NPC shouting their first dialogue at zone-in - anyone found a solution?

[GamerKate]

So the current status of MA makes NPCs speak their first lines of dialogue early. I gather and have noticed it’s happening sometimes upon zoning into the mission. Has anyone found a suitable workaround yet?

 

Perhaps the dialogue can be set to trigger from something else?

 

I haven’t had much time to fiddle with the MA yet, but maybe we could use this thread to discuss solutions.

 

MCM

[Eva Destruction]

When I tested my arc it was only allies and captives and their guards who did it, and they said both their inactive dialogue and their "combat begins" dialogue.  The captive that spawned after another objective was complete said his lines immediately upon spawning.  My workaround was to remove most of the inactive dialogue and all of the combat begins dialogue.  Which is a crappy workaround but it makes more sense than an enemy saying "here comes $name to rescue our captive" from halfway across the map.  I left in a line or two of inactive dialogue per mission; maybe the bad guys talk real loud or maybe the map just has really good acoustics or something.

 

Some of the bosses had the opposite problem, and didn't say their inactive dialogue until I was right on top of them instead of saying it when I got near like they should.

[Clave Dark 5]

As I recall, this bug developed before closing, and by that point AE had gotten a bad rep so the devs weren't willing to expend the time on it when they had so much other stuff they could be doing.  Hopefully now the new team can look into it.

[Heraclea]

You might try planting a 'rescue' NPC without any mobs somewhere away from the entrance.  IIRC you can do that.  The rescued civilian just turns into a panicked NPC of the type familiar in many missions.  The patrol or encounter you want to speak your lines, then, does not spawn until the 'rescue' is complete. 

 

This may make it so that the players will never aggro that encounter and won't have to fight them; or the encounter might spawn on an already cleared floor or visited area on the map. But you should be able to delay their entrance until the 'rescue' is complete, and probably, force your patrol to spawn in front of the 'victim'. 

[Eva Destruction]

Except rescues are considered completed when the mobs guarding the captive are defeated.  So an unguarded captive is considered rescued as soon as you enter the mission.

[Eva Destruction]

As I recall, this bug developed before closing, and by that point AE had gotten a bad rep so the devs weren't willing to expend the time on it when they had so much other stuff they could be doing.  Hopefully now the new team can look into it.

 

Dude, there are bugs in AE that have been around almost from the time it was introduced.  At some point we all gave up on them ever being fixed and worked around them, until we got sick of it and story writers mostly abandoned AE to the farmers.

[GamerKate]

I’m going to try to find a workaround for this particular bug, it doesn’t sound too impossible to address.

 

MCM

[Heraclea]

Except rescues are considered completed when the mobs guarding the captive are defeated.  So an unguarded captive is considered rescued as soon as you enter the mission.

 

You could give the hostage a gray mob guard, one that would be instantly defeated by the player.  Make a separate enemy type for them and use a Contaminated.