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Feedback: Updated Gardening System

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  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    @stilljustme2 Plants at the festivals are not always available due to being out of season? There is a thread at AnswersHQ that I believe is still open. I kind of gave up on getting plants at the festivals. Even if you could get a cutting there is no way to assure grafting would work to get the flower.
    Hopefully the next patch will help.
  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    Gardening Issues since Patch 1.44.22 (Gardening Overhaul)
    This is from a collection thread compiled by @crinrict at AnswersHQ. Beginning next month AnswersHQ will be the home to all the help threads. It would be a good idea to bookmark this thread for easy access.
  • JeansooJeansoo Posts: 3,606 Member
    edited August 2018
    As for the evolution system, my plants have no problem with that. I haven't purchased seasons yet. Evolving was easy before the patch. The plants used to be evolved in a good term even without fertilising. It's almost never evolving without fertilising after the patch. My plants still evolve almost straightaway after fertilising rare fishes like rainbow fish, bat fish etc.. But I almost gave up getting pomegranate, bird of paradise, dragonfruit...etc.. I had to pay over 5,000 simoleons to get death flower seed on buy mode. I completed magic bean collection instead from rare seed packets. Honestly, I feel like it's much more harder to get the rare items than getting UFO fruit from the space. I already got UFO fruit while waiting for the rare items.

    Recently, I just get the rare items for free from festivals in San Michuno. LOL I got pomegranate, dragonfruit and bird of paradise but all items quality is normal. Even normal quality is appreciated as it's nearly impossible to get them from grafting. The problem is that they never bloom the items after planted.

    I'm not sure I will get Seasons because the gardening will be extremely hard for me. I just want to enjoy on normal difficulty game like TS3. I don't want to challenge things in the sims games. I also have a vampire tend garden bug at outdoor garden, so I put all plants in the basement room.
  • cdshrout1171cdshrout1171 Posts: 49 Member
    edited August 2018
    Please raise the % chance of the grafted plant producing the new plant grafted for. I have plants that have been grafted from the day gardening was overhauled and they have NEVER produced the new plant. I took out all mods, repaired game, had them inside when they were out of season, put them outside during their season, fertilized them with growfruit, pollinated them with bees, and talked to them every day....and have never gotten one single new plant from them since the gardening overhaul.

    ALSO, several of the plants now only give me 1 or 2 harvestable, they are perfect quality, inside and outside (doesn't matter), no matter how many days I leave them in hopes they will produce more than 1...they never do.

    I have no problem with making gardening more challenging, but we've gone way beyond challenging, we've entered the realm of why bother...

    This is extremely frustrated to me because gardening is my favorite thing in The Sims.
  • cdshrout1171cdshrout1171 Posts: 49 Member
    Thanks to Carl's Sims 4 Guide I started using Growfruit as fertilizer. No worrisome problems with trying to fish or using more expensive items to fertilize. Getting the first one to plant may be tricky. With Outdoor Retreat one can be bought using the Ranger Station at Granite Falls.
    Still frustrated by the grafting issues though. Evolving is still slow but a bit faster fertilizing with the Growfruit.

    Did you see in the last update, they made it so that pollinating with bees should make your plants evolve faster?

    I'm super frustrated with grafting too. I've no issues with them making it more of a challenge but they've made it so difficult and frustrating that I stop playing the game altogether.
  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    edited August 2018
    Gardening observation:
    • Plants become ready to harvest at 5am everyday.
    • You Sim needs to be on the home lot at that time or you will miss the harvest that day.
    • More rare items are better fertilizer.
    • Growfruit makes the best fertilizer.
    • Grafting is still not a reliable option to gain specific plants.
    • Fishing in certain spots gives a chance of getting rare plants like Dragonfruit and Cowplant Berries.
    • A roof will provide shelter for your plants.
    • The number of items available for harvest is different for outdoor vs sheltered plants.
    • Harvested items sold from household inventory sell at a higher rate.
  • lsnishilsnishi Posts: 2,714 Member
    Thank you for posting your observations @EuphorialQueen! I have been wondering about some of these things, like the best fertilizer. And I never suspected that selling produce from your household inventory would bring more simoleans than selling from the personal inventory. Very helpful info!
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  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    @lsnishi You are very welcome. Some of these discoveries were surprising. :smiley:

    @rosemow Thank you for sharing the link. I do not use mods myself but this will be helpful for those who do use them. <3

    One more note: Bird of Paradise is still an issue. When I have been lucky enough to get one it is in plant form. Meaning the full grown plant and not the flower. The plant goes directly to household inventory and never (in my experience) produces the actual flower. I know this issue is in a thread at AnswersHQ so I will be watching for it to be fixed.
  • FischreuseFischreuse Posts: 3 New Member
    Plant refinement works for me with the following plants no longer: Bird of Paradise flower & orchid - in no variant of crossing the plants. Pomegranate, dragon fruit and UFO hardly grow or no longer grow at crossings.
    The large reduction in the number of crops per plant makes aggregation of similar plants by crossing altogether uninteresting. There is too little out of it. The actual novelty of Sims 4 - digestion of plants - has become meaningless in my view with the revision of botany.

