it almost never happens, and when it does, it's so out of the blue that it's hard to follow.

[Nayana_Jaz]

Combat can be interrupted by so many things, it's really frustrating. On the one hand it's good that Cheat Engine exposed how the banter system really works. On the other hand it makes me a little angry. Of course they say banter isn't broken, because it isn't....well, it is a little, but not as much as we all thought.

 

The amount of things that interrupts banter is unbelievable:

 

- combat

- if we're near an enemie/rifs

- NPCs

- the requisition officer (oh how much I hate her)

- sometimes I walk through an area with only wildlife, and miraculously one of the animals turns into an red dot

- plus the thousand times when banter is supposed to start, but it doesn't.

 

How am I supposed to play a game like this, if I want to hear banter? Never fight and never talk to anyone?

 

But at least we have a good solution now. The game is so much better with the CE banter trigger.

[Efvie]

It seems like you’re converging on a consensus that this is somehow working ‘correctly’, but just poorly.

 

I agree that it is a fairly terrible implementation, as I feared, but you do have to account that people have had vastly different experiences playing the game. Some have noticed nothing off. Some report consistently getting banter about every 10 minutes while for others it’s closer to 10 hours while both make progress through the game. The play cannot be that different. You can’t not get into fights etc. The variance is too great, and too wide-spread to be merely bad luck.

 

One interesting thing to do might be to compare the triggering between 1.02 and 1.03 (which supposedly included a fix of some sort.)

 

All in all, likely the simplest improvement they could add at this point would indeed be altering the reset behavior to be a pause. I suggested that when we were speculating about the likely implementations way back in November, but it’s not like they’ve listened a whole lot…

[DarkAmaranth1966]

All we need is someone still on 1.02 to run CE banter but not activate it, just run the game windowed and watch the counter. See when it resets, how often it hits 0 and banter fails, and what ranges it uses. It would be interesting and, helpful if someone who still has no banter did the same to see where the problems are occurring.

 

Is it only with certain companions? a certain race, class and/or gender of Inquisitor, what?

 

it's either change the reset to a pause, or change the range the counter can use to about 500 MAX.

 

I have no doubt that they thought it was fine in testing, and it probably was but, they knew how it was supposed to work, expected banter every 15 mins or less and, because testing, avoided resets. As sometimes happens, Devs and even Beta testers fail to think of everything the players think of and, what looks great in Beta fails when it's released.

 

Yes if you walk everywhere and take time to collect every harvest-able, thus avoiding NPCs and combat for longer periods, banter happens (barring the no banter bug some seem to have.) And I'm sure testers did just that. What they didn't consider was that many players will rush form fight to fight to village to camp and skip a lot of collecting, exploring and such. Thus turning a nice banter system into crap.

 

I know, had it happen on one of the games I beta test. Whole new area, new 60 man combat teams in a giant 3 way battle with bases that could be captured and, defenses to maintain and upgrade, large scale weapons to craft and all. Incredible, beautiful, we played at it for weeks, worked great, perfect, we had a blast, it was challenging and we all loved it. Took it live and, lo and behold all the players do is camp the opponent's bases, spam killing one team and ruining play for everyone since none of the great cannons, upgrades, crafting or anything ever happened. as Varric would say "Well ****." and that was about our reaction. Had to go back a rethink the bases and, how to prevent camping and spam killing.

 

Looks like the DAI banter system is having a similar problem. Yes, I'm laughing because I've been behind these messes and, you either laugh or pull you hair out and go insane with frustration trying to fix it.

 

I'd try changing the reset to a pause, provided the engine will restart the counter properly with out resetting it, which it may not. If not then, plan B would be lower the maximum the counter can reset to. Having the counter go to zero often does not seem to cause issues in the game so, that would be better than all of this no or very little banter mess we have now.

[Nayana_Jaz]

It seems like you’re converging on a consensus that this is somehow working ‘correctly’, but just poorly.

 

I agree that it is a fairly terrible implementation, as I feared, but you do have to account that people have had vastly different experiences playing the game. Some have noticed nothing off. Some report consistently getting banter about every 10 minutes while for others it’s closer to 10 hours while both make progress through the game. The play cannot be that different. You can’t not get into fights etc. The variance is too great, and too wide-spread to be merely bad luck.

 

One interesting thing to do might be to compare the triggering between 1.02 and 1.03 (which supposedly included a fix of some sort.)

 

All in all, likely the simplest improvement they could add at this point would indeed be altering the reset behavior to be a pause. I suggested that when we were speculating about the likely implementations way back in November, but it’s not like they’ve listened a whole lot…

 

I'm sorry, I should have better explain what I mean. (as a non-native english speaker I have some problems with explaining what I really mean sometimes.)

 

Of course, the banter is broken. But not for Bioware or EA. When they test the banter, I'm pretty sure they just stand around in a non combat area and the banter works as it should be, in their eyes (I assume they do it that way, because they've asked us to test it like that).

So I gave it a try and went to the Storm Coast, stood around in a non combat area and I had banter, just not every 15 or 20 minutes. Sometimes I had to wait an hour.

Which leads me to believe, that the only thing that's really broken in my game is, that banter doesn't always fire when the countdown resets.

Plus, I quote myself from a previous post:
 

I know why whe get more banter in the Hinterlands than in all the other areas. The banter value is between 0 and 900 sec. In the Hinterlands i get a countdown between 70 and 200 sec for the next banter to trigger, after it hits zero the first time. Not always, but very often. In other areas, like the Emerald Graves or Hissing Wastes, it starts around 700 or 800 sec after a reset. And if we take in account that the banter is triggered only every third or fourth time, then it makes sense that we have less banter as the game progresses.

