Topic Info barks Greeting vs Hello

[SKKmods]

I get that an Info needs to be a Greeting to start a scene, my interest is in one line barks either unsolicited drive-by or player activated.

 

There are base game Greeting infos that are barks and do not start scenes.

 

There are base game Hello infos that are barks and do not start scenes.

 

The question: for non scene starting barks, is there any difference between putting Infos in Greeting or Hello topics for story manger stack evaluation ?

 

A CK page mentions if an Info is flagged "Can Move While Greeting" must be a Hello is not correct, works as both Greeting and Hello.

 

Only operational diff I can see is topic sub-types can be tagged with different priorities.

[SKKmods]

It may be a player activation thing ... with player activation checked, things work fine in Greeting but not so much in Hello.

 

Does everyone just know this stuff, or is it published somewhere obscure ?

[werr92]

Perhaps nobody quite understands what's the deal here. At least, I will speak for myself: I don't get what's the catch or what exactly confuses you? You can use Greetings (in scenes) with "Disable Dialogue Camera" and "Requires Player Activation". Just a Greeting Phase without evolvement or an empty Greeting Phase with a following up monologue (guess, that's what you mean by "one line barks"). You can create Hello Topics in 'Misc' section of the quest, that "Require Player Activation". This should do it as well.

[SKKmods]

The question reduces down to:

 

(1) what is the difference between Greeting and Hello categories (IF ANY), or;

 

(2) When should you use and not use Greeting

 

(3) When should you use and not use Hello

 

Because I am getting unpredictable results on what the story manager is offering depending on if the info is greeting or hello under *exactly* the same conditions. Bored of running the dialogue and counting response rates ...

[NikaCola]

The question reduces down to:

 

(1) what is the difference between Greeting and Hello categories (IF ANY), or;

 

(2) When should you use and not use Greeting

 

(3) When should you use and not use Hello

 

Because I am getting unpredictable results on what the story manager is offering depending on if the info is greeting or hello under *exactly* the same conditions. Bored of running the dialogue and counting response rates ...

 

1. You pretty much nailed it in your opening post! A "Greeting" is player-initiated and generally begins a scene. A "Hello" is simply a bark that an NPC will state when a player is near enough to hear it.

 

2. I use greetings to begin scenes or start vendor/companion interfaces.

 

3. I use Hellos for simple "local color"-esque lines and not much else. (and really only for NPCs that the player never directly interacts with: Guards, other types)

 

I think it would help me understand your problem if you tell me what you're trying to accomplish with the story manager? I only use it for fairly simple tasks (keeping track of locations visited, tasks to run when the player levels up, etc) and I don't think I've seen it used for what you're doing?

Edited October 14, 2018 by NikaCola

[SKKmods]

I am not doing anything directly with the story manager, it is the story manager that organises and stack ranks the info conditions and priorities to figure out what gets spoken.

 

Issue is that the story manager choice is unpredictable. If I run exactly the same hello/greeting scenario (load/load/load ... ) 20 times with no random selection groups in the mix, low priority stuff is often (not always totally random prediction) being said before higher priority with conditions met.

 

That's priority 50 DialoguegenericCitizens and DialogueFarmGeneric prioritised over my priority 99 isbleedingout dialogue.

 

I am probably trying to push the dialogue system harder than it is capable of responding to and keeping up with in real time, so I'm moving on.

[NikaCola]

 

 

That's priority 50 DialoguegenericCitizens and DialogueFarmGeneric prioritised over my priority 99 isbleedingout dialogue.

 

Huh...in the same character? I know you mentioned you've moved on, I'm just not sure of why something like that would be happening. (unless I'm still misunderstanding the issue in which case I understand you may not have time to explain.)

[SKKmods]

same save game*, loaded time after time at the same dialogue point with the same char bleeding out in the same clothes with the same stupid grin ... zero changes to the VM, just random priority outcomes.

 

(*) Yes same sort of results across multiple clean unmodded save games.

 

I suspect that the story manager is not able to keep up with rapid condition state changes like bleedout, keywords attaching and reference alias membership changing, so what I am trying to do can only be done at a lower real-time platform level we don't have access to.