To improve marriage it would be nice to have the ability to marry all characters - with a romantic quest. Roleplay does not mean you are not open for romantical quests.
And it would be lovely to have a child and have indeed quests to save your child. There are bandits around, maybe they abduct the child and you have to bring it back. And think of the poor children in the orphanage. Maybe a married character can adopt a child?
There are so many ways - you can add a quest in which jealousy take part and you have to fight for your love.
Example: I saved Illia, now she is my Follower. And after a period of time it would be nice to marry her (and not only via console command).
It is like in real Life: you share a lot of time with the man/woman you want to marry until you make it.
And I see a lot of people who are asking to marry a Khajit.

It took maybe a day or two to program it in, trust me, its not like they would be scrapping a whole faction questline. Sure, it doesn't belong in the game, but its such a small and easily avoidable feature that who cares

There is a dark elf in Kynesgrove that you can marry. She's a mage and trainer.

Do it, I think there are so many who had said the same, so you would have a lot of downloads.

And the others can improve the marriage, so all parts are happy, or am I wrong?

What about a shout for marriage?

Instead of Fus-Ro-Da will you need to say something like Hnk-Wnk-Slap.

I agree with this. Although the concept of using an amulet is "cheesy/shallow", it allows all of the bravado rpg players to easily and transparently ignore it. There is no reason to "remove it". It already does not exist in your game without an amulet, and there is no valid reason to deny other players who enjoy the mechanic. (Yes, there are some).

As far as improving it, obviously the limited choices for candidates and the repetitive dialog that afflicts all npc's should be addressed first. Personally, I dont need dates, honeymoons and children. I would like to see spouses (all npc's) to have a dispostion attribute and react better to events around them. My spouse should be upset if I am constantly bringing Ria home decked out in buffed glassed armor, jewelry and a shimmering Riaburner glowing from her backside. If a guard notices that there appears to be hair growing from my ears, certainly my wife should inquire if something is wrong. I also like the additional burden of exploring with a follower that I truly care about, and having to exercise strategic caution to use them effectively and keep them alive. At the same time, I respect the opinions of others, and would retain the amulet or some other shallow catalyst for this feature so that true, hardcoe rpg professionals are not distracted.

while marriage could have been done better i see no reason to remove. Why cant we have both in the next game, although id like to marriage more fleshed out.

Yes, there is no reason. But if it is sooooo important for some gamers why should they not remove it in their game? It does not make the game bad for those who want to improve the marriage.
But do you want to have every second post the same post : "Remove it".? If they want to do it they should do it and leave the others in the discussion how marriage can be improved (only my opinion).

The mentality that having more roleplaying options in a roleplaying game makes it a siom is the dumbest thing i've ever heard. Sure its shallow, but saying to remove features is just promoting more streamlining.

"i hate magic, i only use swords and battleaxes and testosterone! Remove magic will make it better"

"i hate the inventory system, it svcks my face, make it better by removing it"

you see? you guys are just silly. A feature that is never forced on you should never be removed, no matter how shallow it is.

And how do you figure this quest working for a female character?

I think the marriage mechanic is good, it provides an rp possibility, and no one has to do it. OTOH most of the OP's suggestions seem rather pointless to me, and would just limit the player from being able to envision things as they want to.

Seems to me the popular criticism around here is that putting too much effort into the Marriage system would turn Skyrim into the Sims. I disagree with that notion. Exploring the land and witnessing it through the eyes of your character as well as building relationships with other characters in the world has always been critical to the Elder Scrolls experience, so I really think adding an option for marriage was a step in the right direction. Just because its shallow right now doesn't mean that it should be thrown out altogether. It can be improved and it can add to the experience in a meaningful way without encroaching on other aspects of the gameplay very much at all. What it needs is a bit more time to develop.

I disagree with this notion though. Gameplay features should always be constantly reevaluated by the team to determine if they are shallow, and if they are, they should either be removed or improved as time goes on. Otherwise, they rob precious development time and resources that could be used to expand on other more interesting facets of gameplay.

Yes, but do you think it is wise to argue with those gamers who do not want to discuss, who are only here to complain about everything they do not want ? They have not the aim to make something better, they want to carp.

