Okay I couldn't help myself I did some testing on my own. I used my very first PC playthrough because during that playthrough I saved an individual save about every 2 hours. It's also a playthrough where I'm very sure that I had not a lot of banter and I wasn't doing any workarounds.
I used a save about 25 hours in. I've never checked off any journal or codex entries and I started out in the Exalted Plains (a region where I had experienced a distinct lack of banter). The save was created in November, so with version 1.1 I think. I've since updated to 1.3. Sorry, this is extremely long because I was writing this parallel to testing things:
When zoning in, the timer started at 50 seconds. At about 35 seconds, it suddenly sprang back to 600. Strange, but there is a second (very short) timer at work when loading into maps, so maybe that's what it was.
I ran around the Exalted Plains for a while, and this is what I found (I want to add that this is sooo tedious because the timer is so long. Is there a way to shorten it?):
Combat did not reset the timer, and neither did it pause it. It continued to tick down. If the timer counted down to 0 during combat, it paused. After the combat was over, banter triggered and the timer started new.
Scripted remarks (I went to the dalish camp for the first time, which completed the related quest - Dorian commented "Oh look we found the elves") did not reset the timer either, it continued to count down.
Being near enemies did not reset nor pause the timer.
Triggering dialogue (the one where you can opt in or walk away) did not reset the timer.
Starting dialogue did likewise not reset the timer.
Triggering the Requisiton Officer ("Inquisitor") did not reset the timer.
Changing the party (via the thingie in your camp) did not rest the timer. Neither did resting at camps or riding on a horse.
However, when I was in a dialogue when the timer ticked down to 0 instead of triggering banter or pausing the timer, a second, shorter timer started (100s in one case). When this ticked down and I was still in dialogue, the long banter timer restarted. I got no banter, even though the timer had ticked down in between.
The same happens when on a horse - the timer ticks down and is replaced with a shorter one (this time 300s). When getting off the horse during this timer, banter triggers immediately, while this second timer continued to tick down. After this ticks down to zero, the banter timer starts again.
After I tested the behaviour when travelling between regions I started to get really long banter timers of 800 seconds, so I used the Num1 trigger to reset the timer until I got shorter ones (~600s). I don't know if this changed the following behaviour, but I want to mention it just in case:
When near enemies (not engaged but a red dot on the minimap) the banter timer continued to tick down. When it reached 0 it paused, just as it would when in combat. Then the second short timer started (100s again). When going away from enemies (no red dot nor arrows on the minimap) in this time frame banter triggered. I bet that if you were still near enemies when the second timer runs out, the banter timer would start again and you wouldn't get any banter (as with the dialogue and horse situation). I think this explains the problems with banter on the Exalted Plains - there are a lot of roaming enemies (wolfs/demons especially) I usually avoid and leave alive because they are annoying to kill.
Basically, it seemed to works like this: the banter timer ticks down regardless of what's happening around you (unless your game is paused/you are fast travelling inside the zone - then it pauses). If the banter timer reaches zero while you are in a situation flagged as inappropriate for banter (being near enemies, in dialogue, on the horse), a second, shorter timer starts ticking down. If you resolve the situation within this time frame (get away from enemies, back out of the dialogue, dismount), banter triggers immediately. If you don't do this within this time frame, you miss your chance and the banter timer starts again. The only exception to this is combat - there is no second, shorter timer triggered. Instead, the banter timer is paused. If you go out of combat, banter triggers every time, regardless of how long the combat lasted.
ETA: I went back to this and when I used the Num1 to trigger banter when mounted, I actually DID get banter after dismounting even when I only dismounted after the shorter timer had run down. The timer was visibly paused and triggered banter on dismounting.
This is driving me crazy.
I can see how people who don't use the horse or don't remain in dialogues long, might have considerably more banter this way? Or if you clear the map and don't leave any enemies alive. Combat seems to be the only situation where you can safely miss the banter trigger - it will trigger afterwards. If this is correct, then you'd get the most banter if you a) are in combat often (because it's the only situation where the banter timer never gets skipped), b ) skip through dialogues quickly, c) stay in one region for long periods of time (because the timer resets everytime you reload) and d) kill everything on the map. Hm. This behaviour doesn't make much sense to me, honestly. Why isn't the timer paused everytime but only in combat?
It didn't work consistently (I couldn't get the dialogue to behave like this again and dismounting in time would sometimes not trigger the banter), so I suspect that there is something not working as it should or my results aren't quite right.
I also should try this in different regions, but testing stuff like this is so incredibly tiring...
It's strange that my findings are so different. I didn't do anything special, just had the CE running in the background (I used windowed mode to be able to have the game in the foreground while watching the timer).
Basically, nothing restarted the banter timer except when it counted down to 0 by itself, or when travelling to another region/loading. If fast travelling inside the same zone, the timer paused until I was back in the game, then continued to tick down. It did not restart.
Now, why does DarkAmaranth's timer break (restart) and mine doesn't? Did we misunderstand each other (I'm not a native speaker - apologies in advance)? Did I do something wrong?
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