Party banter disappeared with patch 3

@Curufinwe_wins @arainai @KaineTay @LiaLiamano 

Heya everyone,

The studio is investigating this issue and would really appreciate the following information:

1. What Platform are you playing the game on? If PC, can you provide a DxDiag?
2. What areas have you been in when the problem was reported? Have you already entered the Hinterlands? Are you mostly spending time on Critical Path plots?
3. What is the the Race/Class/Gender combination of your Inquisitor?
4. What followers are you using at the time?
5. How would you describe your play-style? How are you moving around in areas? For example, are you using the mount? Are you playing a mage and using Blink to move around areas?
6. Are you engaging in regular combat? (Are you in combat every 30 seconds?) Are you playing in heavy-combat zones where non-player factions are fighting each other?
7. How many hours have you spent in your current playthrough? (the one you are experiencing the banter issues in)
8. Where do you expect banter to be firing?

If anyone has any experience with video capture, we would greatly appreciate that as well. We are looking for the following:

1. With three followers, idle in a safe area in an exploration zone. Be away from any combat including enemy factions who are fighting each other. A good place to do this would be right outside of the first Inquisition Camp in the Hinterlands. You must ensure that no combat is nearby for this test to be valid.
2. Enable subtitles
3. Idle for 30 minutes while running video capture – banter should be heard at least once. Alternately, you could idle for 60 minutes – banter should fire at least twice.
4. Upload your video and share the link with us here.

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

7.  Click the Save All Information button, found on the bottom of the DXDIAG report
8.  Save this text file to your Desktop if possible
9. Open the text file, select all the text inside (Ctrl + A) and copy it (Ctrl +C).
10. Go to http://hastebin.com/, paste the contents of your DXDiag inside (Ctrl+V) and click Save on the webpage (Ctrl+S).
11. Copy the link of the page in your post, along with a precise description of your issue.

The studio is investigating this issue and would really appreciate the following information:

What Platform are you playing the game on? If PC, can you provide a DxDiag?

PC: http://hastebin.com/ekiwezosav.tex

What areas have you been in when the problem was reported? Have you already entered the Hinterlands? Are you mostly spending time on Critical Path plots?

I have noticed the issue on both of the inquisitors I have played since patch, one is basically done with the game (completeionist before doing final quest) the other is a fresher toon and had not been in hinterlands before the patch but did so afterwards. I have not seen any banter in Storm Coast, Hinterlands, Crestwood so far.

What is the the Race/Class/Gender combination of your Inquisitor?

Male Human Rouge

Male Elf mage

Also have female qunari warrior and female elf mage but havent been on either long enough to say it bugged.

What followers are you using at the time?

Rogue has mixed every set of companions and has used ones I have never used before in the overworld like the current combiniation I am sitting on of Varric,Cole,Sera.

Elf Mage is using Cassandra, Solas, Varric

How would you describe your play-style? How are you moving around in areas? For example, are you using the mount? Are you playing a mage and using Blink to move around areas?

Completionist, running around not using blink or evade (because it puts you in combat and you run slower). Never use mounts.

Are you engaging in regular combat? (Are you in combat every 30 seconds?) Are you playing in heavy-combat zones where non-player factions are fighting each other?

Not particularily so. Perhaps once every 5 min maximum.

How many hours have you spent in your current playthrough? (the one you are experiencing the banter issues in)

68 hours in Human Rogue, 6 hours in Elf Mage (male), other toons are 45 hours female elf mage, and 10 hours female qun warrior. So I think I know fairly well the level of banter I had been getting prior to this update.

Where do you expect banter to be firing?

I still get the object/event related triggers, I am not seeing random banter. I did manage to get exactly ONE banter event and that was the second after quest boss completion (this on my elf male mage).

In your comments you suggested that we should see banter once every 30 minutes. Now perhaps this was my imagination, but I feel strongly that in the overworld I was (pre-patch) seeing banter closer to once every 10 minutes.  (excluding event)

I wanted to post my experience as someone who played through the tutorial and only got to Haven pre-patch. I hadn't traveled to any of the regions pre-patch. After the patch I unlocked the Hinterlands and traveled there for the first time, with Varric/Cassandra/Solas via the War Map.

What Platform are you playing the game on? If PC, can you provide a DxDiag?

PC. Here's the DxDiag: http://hastebin.com/ifikovulih.tex

What areas have you been in when the problem was reported? Have you already entered the Hinterlands? Are you mostly spending time on Critical Path plots?

Summary: As I mentioned, this was a relatively new game, going to the Hinterlands for the first time. For the first half hour I went straight to the Crossroads, killed the enemies there, gained all the quests there, talked to everyone I could talk to, explored the homes, etc. At no time did banter fire during that first half hour. I then found a quiet spot near the first camp and idled. During that time banter did fire, fairly regularly. Afterward I went back to "adventuring" with the banter firing once more during that time.

