Companions aren't bantering?

So, I finished the game and in those 50 hours, my companions only bantered about 20 times while exploring. They only comment on stuff during story missions, no proper banter. 

Might there be a bug with how random banter occurs?

Hi, littlebrightp. This appears to be a far more widespread problem than it may originally have appeared. People on the official forums are oftentimes not reporting it because they're making the assumption, given what they've experienced after (in some cases) completing the entire game, that there simply is not practically any "banter" in Dragon Age: Inquisition at all. This is (thankfully) quite erroneous, as I have discovered via written accounts of copious volumes of companion banter whilst other players have explored the field, as well as user-uploaded gameplay videos expressly detailing all those myriad encounters which many fans such as myself are missing out on entirely.

This is the thread I started on BioWare's forums this morning:

http://forum.bioware.com/topic/525267-as-suggested-posting-this-topic-here-many-players-are-reporting-a-bug-in-which-party-banter-is-incredibly-rare-no-matter-who-we-bring-along/

Note the number of people not only to have confirmed they're having this issue but also to have stated that they didn't know what they were missing out on and were prepared to deem the lack of banter a flaw of the game as opposed to its misfired coding. Ultimately I am certainly glad to hear that some players are wandering around with chatty companions, but nothing on my end has changed the fact that in 51 hours, spanning all party members across at least six regions of the game's world, I've had perhaps six or seven instances of party members conversing with one-another. The same can be said for many other players, although some have reported the scripting error "seemingly fixing itself" eventually. None such luck here. The bug appears to span multiple platforms.

A quick recap for BioWare employees: "party banter" -- AKA companions conversing with one-another in the field -- is exceptionally rare for an apparently-considerable number of players across all platforms, regardless of where we are, what we're doing, how far into the game we are, who we're with, or any other quickly discernible variable. This is confirmed not to be our personal objective opinions on how much is "a lot" because we have seen videos of other players whose levels of party interaction have been magnitudes far, far greater than what we've experienced.

I have decided to halt my progress on what is otherwise a fantastic game because this element of the Dragon Age series is a personal favorite of mine. I play BioWare's games (and indeed, most games I dabble in at large) for the rich storytelling that is made possible by talented authors coming together to weave exceptional stories into terrific characters. This bug disallows me from hearing much of that content and is essentially a game-breaker for me until it's resolved.

Thanks for your consideration and congratulations on a stellar Dragon Age: Inquisition.

I just finished an 80+ hour playthrough. While I did hear some banter, it was VERY rare. I certainly noticed that my companions were dead silent for hours on end. When they did decide to banter, it was like a christmas present. I literally would stop what I was doing so that I could listen to it as it was as rare as finding the Loch Ness monster.

I figured that was "just the way it was". Now I am beginning to think that there is a problem with triggering. I wonder how often the companions are supposed to banter. For me it was probably once every few hours of gameplay. 

I also thought it had to do with the companions I ran with, so I tried switching things up but banter frequency was still very rare. Such a shame since a lot of work was done in writing and voice acting these things that some of us will not see/hear.

I can confirm that on my side, my party chats all the time. 

From Blackwall asking Dorian about beauty tips, to Sera just being vulgar about litterally anything, to Cassandra trying to shove religion down everyone's throat.

They're a really talkative bunch. And most of the banter is quite funny.

Missing on it must make the game reaaaally quiet. 

I am jealous rlacorne. It's sad because I feel like, outside of my Skyhold talks, I really didn't get to know my companions very well as they were all too shy during the gameplay to talk to each other.

It makes the game feel very sterile and dereft of personality. I might as well have been playing Skyrim solo.

Hmmm I don't know what I could have done differntly that everyone...

Adding to this as well.  I have been playing about 13 hours and have had approxmiately 5-7 banters throughout the entire game thus far, including in the prologue areas.  I've gone for hours at a time with no banter from my party, no matter who I take.  I honestly thought that was intended, until I saw this and other posts talking about the same issue.

Absolutely, I have two playthroughs happening in parallel, and in one (male elf mage) the party banter is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the other (female elf rogue dual wield).  Even the female elf doesn't get quite as much banter as some have claimed.  It's really difficult to tell because those of us with the issue don't really have the frame of reference, and also don't realize we have an issue until well into the game.  Hope this can be fixed quick and also that the fix will not require a reroll/restart.  Thanks

Repost from BSN:

I’m glad for this thread. Something feels off for me. It’s definitely not a lot of banter; it’s hard to say specifically but I’d guess that over the 60–70 h played, I’m probably somewhere around two to three dozen dialogues—and I switch my party around pretty consistently.

It’s certainly not every few minutes, or even every half hour.

I haven’t noticed a huge variance by region. I basically never use a mount. (It’s not timer triggered off dismounts is it? )

Of characters, I’d say that Sera initiates conspicuously more banters than anyone. It could be that as much as half of mine have been with her. (Realization: that’s probably why I like having her around so much. She feels more alive than the rest, aside from her personality?)

PC, English. I have all subtitles on. I play with headphones so it seems unlikely that I’d just not hear it.

ETA: Does anyone with this problem have a twitch or similar that has/would record gameplay? I don’t know if it’d be useful for debugging. I’m also happy to stream if someone from BW wants to watch, let me know and I’ll find the time.

Sad to learn this is a bug. I also have it. It makes the game lonely, and tedious. Doubt it will be patched any time soon.