The Quest for a Functional Dialogue System

For about a month, I've been trying to figure out how to make a dialogue system for my game. Back when I was making the game with RPG Maker,  it was as simple as pressing the right buttons to put together the functions I needed. But sadly, Unreal isn't as simple. The reason why it's been taking me so long to figure out how to put this system together is because there are 5 main functions/mechanics I want it to have:

• Having multiple responses available for key conversations.
• A Conditions check that can gate certain responses or influence the outcome in a conversation or later moments in the game. (Need # Stat and/or specific item to choose response)
• Response choices that can influence variables in the game. (+/- Stats, +/- Items, etc.)
• Being able to trigger animations on characters during a conversation. 
• Being able to change facial expressions during a conversation.

Some of my recent videos, I've shown some of these things I've already been able to put together. The tricky part is being able to have all 5 of those  functions/mechanics working on one individual system. I've gone through multiple tutorials but have only been able to accomplish combining 3 out of 5. But great news, I eventually reached out to a couple colleagues who are very familiar with Unreal and they were able to help me figure this out.

You'd think that after maybe the first week or two of not being able to figure this out, I would have reached out to someone sooner. In a lot of cases, Narrative Designers are expected to also understand how the engine they are working with operates. So I figured for my career, I should try to learn how to make everything in my game from scratch. I also have a bad habit of getting a kind of spiraling into trying to figure out a problem I can't seem to fix. The more times I fail at resolving it, the more I double down on trying to figure it out on my own. It's a habit I try to be more aware of and I've even posted a little sticky note on my monitor that says "Don't spiral. Ask for help." since dealing with this incident. 

Although I haven't fully tested out the conditions check or choices influencing variables, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to set them up next time I work on Wayfinders. For the time being, here's a vid showing the progress I've made so far with it: