Automatically lower the volume of music/sound effects when NPCs are talking.

Pretty much that. I'm constantly annoyed at how Taimi and the rest of the guys talk a lot between fights. I can't hear anything they say from all the fighting I'm doing with the boss nor do I have a chance to read the chat because the fight has already started. They often say key stuff relating to the fight so sometimes I'm stuck with "WTH do I do now", until I scroll up the chat and see a hint the NPC said. I know that you can use the sliders to lower the volume of those things, but it gets tedious after a while.

Lower the volume of everything in the game by 50% automatically when story-related dialogue happens. That would be amazing (Some other games do this already).

What’s funny is if I open my map, I can hear them.

It’s one reason I don’t like the “live action “ story vs the old side scroller story. I’ve posted it before as a suggestion. They need to not have important dialog based on positional sound (character location, facing, camera, etc).

For me, I bet it’s worse with my surrround sound system. Having sound shaped based on where people are talking relative to your character is interesting and all, and fine for ambient conversation. But if you are addressing an npc directly or in story, it should be sharp, center and loud.

The worst example of this is in the mission where you rescue Taimi from Scruffy 2.0. As you enter the main room with the platform in the middle, Taimi is surrounded by a circle of undead Inquest. One of them gives a little speech. Compared to all the music and other sound effects going on, the volume level is virtually inaudible.

Personally my music has been muted since day 1 as I often have YouTube in the background.

Would be nice though if combat audio and environmental effects trim down a bit.