Configurable comment rate slider

A simple SkyUI configuration menu for controlling the frequency of idle conversations from global followers and other NPCs. Compatible with every follower mod ever, no patches required. I've also included an .esl, so unless you include the same content in a larger mod, there's basically no reason for you not to have this.

Skyrim LE version

Recently, I released a mod that makes Lydia an interesting character. However, one issue that confused many people was that Lydia spoke too much in earlier versions. To solve this problem, I made a SkyUI menu that allows the player to change the likelihood of Lydia speaking if the game allows it.

There's a basic question here: What happens if, despite setting the likelihood slider to a very low point, Lydia ignores the odds and keeps saying the line is idle with high frequency? There is no hard stop on an idle line, it's just less likely.

To solve this problem, I made a brand new mod that works not just for Lydia, but for every character with random annotations. Lioness Mjoll? Work for her. Erandur? Work for him. (My name is Inigo) (Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!)? Works for him even though he's from a mod. Is it fair to say that bandits sang about frowning orcs and women on old Stros M'Kai as well as on spring nights? Work for them.

Let me explain how this works. Two factors determine when a character comments: the conditions attached to the dialogue line itself and the two game settings fIdleChatterCommentTimer and fIdleChatterCommentTimerMax. Conversation conditions can depend on overall circumstances such as the NPC's equipment, location, the player's progress in the quest, the last time they said that line, or even a simple percentage, which is how I configured it for the Lydia mod; changing the chance of her saying it. However, the above two game settings are the minimum and maximum time a character will take to make another character after the previous comment if the dialogue conditions are met. By default, these times are 10 and 20 seconds.

Simply put, every 10 to 20 seconds, Todd Howard's spirit appears in the minds of his followers and implores them to comment. Fleetwood Mac gained a full 9 yards. They can attach conditions to each comment that prevent them from saying certain things at specific times, as well as determine the percentage of chances that your followers will fall victim to Todd Howard's endless charm and leave a comment.

That this happens every 10 to 20 seconds is further proof of Todd Howard's unwavering enthusiasm, but also a testament to how crazy and insane Bethesda's game design/writing department is. every 10 to 20 seconds. What on earth were they thinking that made NPC comments happen so often in Skyrim? I expected to be a fly on the wall when Emil Pagliarulo made that decision. "Hey Emile, I just imported the timer settings for chit-chat from the Gamebryo engine, but for some unreasonable reason we have them set to 10 seconds and 20 seconds. Want me to suggest these so that NPCs don't chatter to themselves for 15 seconds?

"No, that's it, we're going to put conditions in place that prevent the character from talking too much. You never know, we might want to make a ridiculous and annoying character that repeats the same dialogue over and over and drives the player completely crazy."

With this mod, you can make NPC comments infrequent for 9 to 10 minutes, or if you're an absolute psychopath, a full 5 to 6 seconds where they sleep on their backs all night even without pets, have sex with their pants off, take off their pants in front of their shirts, and hopefully see the NPC go crazy as Todd Howard himself tries to trick them into talking constantly.

In short, this mod allows you to change the window for when there is an opportunity for someone to leave a chatty comment, and will work with any other mod because it changes the setting that is attached to Skyrim itself, rather than a single line of dialogue within it.

Except FCO, maybe. It …