    I have no mods or CC, emptied caches and repaired game.
  • Karababy52Karababy52 Posts: 5,952 Member
    edited August 2018
    ...One more note: Bird of Paradise is still an issue. When I have been lucky enough to get one it is in plant form. Meaning the full grown plant and not the flower. The plant goes directly to household inventory and never (in my experience) produces the actual flower. I know this issue is in a thread at AnswersHQ so I will be watching for it to be fixed.

    This has been my experience as well. I was thrilled when I discovered BOP plants in my Sim's household inventory until after planting them, they never produced any flowers. :( What a shame... I hope they up the percentage to something higher than only a 1% chance for spliced plants to produce rares. It's just not fun gardening for me anymore within the current situation.

  • invisiblgirlinvisiblgirl Posts: 1,709 Member
    According to Carl's latest update on fertiliser, growfruit isn't so great, after all. It's expensive fresh fish, or nothing.
    I just want things to match. :'(
  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    According to Carl's latest update on fertiliser, growfruit isn't so great, after all. It's expensive fresh fish, or nothing.
    Much respect for Carl's guides as an invaluable resource. His site is my go-to for all things Sims. From my experience fishing was very time consuming. Fish has a limited shelf life and often goes bad before being used. There were also times when fishing was not a viable option.
    Since Growfruit can be grown on your home lot I used only two trees as a constant source of fertilizer. :)
  • NindigoNindigo Posts: 2,764 Member
    I am sadly not a big fan of the new gardening system anymore (if I ever were). I would rather that all plants were out during winter and returned to bloom in spring, during summer and fall. I find it too much of a hassle to try and remember which plants are in season when. Also, seemingly dead plants in full bloom (due to them being in season, but outside spring/summer) make very little sense to me. Actually, I'm beginning to feel there are too many different plants as well. Ultimately, I find I simply liked the old system better.


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  • invisiblgirlinvisiblgirl Posts: 1,709 Member
    According to Carl's latest update on fertiliser, growfruit isn't so great, after all. It's expensive fresh fish, or nothing.
    Much respect for Carl's guides as an invaluable resource. His site is my go-to for all things Sims. From my experience fishing was very time consuming. Fish has a limited shelf life and often goes bad before being used. There were also times when fishing was not a viable option.
    Since Growfruit can be grown on your home lot I used only two trees as a constant source of fertilizer. :)

    It does take a lot of time - I've got a leisure Sim who loves the outdoors, so I've basically got her fishing full time. When she fishes up a tuna or salmon, it goes into one of the three aquariums I've got for storing them. (It's all about the strawberries. I just need a couple of perfect strawberries and I can finally move the daughter out and start the next generation.)
    I just want things to match. :'(
  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    @Nindigo @invisiblgirl It's all about how we choose to play. Gardening holds a limited attraction for me as does fishing. My Sims garden for two reasons. To produce money making plants and to complete the outdoor related aspirations. That is how I have always played. I used to love being able to graft and actually get new plants. Then I delete the majority of any other plants keeping only a select few (usually spliced) plants in household inventory for future generations. Fishing was a great alternative way for kids to gain mental skill and for all my Sims to catch unique items. Not so much when they get soaked and miserable in the rain or when the water freezes.

  • cdshrout1171cdshrout1171 Posts: 49 Member
    Gardening used to be my favorite thing in the game, it isn't anymore. I do like the new gardening system and I don't mind at all that it's harder. What I do have an issue with is the fact that after three months none of my spliced plants have worked. That alone has absolutely ruined gardening for me. And, it seems like EA doesn't even care. I've sent messages, posted bug reports and tweets and have never gotten a response. I feel like they just don't care that they've totally ruined an extremely important function in the game.
  • shalese08shalese08 Posts: 65 Member
    I like the new gardening system except the splicing I think is more fustrating than challenging. I rather have it as "splicing failed" instead of doing the action and having to wait and see if it will produce a third and splicing reduces the harvestables which is also more of a frustration


    I want to use a pic too!!! :'(
  • ShepardShepard Posts: 125 Member
    @agustd I agree with you, man. Anything to add more challenge to the gameplay and sims' skill development! If it's easy and fast it gets boring very quickly.
  • unmogunmog Posts: 54 Member
    @EuphorialQueen
    Thanks for making this topic. See I'm fresh into gardening since I never tried it before getting Seasons... so as I understand it things used to be a little different, and thus some information out there might be out of date.

