Can the NPCs just shut up [Merged]

[Zera.9435]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:44 AM, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

Can't you turn off speech bubbles? I know I haven't seen one in ages, so I think I turned them off somehow. 

You cannot turn off the speech bubbles that appear on your character from the comms device (exactly the NPC dialog the post is talking about). You can only disable the chat bubbles that appear above players when they type into chat.

[Dragenstein.2671]

What I really hate about SOTO is the NPCs won't SHUT UP.  They're always yapping about needing help with something.  I don't remember saying I cared.  They all have those annoying whispery voices that break my concentration.  I'm done with this game.

[Solvar.7953]

Playing through SotO, I was actually hoping for less voice acting as I went through, so that instead of listening to the slow whispery talking, I could just read the conversation and move onward.  I think this was mostly related to some of the achievements of talking to everyone after completing a story step, but there are certainly cases where before/during the story, you are needing to wait for this slow conversation to happen.

Some other games would use the amount of VA as a promotion point (to note that all lines of dialogue are voice acted or the like), but mercifully, one can skip that dialogue - they would start talking (with text of what they are saying on the screen), and you then just click on the next and it moves to next conversation step.  I have a feeling that if those games required one to listen to all that conversation, it would be quite unpopular also.

I can read text much faster than the lines are read out.  And for most games, I might listen to the conversation near the start of the game or if I run into a new character, but for characters I've interacted a lot with, have gotten pretty much as much out of listening to them as I can.

[Ashantara.8731]

I am glad this has finally reached a level where more people are getting majorly annoyed by the use of comm devices. Maybe now ANet will show mercy and we will get rid of them at long last.

[Duke Nukem.6783]

YES i have said this for 10 years, i don't wana hear them!

 

a separate dialogue option for idle chatter

[Ashantara.8731]

@Rubi Bayer.8493 Try doing the Skyscale Target Practice in Inner Nayos on Master with constant map dialogue bubbles appearing, covering your targets. Oof. 😑

[keramatzmode.1906]

- let us mute all NPC
- let us remove NPC speech bubbles
- but I still want to hear other players and my character talk when they use skills.

Heck I'd pay 25 dollars just for this. GOTY best xpac of the year.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

About a week ago I tackled the new target practice challenges. And I can confirm how annoying and frustrating Guild Wars 2 has become in that regard. It's already disruptive enough when NPC's keep yelling and whispering into your ears on each and every SotO map. But blocking your vision during a timed target practice challenge and getting aggressively pulled out of your adventure by forcing you to witness the Amnytas ending cutscene, that's on another level. And not to forget: You get booted from the map after a meta. Calling this a inconvenience is a understatement, especially during an age where accessibility is more contemporary than ever.
And please: Don't be absurd and do not try to convince me or other people with "bUt plAyEr! tHaT's yOuR oWn fAuLt! yOu sHoUlDt pArTiCiPaTe iN tHE mEtA!" If you really need people for the Yoga event, then something is hellish wrong. 

[Cuks.8241]

The thing is they already had much better systems in place for conveying the story in the past. 

We started in vanilla with these semi cutscenes that we're not the best but you could skip them. A big plus for the skip.

Than we got LS2 which was horrible, the worst iteration. NPCs moving slowly and lengthy conversations while just standing there. Torture for one like myself that already don't like the Gw2 story.

But they slowly improved the systems. There were less static conversations and they introduced more and more fluidity. Basically the conversations happening as you go along so you actually move and maybe even fight during conversations. Just feels less boring even if there are artificial parts where you just move around. They also introduced more and more engine cutscenes.

The pinnacle for me was start of IBS, Darkrime Delves. The whole instance you play as Ryland and you eavesdrop on Bangar and Almorra. But the dialogues are happening while you play. No silly bubbles or whispers. There is hardly any downtime in playtime and also the dialogue is actually good (lot's of good in the first chapters of IBS). And you finish with a cutscene and a shocker. No bloat, good story and dialogue and just a good instance. I don't know what happened during the first few chapters of IBS. Story and the means to convey the story were really on another level there (prologue, Forging Steel, Darkrime Delves...). I guess also some parts during LS4 although the story was just an average gw2 hardly digestible story but there were instances of above average there. And than somewhere in the middle of IBS, for me when the second part of Drizzlewood hit, everything plummeted. 

Now I feel we're almost back at LS2. Lot's of static dialogue and the quality is well... I hardly remember any of it. And the one I actually remember was completely downplayed and forgotten when next chapter hit.

[Adngel.9786]

I also support the plan to allow players disconnect the communicator and spam. 

One thing is go progressing the personal story and get a comm message from Taimi or someone else here and there. (Is story, you hear it once and enjoy it, good).

Other different thing is being exploring the map and having "Kestrel Tomiko" asking for help constantly. Or being reading a dialog, and this get merged with the chatting of another NPC talking about something completely different. In vanilla, these kind of NPC spam happened and were anoying, but they were located in some camps and only bothered you if you were there. But now with the comms, is worse, maybe developers feared that because flying mounts players would miss them, but I feel this current situation is too tiring and anoying in too many situations.

Please allow measures to deactivate/activate the general events alerts.

Edited July 29 by Adngel.9786

[Kozumi.5816]

Now NPC's constantly spam me with whispers, it's great!

[Duke Nukem.6783]

On 5/30/2024 at 1:10 AM, keramatzmode.1906 said:

- let us mute all NPC
- let us remove NPC speech bubbles
- but I still want to hear other players and my character talk when they use skills.

Heck I'd pay 25 dollars just for this. GOTY best xpac of the year.

more specifically i don't wana hear ambient npc chatter, quests is fine.

[Rauderi.8706]

So glad the Lily of Elon NPCs mostly don't talk. I'd get really mad if I had to listen to Complaining Tengu and his rant on the guano den of iniquity every day.

[Lelling.6795]

Also I know this is an unpopular opinion because the Critical Role fandom is absolutely rabid, but it would be great if 75% of the NPCs were not voiced by Matt Mercer, Liam O'Brien or Sam Riegel. They are great voice actors, however it's really wild to me that they voice not only major NPCs, but they are on basically every map as multiple side NPCs as well (and in Matt's case, a player character voice). Are there no other voice actors who need gigs?

I don't know if it's immersion-breaking or just annoying but it really takes me out every time an NPC starts shouting at me and it's Liam again. It just comes across as cheap as well, to keep reusing the same actors for different NPCs, which it isn't, since the cast of CR are some of the biggest names in voice acting so I'm sure they come with some prestige pricing.

Edited August 15 by Lelling.6795

[Dean Calaway.9718]

On 1/15/2024 at 11:08 AM, rune.9572 said:

Can the NPCs just shut up

Dream about it daily, what a wonderful world that would be 😏

[Aenaos.8160]

Nothing beats listening two versions of the same NPC, the story and meta, simultaneously though . It's like GW2 multiverse live.  I myself, am really. enjoying the copious amounts of NPC chatter while playing the game. Can't wait for even more un skippable dialogue making up for 80% of the next expansion. Fun content.  
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