Here's the breakdown:

5:50 pm: Start: - Cleared out the Crossroads.

6:20 pm: Started Idling - Found a quiet spot near the camp.

6:28 pm: First Banter - Cassandra/Solas.

6:38 pm: Second Banter - Varric/Solas.

6:47 pm: First Environment Comment: - Varric.

7:01 pm: Third Banter - Varric/Solas.

7:16 pm: Fourth Banter - Cassandra/Solas.

7:17 pm: Finished Idling - Started "adventuring" again.

7:35 pm: Fifth Banter - Varric/Solas.

7:55 pm: End.

So perhaps it's a combination of "nearly-new-game" and idling producing the most banter (as nearly 70 min of "regular" adventuring only produced 1 instance of banter, while idling for nearly 60 min produced 4 instances of banter and 1 environment comment)

What is the the Race/Class/Gender combination of your Inquisitor?

Human / Warrior / Male

1. What Platform are you playing the game on? If PC, can you provide a DxDiag?  -  Playing on PC -  http://hastebin.com/ayaravaxav.tex
2. What areas have you been in when the problem was reported? Have you already entered the Hinterlands? Are you mostly spending time on Critical Path plots? All over the Hinterlands, finishing all side quests and companion quests, not critical path atm
3. What is the the Race/Class/Gender combination of your Inquisitor? Female dwarf Warrior
4. What followers are you using at the time? Various - mainly Varric Blackwall and Vivienne, but also Cassandra, Sera and Solas on occasions, with the same silences
5. How would you describe your play-style? How are you moving around in areas? For example, are you using the mount? Are you playing a mage and using Blink to move around areas? I am not using a mount and most of the Hinterlands is cleared now I am just mopping things up, so most areas there is little combat at all - Have ceased playing atm tbh without the banter its a bit of a dead game for me
6. Are you engaging in regular combat? (Are you in combat every 30 seconds?) Are you playing in heavy-combat zones where non-player factions are fighting each other? Not really any constant combat, just running from one area to another to complete outstanding quests/collect shards/close rifts etc
7. How many hours have you spent in your current playthrough? (the one you are experiencing the banter issues in) 21 Hours
8. Where do you expect banter to be firing? well I have done three full run throughs and never really noticed where the banter triggers, I just noticed the complete silence since the patch, even from Sera when we are in combat which is really strange - I thought I was getting some lines, then realised they were only the lines triggered by peoples personal quests, absolutely no other sounds from any companion in any area, otherwise

EDIT- out of interest I decided to check two other characters, to see if they have the same issue - both characters are still at haven and have varric cassandra and solas as party members, each played approx 2hours - on both of these characters banter seems to be triggering fine,after 10-15 mins standing idle in the hinterlands

They are a Human male rogue and female quanari mage

So I then decided to take the above warrior character I have had issues with and try at the same place in the hinterlands standing idle - it took 45 minutes for banter to trigger, between Varric and Blackwall, which is an unusually long time and does not get away from the fact that when questing absolutely nothing was triggering, despite having added Vivienne and/or Sera in as new party members. Ive never had vivienne and blackwall not have something to say to one another and having Sera being completely silent is simply freaky

Incidently being in combat has never affected my parties banter whatsoever, on previous run throughs they would continue conversations and even start them during combat, so much so that on occasion they failed to recognise the completion of a party members personal quest, if that party member were part of the conversation. I was also most certainly getting banter more often than once per half hour pre patch, more like every 15 mins or so, as long as I hadnt exhausted conversations of the party members I had with me, which is why I swap in different party members all the time.

Well, it's official: I'm stuck on Patch Zero permanently.

Update after playing the accounts in question for quite a while. Every single account I played on took an extraoridinarily long time to trigger the first banter after the patch (some were upwards of 4 hours game play), but after that the time between triggers seemed to accelerate overtime untill after about 6 hours play (after patch) the banter was back where I have been used to (with my previous 100s of hours played). 

It is my theory that the issue we are seeing is only due to initializing whatever 'non-random' trigger was introduced in patch 3. Once the first trigger starts, the system seems to move rather nicely towards equilibrium. The only reason I mention this is because if the studio is to do testing please ask them to test with inquisitors that have not yet been played on patch 3.

I lost all banter as well. It corrected after I did a clean uninstall/reinstall (saves folder was moved to a safe location then replaced after reinstalling the game) Banter now works great. That tells me it's something trhat gets hung up, locked after the patch that should not be getting stuck. If the file or line ina file that does that could be found, it would be easy to tell people how to fix it quickly or, issue a tiny hotfix to do the job.