To Celan: Good point. Yes, you have to have ways for both gender. In spite of this problem I would like to see marriage more vivid. But I have no right solution/ idea yet.

The marriage should allow players to sleep with their partners. There should also be an option to offer gifts (labeled as gifts and acknowledged by the npcs, not just putting them in their inventory), a disposition indicator that can be influenced with gifts, persuasion, etc. I'm not askibng for the disposition wheel back, I just want a numerical indicator that i can control via tons of dialogue options.

The answer to that problem is simply tasteful six a la Mass Effect.

Okay, I think the women would appreciate more romantically stuff.

I am glad it is there. That being the case I will assume in later games it will be there, and improved upon.


What I like so far:

I like that most characters require you to at least do something; hire them, do a mini quests, be their Thane, etc.

I like that you get the free meal, 100 gold per day and lovers comfort perk (great when you are going to run next door in the morning and do some Smithing).

The terms of endearment they do use is nice.

What I would like added:

Change the spouses outfit for crying out loud. I marry Sylgja and move her into one of the best houses in all of Skyrim, I have over 100K gold, and she still insist on wearing a miners outfit and carrying a pickaxe.

Give the option of having the spouse either cook, mind a store, or adventure with you (if a companion), but not automatically do all of them. I'd like to tell Sylgja that she doesn't have to try to run a store and cook and upkeep my place also. I'm rich so just fix me some food and give me that lover's comfort as wanted.

I'd like to add some more to the courtship other than just doing a favor or whatever, but with the large number of potential mates out there I can't really expect each one to have great leading quests.

maybe your right that things can be revaluated, however, i really doubt the marriage thing was a huge resource spender, in total i imagine it took a week to write it in with no bugs (or atleast it current state)

Well, you said vivid, and it doesn't get much more vivid than that...

Ugh, those are the dumbest gimmicks ever. Click X to win- it's the opposite of roleplay.

There's a fine line with all these things between something that's useful and meaningful for rp and something that's tasteless and takes too much focus away from being an adventurer/ hero, which is the main point of the game. I'm glad Bethesda went light on things while still giving us the chance to establish some rp relationships with various NPCs, whether ally, boss or romantic partner.

I'm sure the store thing was more for gameplay/ player convenience, but just because you're rich doesn't mean your spouse doesn't want to have her own thing. I guess this would be ok as long as the spouse has a chance to say "tough luck, I want a store, I'm doing it anyway."

I sincerely hope marriage is the "Oh noes spellmaking" of the next game.
If not removed then left as it is currently implemented and let mods flesh it out.

seeing people actually want them to add to this feature makes me a sad panda. seriously make a skyrim mod for the sims


p.s. you're still a human being, on earth

And that would be VERY COOL and could be based on the personality of the spouse. Imagine Aela the Huntress' reaction if you told her to stay home and cook for you.

It's a little basic, yes. But I do think it's workable, and can be improved upon.

The cynical side of me might speculate that its addition was more of a response to the success of romance elements in Bioware games such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age. But then, as long as I've been playing TES games (Admittedly Morrowind being my earliest) there have always been users who have tried to mod romance options into the games. Some more crude than others, but they've been there.

I think in some respect it might be interesting in a future TES game if they introduced the idea of raising a bloodline for your character, or assembling a Clan of your own. That could be a great secondary objective for the game. Effectively creating your own in-game faction, which would be responded to by NPCs, and afford you certain prospects. The need to produce an Heir to your bloodline would naturally bring Marriage in to a more necessary role. A Bastard son or daughter holding far less weight, potentially.

That would require a HUGE amount of development. Ultimately it's up to Bethesda to choose whether or not that would even be an avenue they'd even consider going down. But there are options. And I'm sure that a faire few people at Bethesda have already thought of such concepts for potential use in a later game.

marriages can be improved by knowing each other and accepting the differences!!!

Dark elves are Dunmer, Bosmer are Wood elves,
there are absolutely no marriage dialogue for both Khajiit and Wood Elves so not even Mods can fix this. (even if they could, I still only got Skyrim on Xbox)
which brings me to the same question I have yet to see an answer to from Bethesda,
Why?