    So I figure I'll ask anyone here instead who can maybe help... how exactly do plants evolve and what exactly do the Green Thumb and Super Green Thumb traits do? I was under the impression that as my gardening skill would go up, and as I water and weed the plants, they would evolve on their own over time. Is that false? To evolve are you required to apply fertilizer over and over as often as it allows? Does talking to plants help them at all? Playing music?

    My Sim didn't start with the Green Thumb trait, which I think allows you a (good?) chance at getting higher quality harvests than the actual plant is at. Instead I figured just purchasing the Super Green Thumb reward would be good enough if I ever wanted to get into a little gardening, which apparently raises the quality of anything I plant... except it doesnt? All the things I planted are still normal quality. After about a week of in game time (I play on long if it matters) nothing I'd planted had evolved at all which seemed odd concerning everything else in the sims doesnt take nearly as long to do and my expectations was really just to evolve from normal to fine so I thought that was rather low. It wasnt until I went and changed my lot traits to "Great Soil" that I noticed things start evolving... is that the only way to evolve them within a reasonable amount of time? Also just for information, I have tried using large dog poop for fertilizer and didn't notice any effect despite the item information claiming it was good for fertilizer.

    Otherwise, is the information you posted earlier about "sheltered plants" taking longer to evolve still accurate? If so, about how much longer? I was planning on raising some Sage (because it grows all year round) inside a green house in hopes to actually protect it and maybe help it evolve faster, so then I could graft other things to it after it evolved. Speaking of grafts, when I grafted something to my strawberry bush in spring I noticed the plant basically "started over" as a seedling and had to regrow. So if I graft a perfect level trimming to a normal plant, will it be normal, perfect, or somewhere in between? I also heard taking trimmings somehow hurts a plant evolution, is that still true?

    Sorry if this is all explained elsewhere, I'm just wanting to make sure I get current information and maybe some tips/tricks to help along the way for a new gardener. I'm a little "green" so to speak, kupo.
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  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    There have been comments that the time to evolve has been improved. Super Green Thumb reward trait may be helpful but not really necessary. Fertilizer is a subject of debate as each person has a preference. Some say fish is best but higher quality plants work well. I used Growfruit since it is more rare and got excellent results. And.... no freezing trying to fish.
  • EuphorialQueenEuphorialQueen Posts: 6,224 Member
    There seem to be some subtle changes shortening the time to evolve plants. Grafting is still not successfully showing the expected results. The changes in revenue earned is also a plus.
  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    edited December 2018
    I'm playing with the new gardening system and I gotta say that I really like it, it's much more in depth since Seasons. I like that certain plants can only bloom in certain Seasons very realistic. Time hasn't been a problem for me, but I am playing with the long age settings.
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  • ShadamiShadami Posts: 4,353 Member
    Splicing doesn't produce new harvestable
    Quote from SumGuruNick
    "Splicing can produce a new harvestable, but there's supposed to be a lower chance that it does this. This is by design. For example, grafting a rose to a grape for bonsai buds will have the plant produce roses OR grapes OR bonsai buds, with the bonsai buds having the lowest chance. So if you're not seeing the new harvestable, I think it might just be a case of bad luck"
    My issue with this change is it also lowers the change of getting other things that depend on having one of the spliced harvestables.
    ---
    Bird of Paradise = Chrysanthemum + Tulip
    Bonsai Buds = Daisy + Strawberry
    Bonsai Buds = Grapes + Rose
    Cowplant Berry = Snapdragon + Dragonfruit
    Death Flower = Orchid + Pomegranate
    Dragonfruit = Strawberry + Snapdragonf
    Grapes = Bluebells + Strawberry
    Orchid = Lily + Snapdragon
    Parsley = Basil + Sage
    Plantain = Lemon * Pear
    Pomegranate = Apple + Cherry
    ---
    I like the five step evolution idea in the upgraded gardening system but thought it was supposed to make things easier.
    Not happening and leads to frustration.


    @EuphorialQueen Rare seed packets, available in Build/Buy, were added to help with this.
    I understand the intent of the rare packets. ea_heart.png I am grateful they are available. Getting ONE Bonsai Bud /maybe/ for 250 simoleons or worse paying 1000 simoleons for two magic beans .. ?
    I love this game and I am not going anywhere. I just don't want it to be impossible to complete certain goals within the limits set by the game.

    This is something I've noticed. My spliced plants to get bonsai seeds, and cowberries have been going a couple weeks in game time and I still haven't seen them pop up on the spliced plant. I was figuring that somehow my plant was glitched. This does help explain it though.
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