Dialogue Question

[Clave Dark 5]

Hey all, working on a question and I've run into a problem.  I set a rescue and all the dailogue from both the captive and the guarding foes all tumble out at once as soon as you enter the map, both the inactive and active dialgoues.

 

I recall there was a problem similar to this on Live, but not that it was this bad.  Is it this bad and can't be dealt with?  Did I forget to click a box somewhere or something?  Is there any way around this or is there just no good way to have spawned characters say anything like they should?  It's a bit odd as a single boss spawn in another one of the missions does speak his unaware etc. dialogue justfine, last I tested it.

 

Thanks!

 

(It strikes me that the MA section of the forums need some kind of FAQ thread for people to post in, to save a post by checking to see if it's already been answered or not...)

Edited November 8, 2021 by Clave Dark 5

[cranebump]

tl;dr

*best bet with Allies/Rescues it to use the "When rescued" and "clue" texts as your main mules  (sometimes "when they become aware works," but not always)

*try placing NPCs far apart, perhaps using multi-level maps, where they appear on different floors.

 

 

There's no easy way to fix it. They all seem to activate on the "unaware" setting. I've had slightly better luck with Ally dialogue, using the "when they become aware of the player." It's still dicey. You can cut down on the "super pop" thing by using multi-level maps, and placing your NPCs on different floors. If they're far enough away, that will sometimes give you more flexibility. Only way to know is to run tests. And hope the spawns are consistently placed (another thing altogether).

 

One thing I've taken to doing to spread the Clue love in dialogue boxes: If you want to deliver some sort of ancillary clue, spawn a single patrol after an initial objective. EX: After Ally Rescue, patrol spawns, says, "Did you hear something?" "Not now, Burt. We have to get these munitions moved, or Zapshug will kills us!" Next objective might spawn at the same time, saying, "Defeat the site boss" (which the player now knows as Zapshug). 

 

Funny thing about dialogue. I was working on a boss string, where boss, when aware says, "Hello," and when takes damage, says "And goodbye," meaning Goodbye to YOU, hero. The boss got one-shot by my sniper and blurted out, "Hello. And goodbye."then fell over :-)

[Clave Dark 5]

Yeebus this system is so broken.  I was expressly trying to not use clues as I feel they derail the flow of play, "OK, I've beat down these bad guys, let me click open a window and scroll to read to see what's important" stops you cold.  Here I was reading the stickied guide and getting ideas about doing things that the game won't support right now, but is supposed to.  This is why the AE is mostly used for farming.

 

Rant rant rant.  Guess I'll see if I can go poke around and find any way to salvage things, or just give up.  Thanks for the detailed explanation though, greatly appreciated, you're saving me time!

[Take One]

Some people have reported that different maps make these things work in different ways. I.e. some maps have the problem with npcs blurting out all their dialogue at once, and other maps work properly. But I don't think anyone has done any testing to find out if this is true, and if so, what maps work correctly. There can't be that many of them. Of course, if you go in to test this, it'll work flawlessly until you try to publish an actual story.

[huang3721]

Escort, captive, and ally blurt their unaware, inactive, attack and, active dialogue whenever you enter the mission. In my case, they also do it even after I put them on the back section of a large Praetorian office with multiple floors.🤪

Imo those dialogues still have their use. For example, they could hint the players at their target's name or the number of optional details in the mission. 

For clue location, I usually put clues that are critical to the story somewhere else. If they are short, I put them in the complete text or rescue text. Otherwise, I put them in the clues tab. 

 

10 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I was expressly trying to not use clues as I feel they derail the flow of play,

I think avoiding the clue tab has its downside. Players may miss the speech bubble, and sometimes other dialogues can bury the line containing the clue. They can scroll up, but it is more hassle than checking up the clues tab. 

 

One more personal opinion, if a player can skim a clue on their first playthrough and figure out the problem while beating up the bad guys without even stopping, it is probably not a clue. It's an answer. I'd say the player has successfully extracted the solution for that particular mission. In this case, the clues tab is no longer needed. 

[Clave Dark 5]

I think it's like having you NPC hand out a pamphlet that you have to read.  A cut scene would be less intrusive! 

 

Having someone say X that's only one hundred characters or less during combat isn't all that hard to miss, plus that's where you put in a lot of character work/flavor as well.  It's not about Clues here, it's about story telling.

 

I have tried to work with those word balloons popping up as soon as you enter, but here, it didn't work, you couldn't even see them, only see the blue text scroll by in your chat window, where it might easily be missed.  Having to stop and scroll back, again, derails the flow of play.  And this all gets back to this is broken.

 

Mainly I'm just annoyed at myself for not thinking critically about this still being broken when I got all excited and plotted out a new AE story.  So that's on me.

[huang3721]

 

5 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

And this all gets back to this is broken.

 

The sentiment is understandable. Once I tried to make an AE similar to the missions in the game, at least with proper dialogues.

 

I was disappointed.

[Clave Dark 5]

I was a big fan of the AE before it broke a bit after it was introduced, I had multiple arcs up etc.  I quit back then because of this bug.  Now I'm seriously pondering if I should continue on this arc or just shelve it (probably doing it properly so I can get rid of my notes, and then waiting to see if they ever get this fixed before I publish).

Edited November 8, 2021 by Clave Dark 5

[cranebump]

It’s like being a low budget film director. Forces you to be creative due to limitations. I can’t imagine AE plotters will ever have the same tools as original scrollers, or the Devs. Considering those limits, though, what some people accomplish is amazing.

[Clave Dark 5]

Yeah, I can understand that, but it turns out that my aspirations are to make "talkies" instead of silent films that comes with explanatory pamphlets to be read later.  I don't really feel it's too much to be annoyed when something in the game doesn't work, just go ask MMs about Mercs and see what they say ha ha!

[cranebump]

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Yeah, I can understand that, but it turns out that my aspirations are to make "talkies" instead of silent films that comes with explanatory pamphlets to be read later.  I don't really feel it's too much to be annoyed when something in the game doesn't work, just go ask MMs about Mercs and see what they say ha ha!

 

I can say with a good degree of certainty that pretty much everyone here shares those annoyances.:-)

[Kyksie]

Yeah, my last mission got hit with that bug. Granted people can go into the NPC dialog tab to read the text, but most people will miss it.

 

Also one other thing... unless it was fixed since live, if the player does not have a chat tab with "NPC dialog", speech bubbles won't appear.

[Heraclea]

This is why I put any important text in boss speeches.  Any original NPC you add to the story can be a 'boss' also.  Boss speeches have several advantages.  One, they don't fire until the boss is attacked.  They can be made sequential.  And they're available to be read by any player on the team, and not just the leader.  It's also the simplest way too add text; each original character in your design gets a speech where they explain who they are and why they're here.  If they have NPC dialog in a tab every player gets to see them if interested.

[cranebump]

Boss dialogue spawns in a similar manner as other NPCs (unaware, aware, attacked, takes damage, etc). You do get more room for text, though, in their first speech. 

[Clave Dark 5]

9 hours ago, Heraclea said:

This is why I put any important text in boss speeches.  Any original NPC you add to the story can be a 'boss' also.  Boss speeches have several advantages.  One, they don't fire until the boss is attacked.  They can be made sequential.  And they're available to be read by any player on the team, and not just the leader.  It's also the simplest way too add text; each original character in your design gets a speech where they explain who they are and why they're here.  If they have NPC dialog in a tab every player gets to see them if interested.

This won't work (I think???) for Escorts and Rescues though, which are just so much fun and useful to script, but otherwise it's not a bad idea; I think I tried at least one Betrayal by a Rescued Boss and they still didn't work right however.  I will investigate further though, thanks.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Clave Dark 5

[EmperorSteele]

The only time I I've seen speech work correctly is if someone is behind a large bay door that you have to open =/

[Heraclea]

On 11/10/2021 at 1:32 PM, EmperorSteele said:

The only time I I've seen speech work correctly is if someone is behind a large bay door that you have to open =/

Interesting.  So maps with doors that must be open can be used to postpone the lines firing?

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, Heraclea said:

Interesting.  So maps with doors that must be open can be used to postpone the lines firing?

I wouldn’t count on it 100%. In the arc I just completed, the “unaware” text popped behind a door just fine for me, but it was on the 3rd floor of the wish, when I had approached the door, before opening. So proximity may still be an issue.

 

The only surefire way I know is to spawn a talker on its own is after completion of a previous objective. Ex: in “Match Point,” you enter map, meet with lone NPC guard who radios boss “They’re here.” Boss spawns further back, says “Send them to me. I have something to show them” (or some such). Any other way ive done that type of dialogue has been a crap shoot.

Edited November 13, 2021 by cranebump

[Frozen Burn]

One trick I've found to help counter the problem is to have a "trigger" the player has to do to spawn the NPC with the dialogue.  Like, they have to click a glowie or defeat a boss which will then trigger the NPC (Ally, escort, or such) to spawn in the same area - that way, when they blurt out all their dialogue at once, the player gets it all at a more appropriate time.  

 

Obviously, this doesn't work for every situation, but if you can work in a "trigger" ahead of time, it helps.