 

 

Plus all the things that can interrupt the banter.

 

All these things together make it more comprehensible for me why I or we have so little banter. (I know there are many more variables to take into account, why banter is broken.)

 

I just hope Bioware/EA will fix the bug asap. Or follow some of the wonderful advices from players in this thread.

[Ending]

As a console player, as sad as this sounds I'd pay for party banter right now. Really stopping me doing another play through

[Ghostsaxon]

Here I am again. 900 hrs 27 playthroughs and with the help of CE and the banter fix I heard 5 different companions reaction to my relationship with my companion!!! some where I had dialog choice response!!!!!

 

 

Bioware I HAVE NEVER HAD THAT IN ALL THOSE HRS OF PLAY TIME......YET YOU SAY BANTER IS WORKING AS INTENDED.... ARE YOU HAPPY THE GAME SOLD SO WELL NOW JUST SAY SCREW ALL OF US WE HAVE THEIR MONEY???????????

 

 

SURELY YOU MUST SEE????  THE DEPTH IT ADDS TO THIS GAME....  I WOULDNT BE HERE POSTING IF I DIDNT CARE OR LOVE THE GAME..

 

 

IF IT WAS INTENDED TO BE DRAWN OUT TO ADD INSENTIVE FOR MORE PLAYTHROUGHS.....IVE HAD NONE TILL CE,,,BANTER FIX YET PLAYED THROUGH 27 TIMES ...

 

 

IF YOU HAVE A GREAT GAME YOU DONT NEED INSENTIVE TO FORCE REPEAT PLAYTHROUGHS ....WE WILL DO IT..

 

 

 

PLEASE FIX THE BANTER TO FIRE EVERY 5 MIN ..UNINTERUPABLE AND REPEATABLE......

 

OR AT LEAST COME ON THIS FORUM AND TELL US ALL TO          F......OFF

 

SOMETHING ....ANYTHING....

[Silith]

Good work everyone! I think it's really interesting to finally see the mechanics behind the banter at work. I had already suspected some of them (the Requisition Officer as the chief culprit among them!) but it's great having it confirmed. The combat observation is REALLY interesting as well - I did wonder why there was no combat yells from time to time but I never made the connection. Awesome!

 

It seems like you’re converging on a consensus that this is somehow working ‘correctly’, but just poorly.

 

I agree that it is a fairly terrible implementation, as I feared, but you do have to account that people have had vastly different experiences playing the game. Some have noticed nothing off. Some report consistently getting banter about every 10 minutes while for others it’s closer to 10 hours while both make progress through the game. The play cannot be that different. You can’t not get into fights etc. The variance is too great, and too wide-spread to be merely bad luck.

 

You have to keep in mind that just because a couple of people say that they have "no banter" they might not mean the same thing. One person might ignore all environmental remarks as banter, someone might start playing in the Hinterlands for 15 minutes and then proceed to the main quest for a couple of hours (where there is no banter) and then complain about the lack of banter because they played for hours without hearing anything, other people who think their banter is fine might count scripted occurrences as banter, and so forth. Also, what one person thinks as "enough" banter might differ wildly (is something every 5 minutes enough? Every 10? 15?).

Unless you somehow standardize what everyone is talking about, it's hard to judge how widespread the problem really is. I know that my first two (I think?) playthroughs were very quiet but I didn't really look out for banter and just after reading complaints of other people did I think that I maybe had encountered the banter bug. But maybe I didn't - I mainly played the story missions and not a lot of side content, so I simply couldn't encounter a lot of banter just because of that reason alone.

 

However, I DO think that there are things at work behind the game that influence the normal behaviour of the banter and break it, mainly the journal/codex. There are a lot of people who report "more" banter after having an eye on this and I don't think they radically changed their playstyle.

I should do some testing but I like to play so much that it always detracts me, lol!

 

I also agree that the implementation of the timer isn't working as it should. I think you either need to pause, not reset it, or (if there is a reason they chose to reset rather than pause it), shorten the timer. I think it's a viable scenario that someone zones into a map, gets the first banter timer reset because of the Requisition Officer (yep, hate her too), then runs around for 7-8 minutes while the banter timer ticks down, gets into combat, the timer gets reset to 15 minutes, 5 minutes later another combat, again timer resets, player leaves zone and it begins anew - player had no banter for the whole time even though he spent 30 minutes without actually doing much. Really, that there are actually occasions where the banter fires is quite amazing under these circumstances...

 

 

As a console player, as sad as this sounds I'd pay for party banter right now. Really stopping me doing another play through

 

Ending, maybe you could try and watch out for the situations that break reset the timer? It has to be the same for the console version. Also, I listed some of the workarounds I used during my last playthrough further up this thread and I had a satisfying amount of banter. Well, before the newest patch, but you could try and see if it still works. I don't think that there is much hope that Bioware is going to implement another fix for this especially if it turns out that the way the banter behaves is as they intended it to.

[AstroCat]

So I it looks like you can't just "play" the game as it is now, that sucks. I wonder if they will ever adjust or "fix" this problem? I actually think there is some fun to be had in DA:I but there is no way I'm gonna play it without the character interactions. I've got about 10hours on DA:I, my game time is limited so there is no way I can spend any more if it doesn't give me a satisfactory experience.

 

I guess it stays on the shelf as a "wasted" purchase until hopefully some day this is adjusted to work better. I skipped DA2 for the same reason and I really enjoyed Origins and I am/was a big Bioware/Infinity Engine fan from the beginning.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

I wonder if someone that makes trainers for consoles could figure out how to make something similar to the CE banter fix work for them? Maybe someone at XPG could do it for XBox at least.