NPC's BEHAVE!

[Arthorios]

Two problems with NPC behavior:

 

1: They are often not where they're supposed to be when there's a dialogue between them. Example:

 

- That Redguard dude in Whiterun "arguing" with his wife about the sword. Or rather he's speaking to himself, while his wife either walks from their house to the spot he's embarrasing himself on, or away from that spot, all while he's speaking to himself. Sometimes the wife speaks back while being half the city across.

 

- Battleborn - Gray-Mane conflict in the market where two battleborns speak with that Gray-Mane lady about the missing son. Only one of them present, the other one is apparently walking all the way from his home to the spot. By the time he arrives, the dialogue is over, sometimes he manages to say a line while walking past breezehome.

 

- First time in Solitude, execution, a guy speaks to his daughter about going home so she won't have to see. If only she'd be there though. So everyone is just waiting for the girl to walk (not run) all the way from Blue Palace apparently towards her father, only to turn around (since dialogue's already said) and run, so the execution may proceed.

 

Very tiresome :(

 

2: Whenever I enter a house, be it an inn, a palace or another public place (merchants seem unaffected by the disease), all NPC's, except the merchants, are in the middle of the room, cramped together and then proceed to scatter acroos the room going about their business. Extremely annoying.

 

So is there a way to cure this? A mod perhaps? Would really be a savior.

 

Don't know if any mods are causing that, but from the top of my head, the biggest ones are:

 

Frostfall

RealisticNeeds

Cold & Wet

Cloaks & WIC

Run for your lives

When vampires attack

 

 

[Shadeybladey]

It's not his wife, it's one of the Battleborns trying to get a contract for weapons from the Blacksmith near the main gate.

This happens if you have Frostfall and arrive at Whiterun when it is raining. I thought it would have been fixed by now.

[Valkasha]

No he is talking about Amren. You know, the guy that asks the dragonborn to retrieve his family's sword. The redguard family.

[Arthorios]

Yes, I was talking about Amren. Though it did rain just before I entered Solitude (in my Solitude example) if I remember correctly, it didn't rain in Whiterun (again, if I remember correctly).

 

I guess it would be logical, since one mod makes people go inside when raining (not sure if I disabled that feature) and another two make them run inside if dragon or vampires attack.

 

But these kind of things (like Amren) happened before I even installed Frostfall and other game changing mods. I think I might have had it happen on Xbox as well? Or my memory is playing tricks on me.

 

But people being cramped together in a room, that's new. What could cause that?

[Lord Garon]

Have you tweaked any [PAPYRUS] block settings in your Skyrim.ini file? If yes, set it back to default and see if the symptoms change.

 

If no, you might give Papyrus a little extra loop/load time and see if things "catch up".

--------

[Papyrus]
fUpdateBudgetMS=1.2 ; default is 1.2, crank it up .1 or .2 at a time and see if it helps
fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.2 ; ditto. Wouldn't go too high on these (<4) unless things continually get better
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0 ; gives scripts time to set up after a cell load, try 800.0 or 1000.0

--------

Edited August 8, 2014 by Lord Garon

[Arthorios]

Ok, I'll try this. First time I ever hear of "papyrus", but I'm right in assuming it's some lines found in ini? Same where you can set shadows on rocks and tree canopies, right?

[Lord Garon]

Papyrus is the "script engine" which runs Skyrim scripts. A lot of scripts running, caused by many scripted mods or certain game events, can cause high script latencies or even prevent normal frame-by-frame script completions. Can cause different symptoms.

 

Yes, the [Papyrus] block is in Skyrim.ini.

 

Not a guaranteed fix, just something (easy) to check. I was actually more concerned that previous edits may have been the cause of your issue; MANY "recommended" 3rd party ini tweaks are counter-productive. Default settings rarely have such an adverse impact on a modded game, but it couldn't hurt to play around a little if your script loads are heavy.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Lord Garon

[Arthorios]

Have you tweaked any [PAPYRUS] block settings in your Skyrim.ini file? If yes, set it back to default and see if the symptoms change.

 

If no, you might give Papyrus a little extra loop/load time and see if things "catch up".

--------

[Papyrus]

fUpdateBudgetMS=1.2 ; default is 1.2, crank it up .1 or .2 at a time and see if it helps

fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.2 ; ditto. Wouldn't go too high on these (<4) unless things continually get better

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0 ; gives scripts time to set up after a cell load, try 800.0 or 1000.0

--------

 

It seems I only have "fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0" line. Should I add those other 2, or edit only this one?

[Lord Garon]

Just add the other two lines. Default is 1.2 for both. Try both at 1.6 and see if the symptoms change. If not, try 2.0. If nothing changes at all, it may not be a scripting issue. If not, remember to put the values back at default.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Lord Garon

[Arthorios]

After playing a bit, it seems at least that NPC's are present so far for their conversations. Tried with first entering Windhelm. Two dialogues played out (the one in front of the gates and little boy with dunmer under the Aretino residence), all present for the conversation. Not sure if there's supposed to be more in Windhelm. Also "Blood On The Ice" started right away with the first entry (not related). Will have to test another city, but looks promising, so thanks :)

 

Clustering in the inn though seems to be still present, also have to try other inns in major cities.

 

That said, there still seems to be all kinds of weirdness with NPC behavior, but I guess I'll have to accept it as part of TES, as I can't find any patterns or ties with mods etc.