You probably have the Silent Companions glitch

I've been trying to clear the Hinterlands since arriving (I have done some story progression past that, but I'm still there in my 15 hour playthrough) and I noticed that no one in my party had said anything for 2 hours. Since I had been rolling with the same starting party I just figured there was no new dialogue to trigger in that early section of the game. Maybe they would talk more once I actually advanced the plot and got more characters.

I did that and put Sera and Vivienne in my group and explored new areas of the Hinterlands. I got nothing. I took them to Val Royeaux where I expected Sera to talk about the rich people. NO ONE SAID ANYTHING after wandering around there for 1 hour.

I checked online and sure enough it seems to be a problem that a lot of people are running into. People are reporting companion banter once every 1-3 hours. It should happen around 5 times every hour. Hell, it should happen after fights. I've never even heard anyone talk after fights.

The glitch seems to go hand in hand with the background music refusing to play. Lots of people report never hearing the music play in Val Royeaux. I may have heard it once, I don't remember.

It's affect all versions of the game. People report that clearing your Journal of all unread entries can trigger companion banter to occur every 15 or so minutes, but it eventually goes back to silence after some time.

Anyone else have it and have you found ways around it? I'm on the PS4 is that makes any difference.

The hours seem to be fading away rather quickly, but if I think real hard, you're right. They rarely talk. I can think of 6 times they've spoken in my 14 hour playtime.

I think that a link to the bioware forum should be helpful. It details how people are experience the problem and the various fixes that seems to work with some people.

http://forum.bioware.com/topic/525267-party-banter-silencenear-silence-glitch-thread-2nd-update-1128-try-as-they-might-the-devs-cant-seem-to-replicate-our-issue-lucky-them/page-75

That I'm not so worried bout it needs fixed but the more troublesome issue is silence when you're in a conversation. Its happened to me quite often when talking with Hawke and Dorian. I've actually had a decent amount of party banter but the audio in the game seems screwed up all together. When loading into an area the sound takes a few seconds to "catch up" to what you're actually doing. You'll hear sounds of doors opening 2-3 seconds after you already opened it stuff like that.

One time the sound cut out all together and I had to restart the game to get it to come back. I'm hoping Bioware is at work on a patch to adress these issues. The game suprisingly enough is actually fairly playable and glitch free outside of a little bit of physics weirdness and the afformentioned sound issues. I haven't really ran into any broken quest lines yet.

@demoskinos: Yeh both textures and sounds seems to lag behind somwehat just after a load but its not a big issue compared to a silent team for several hours.

That's another one that sometimes happens for me and at other times, without any reason, not. I've had my party not talk for at least 3-4 hours, only to later have conversations all 5 minutes.

Different part combinations don't seem to have any impact on this either, so who knows what's going on.

Theyre just trying to recreate the awkwardness there would be if i were actually there with them!!

:(

I don't seem to be having that particular issue, playing on PS3.

Just played for 45 minutes doing the horse and farm stuff in the Hinterlands area and the only spoken line was by Blackwall. When we got to the burned villages he said something along the lines of "All these people died." That was it it. No other Companion spoke for those 45 minutes as we traversed the area on foot (didn't ride horse) doing little side quest stuff along the way.

I was super hopeful because I cleared all my journal and codex stuff or unread things. Now I don't know what to do.

I'm trying to think back, and I don't think I've had this issue at all (on the PS4). All my companions have talked a bunch when out in the world. I probably wouldn't say 5 times an hour, but I've been watching some sitcoms on Netflix while I've been grinding out some quests, and I'd say that I usually need to pause each episode once to hear some banter. So once every 20 minutes or so? Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

For me it ranges from like every 5min to nothing at all in 40mins. I dont know if its supposed to be like that but i cant remember having walked around for more than a hour without any speech.

I think some people clearly have more dialog than others. That said one of my favorite groups has Sera and Bull, they both love to talk. Cole also talks alot.

I do, indeed.

Which is weird, since I haven't played the game.

Wolves hunt in packs!

They talk all the time for me.

I've been reading more and it sounds like you can actually interact with characters during party banter. Is that true? You can choose to say something while the party is talking among themselves. If this is true I've never had that option appear during my 20+ hours of playtime. Hell, my character has never said a single word to the party if that's a thing that's suppose to happen. Only part members talk, not my character.

@golguin: It only happens rarely, but it does happen. (On the PS4 you push R3 when the transparent dialogue window pops up.) The first time I noticed it was at the very beginning of the game. Varric will make a remark about your character's race and origin and you're able to respond.

I haven't seen that before. You are saying that this is something that happens outside a cutscene? You'll just be wandering around in the world, your companions will talk, and the game will prompt you to say something? Is there video of what that is suppose to look like on activation.

