Hello Peeps and Peepettes.
My name is Sadie, Sades for short (I know its not actually shorter, I'm just obsessed with Greek Gods, sue me). I'm a long-time DnDer, Homebrewers, Dungeon Master, and basement-dwelling table-top game designer. And I have recently fallen in love with this game, thanks to Xbox Game Pass offering it to me on a silver platter like so many crab legs at The Crab Shack. I took my hand to Dungeon Maker recently, and have had some fun designing relatively small maps for my friends to run through, always with an emphasis on elaborate stories and creeping nuance instead of, just, ya know, "Go here, Fight AB&C. Now go here, Fight XY&Z".
Stories are my jam. My bread, butter, biscuits, and gravy. And I've mostly been using simple tools provided in the dungeon editor itself, things like the Area Lore objects, to create a narrative for players to enjoy.
So what brings me here? Well, I've encountered my fair share of glitches, though most of them I just work around. However, I've recently been attempting to create decent dialogue trees, complete with integrated variables, quest rewards, skill checks; the whole kit and kaboodle. But since I've been trying that, I've noticed something peculiar.
Enough Preamble, here is the sitch:
Whenever playtesting dialogue, the game will inevitable just stop playing the dialogue. The screen remains static, as if waiting for more text to pop up, and if I hit Esc, there is a Skip button option (Which does nothing). I have to quit out. This break in conversation occurs randomly (Different parts of the same Tree cause it to occur).
Additionally, if there are multiple NPCs involved in the conversation (I want there to be, as one of them is a voice speaking in the player's heads) then the portraits displayed next to NPC text become wildly inconsistent. Sometimes NPC 1 speaks NPC 2s lines, sometimes empty space speaks, sometimes its a player who says the NPC's line. Its wild, my dude.
I'm unsure if this is a common issue, or something I'm doing wrong on my end. Maybe having multiple NPCs is unstable, maybe having the conversation through a virtual dialogue object is the problem? Maybe one of the NPCs not being on the map is the issue? I have zero ideas, I am dumb as bricks, please send help.
Best regards,
Sades
The first bug you mention happens usually in Dungeon Maker adventures, when the party does not have any of the roles or traits set-up in the game. It is an issue for sure.
I did not experience them in the main game and official adventures. It is possible that a minority of players have a party that does not fit in the dialogue structure: which of course remains a bug. You should send a save game to the company so they can see it.
The second one you mention is new to me.
Steam profile : https://steamcommunity.com/id/baraz/
I know this is late, but I believe I have a handle on the issue:
The freezing happens if you have an ability check but did not intentionally assign roles with the yellow box at the beginning. If you just leave the default roles of starter/partner/commenter/reactor, then the ability check will cause dialog to freeze.
You can assign roles at the beginning of a dialog with the "Assign Roles" option. If you leave the criteria blank, then it just assigns to the first character it finds.
If you assign roles based on skill modifier, then the character has to hit a threshold - It appears to be at least +5 in an skill check to register. I haven't playtested with multiple people to see if it always picks the highest. I also haven't playtested the selection of roles by alignment.