Party banter disappeared with patch 3

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@EA_Nils wrote:

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?

PC.  I can dig one up and attach it later, but every other game and program has no sound issues, so I'm sure we both know that isn't going to show anything.

1. 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?

Everywhere, far past it, no.

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

Male dwarf warrior, male human mage, male elf mage, male human rogue, female elf rogue.

1. What followers are you using at the time?

All of them in various combinations with all of the previous list, except Viv hardly ever and Cassandra not very much.

1. How would you describe your play-style? How are you moving around in areas?

Walking.

1. For example, are you using the mount?

No.

1. Are you playing a mage and using Blink to move around areas?

No.

1. 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?

No, (no,) and No.

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

Current is 87 hours.  290+ hours across all playthroughs.  In the 87 hour playthrough, I used only Blackwall, Solas, and Iron Bull for almost all of it.  I *think* I may have eventually gone through all of their banter on that one, but I am not sure.  Also, that was before patch 3 where I was not experiencing this issue as much as others were.  Since patch 3, all playthroughs have killed banter and music.

1. Where do you expect banter to be firing?

Anywhere.

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.

^ This is a meaningless test.  No one plays the game standing still for 30 minutes in an empty area.  The point is that the natural ocurrance of banter while playing is not happening.  

Maybe everyone is looking at this bug wrong.  It's starting to look like it is not the "banter timer" itself that is causing the issue, per se.  I would bet at this point that too many things are interrupting and resetting the timer.  For example, when music FINALLY starts playing, it stops if I open my inventory, or the character screen, or save the game.  Kills it dead and it does not resume, even if it was only playing for ten seconds: back to empty silence.

Nils, I don't know if you can pass that along, but from everything I've read on the forums, there's at least half a dozen tests where people go stand in a corner and then banter starts firing.  I don't think there's an issue with the sound files, or the code that plays them, or the mechanic that checks who's in your party and chooses which interaction to queue up.  I think it's being interrupted by too many things, too often.

The official forum post said "rigorous internal testing was done" for "several hours."  Going to guess:  party was left standing in a corner for a few hours, with nothing around, and subtitles on, and a video capture running and debug logs recording and no one actually playing the game normally.  I understand.  I work with a lot of engineers: their first instinct is to test the "pure" mechanical function of their system, and if it's working, declare there's no problem.  But we're looking at this from the wrong side.  Their perfectly-functioning system is being reset by something.

It would be nice if i didn't have to choose between hearing the music and opening a menu, too ;P