I recently got married to Abigail, and even though this is pretty typical of these sorts of games, I feel like she lost a lot of her personality. Like now she's a shut-in who complains about having 'junk' around the house and sometimes waters my plants. I don't have a lot of experience modding but I was wondering what changes would be possible to be made to make the marriage options seem to have a little more personality and less trophy wife/husband-y. Here are some examples of things I would like to see, if its possible to be done. Characters still visit family and friends on occasion. The go out and leave the farm and then return. If anything perhaps there should be a path on the farm that you can't place any items on once you are married. The 'spouse path' haha. Characters defining activities and talents are not interrupted by marriage (Abby plays the flute at the lake or on the farm, Penny still tutors the children, Sebastian could sit outside and smoke or game...etc) Other character react to the marriage happening. (Family asks you how they are doing, sends you gifts in the mail, characters that end up with the candidates like Sebastian will talk to you and maybe say something like "I had an interest but I'm glad you guys got together" Follower AI? This could be difficult... maybe you can ask them to do certain tasks or have them come with you and gather items automatically, fish next to you, actually show animations when taking care of the farm. When in the mines one can opt to fight while you gather or they can gather while you fight off monsters. This seems like hell to code, but it's just ideas. Dates? You can go somewhere with them. A simple little cut-scene plays at the beach, in the forest, at the saloon. You might have some questions to answer as a convo and get relationship rank points and a small gift. Maybe you can only do with once a week? The items that they take to your room are now gone from their old room. To take it a bit far, maybe each household changes due to marriage. Like Paula gets the room to herself when Penny leaves, Peirre's get's a 'yoga studio' for the wives that meet up, Robin and Demetrius turn the basement into a wine cellar? All of these things should really just effect NPCs I'm thinking. Strengths and weaknesses. Each spouse has certain tasks that they are good at, and bad at. Let's say that when asked to do a certain task somethings they were do that well, like gather higher quality items or finish it faster while others would take longer and they may not appreciate you asking them to do those chores often. Hang out mode? A minigame you can play with your spouse to hang out with them. Like playing a videogame, fishing competition, scavenger hunt, hide-n-seek? You get the point. Change their floor and wallpaper, but maybe you need to unlock a certain relationship rank to let them know their there taste isn't quite melding with the rest of the house's decor. Anyways, these ALL don't need to happen. Just some suggestions of how to make marriage more interesting in this game. Compared to Harvest Moon this is very unsurprising, but I feel like Stardew Valley can break the mold on that. I want to present this as not only a mod suggestion but a suggestion to the developer as well. I would like to here from other people's experiences with marriage in game and what they find to be one-dimensional or underdeveloped.
I could see this potentially being possible with the Storm API. At least some of it. It would have to be some sort of override to their schedule that triggered after marriage, but I don't see it as being impossible.
That's the most important priority for me really, just to see them have a daily life that's not at the farm 24/7. I guess you would just have to define what their pathing would be to and from the farm and to make sure to not place items there.
That's great idea. My waifu Leah is some kind of "vegetable" living in my house and it's very sad You have some great concept and I will talk with my friend who is making mods for StV about making this happen on Storm or API.
This is kinda the stuff I was hoping marriage would be like in Stardew, hopefully someone takes your ideas and implements them.
I said pretty much the exact same thing. This applies to anyone your marry. The fact of the matter is that they lose their routine and their dialogue is so sparse. http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/npc-marriage-inject-life.108324/#post-2806524
Yeah, i totaly agree on that all! The marriage feels realy like a trophy/character cut-down. If anynoe would do such a huge and awesome mod, i would rebuild the hole scene of The Lion King and do this: Just to party him/her hard!
Somebody replied to my post on tumblr, good news on developers end. I think really all I would like for now is just to have the spouses go about their regular days until something new comes out.
Oh wow, I LOVE this idea!! Another thing that I'd LOVE to see is a more dynamic friendship/romance system. One thing that has always bugged me about these kinds of games, Harvest Moon included, is how one sided it is as far as friendship goes. Is it too much to ask that the villagers have a bit more agency in coming to visit your farm as a friendship grows? Why does my character always have to be the one who has to run around throwing armloads of gifts at each villager? Why can't it be a little more of a two way street, ya know I mean? Takes two to tango and the like?? Is that too much to ask?? I just find this mechanic in these games to be really tired and uninspired, a bit boring even? Stardew Valley is so much fun but this area of the game could definitely use an updated makeover to turn it into something more dynamic. I just wish I had the technical chops to do it myself.
Really do hope this happens either officially or unofficially. Abigail could overcome her fears and go on adventures. Maru could invent something truly spectacular. ...The other guys and gals could...do whatever they do. But yeah, something that really makes the choice feel like it matters.