I might have this. I got dialogue here and there but a lot of the time my parings were based on "these 2 would have words for each other for sure" and like hours later, they still havent talked. They were much chattier early in the game, I thought they just didnt write a ton of ambient conversation.

Have you heard any music in Val Royeaux? A common thing with this glitch is to have no music play there when it's suppose to always be on.

UPDATE: I've been letting my game idle in the Hinterlands to see when the characters talk and Sera just spoke with Blackwall for the first time since recruiting them. It's also the first time that I've heard characters talk to each other today (Blackwall had some environmental comments earlier) and I've played for about 2.5 hours today.

UPDATE 2: Blackwall and Sera just talked again after a fight finished. 30 minutes and 2 conversations. Can things be getting better?

UPDATE 3: 15 minutes later and Sera is talking to Vivienne as we escort the Druffalo back to his home. Is this what my entire 20+ hours of gameplay should have been like? I seriously hope this keeps up for the rest of my game. This is what I've wanted.

UPDATE 4: 10 minutes after that Sera and Blackwall have another little convo.

UPDATE 5: 5 minutes later Sera and Blackwall are talking about how much they hate the nobility. Holy shit I think it fixed itself for now. THIS MUCH DIALOGUE HADN'T HAPPENED IN OVER 20 HOURS.

UPDATE: 6: 15 minutes later and we have Blackwall talking with Vivienne about getting knocked the fuck out. Unless my math is off that's 5 party banter instances in 1 hour, which falls in line with what it should have been all along. Pretty much confirms that something is seriously wrong with the sound in this game.

I mean, this conversation thing is a bummer but is it really THAT big of a deal?

@demoskinos:

There are some character beats that you would otherwise never learn about aside from the banter.

Now that I am getting consistent banter for the first time in my playthrough it is now MORE OF A DEAL than I had originally thought. Imagine walking around in silence for the entire game with no music and no talking. Just running around killing things and that's it. With all this talking and music (music cues are now playing all the time) the game finally feels alive. It's hard to describe to someone that hasn't experience the glitch, but it's a big fucking deal for a character driven game.

@golguin: That's pretty much how its been for me.

I thought back and realized that I must have had this glitch, cause I'd only get dialogue every 30 to 60 minutes. Then I played tonight and they wouldn't shut the fuck up. So I guess its fixed? Weird.

@golguin: My main talks quite often. It feels like hes involved in at least every 10 party conversation or so.

The prompt to actually say something meaningfull and choose your own answear has only come up twice for me so far in 53hours of playtime so that seems very rare.

Are there any real fixes for this? Feels like a bummer to keep playing with something as big as this totally hobbled.

Yeah, this happened maybe 3 or 4 times over the entirety of my 60+ hours of playtime. It does happen outside of cutscenes and has the transparent dialogue wheel show up. There's only been two options on it so far though - one to respond and one to say nothing. So I don't even understand why this is a thing.

@bwheeeler: Its not really clear if this is a bug or not

@sessh: I've definitely had multiple dialogue options pop up before.

What's not clear about it? If companions are meant to say things several times within the hour and someone with a 70+ game file can count on a single hand the number of times that their party has said anything then that's a major problem.

I finally managed to get my party to talk consistently for an hour (they kept talking for another hour after and then I turned the game off) after clearing my journal, codex, and equipment of new item messages.

A big indicator (not 100%) that the bug is present is the lack of music in Val Royeaux. If you fast travel there and you hear nothing then you probably have it. If you hear music when you drop in then you are probably fine.

@zeik: Huh, weird. How many of those dialogues do you think you got overall so far? Maybe I just got the ones, that where kinda pointless.

Got this bug too, but sometimes it feels like i "generated a lucky random seed" that makes them chat a lot for some time (like every five minutes). Then comes a new load and all party banter is gone for a looong time. It gets quite frustrating because i ended up with members of my default party (to clarify that they are usually together) referencing events that happened maybe 30-40 hours earlier like they just happened. Party banter is usually an highlight of bioware games for me (well, this time too much passive-aggressive attitude going around for my taste) and so this is all very annoying :(

In 90 hours i got 2 *interactive* chats, one where i could tell Blackwall and don't-remember-who to stop bickering and the other when Bull caught Cassandra getting an "eyeful of that inquisibutt" (exact quote :D) and was telling her to do that with respect and i could agree or disagree (guess what i chose :D)

Yeah, I guess I had this too. The only work around that ended up working for me was the "Fast travel from the War Room and never go from War Room to Skyhold" thing.

Really sucks, actually; I've had a lot of shitty glitches while playing.

Holy fuck i just did it and heard music in val royeaux for the first time!!! I didn't even realize it was missing

Think I'ma stop playing until it's fixed. Banter has always been one of my favorite things in Bioware games...knew something was off, that there was so little character interaction/reaction to stuff!