Feedback: Updated Gardening System

"invisiblgirl;c-16585686" wrote:
The evolving needs to be tweaked - if you play with aging on, it's simply not possible to achieve a 'perfect' plant in a Sim's lifetime. Moreover, unless you've planned ahead, you're never going to get the ten 'excellent' plants you need to complete the freelance botanist aspiration. (It took me six seasons to get one excellent plant.) I'd rather have my Sim spending more time tending the plants and getting results from her work. Now, gardening is more a matter of clicking on each plant to see if it needs fertilizer. Otherwise, there is nothing for my Sim to do with her plants - talking to them doesn't seem to help, and she can just harvest or sell everything with one click.

I do like the ability to buy rare seeds - I could never find the cherry trees in previous games, and since my Sims only eat the superfood salad, I needed the cherries to get the pomegranate. I also appreciate that food made with 'normal' and 'nice' quality harvestables is no longer inedible, especially since it takes years (literally) to get plants to evolve.

Supposedly the bees can help with the pollination process and get plants ready for evolution sooner. I have a couple of bee boxes in my garden, and I've been able to evolve plants fairly regularly. (I should move one into my greenhouse; I've heard that crocuses keep them calmer so I could move my crocus pot next to them and see if that limits the stinging. May also depend on the life span and season length; I'm playing on Long lifespan and 2 week seasons; I also had aging off for a bit to give my Sims a chance to enjoy the seasons.

I think talking to plants is less to help them grow and more to help with the Sim's Social needs. Not sure if it builds Charisma as well; I'll have to check that in game tomorow.