BETA Access Mod Discussion
Added 2025-01-18 20:15:42 +0000 UTCI released a beta version of the Complex Garden Lot Challenge last year and got ZERO feedback on it. I'm going to assume this means that it sucks š and that's okay - I just want to decide what to do with it since it's been in limbo since then.
If you all want to see me continue to work on it let me know in the comments below along with your opinions on it. I'm likely going to abandon the mod if there's not enough interest.
Comments
I would absolutely love this. I did not know it existed. (Sorry for the late reply)
Genaeve
2025-01-25 05:10:09 +0000 UTCI use the sheltered garden lot trait on all my lots with gardens and love it. Thanks for your hard work!
Betty Ann Kattner
2025-01-23 18:47:16 +0000 UTCI use Lively Garden on every lot where I'm going to have a garden; I love seeing and collecting the critters that run around. I think it would be fabulous if I could also catch the mice/rats and put them into a container of some sort; like we do with insects :)
Diane Sweeney
2025-01-19 18:49:23 +0000 UTCI use and love both sheltered and lively lot traits. I must have missed the beta last year
Brianna Loyd
2025-01-19 16:55:42 +0000 UTCHi. I'm very new to you and your mods in general. I normally don't comment if I have nothing to add, but this is just a timing issue. I'm definitely interested in the Complex Garden Mod, but I'm still trying to figure out how everything else works! It fits right in with how I like to play the game. Thank you for all your hard work.
Megaroni Noodles
2025-01-19 13:27:07 +0000 UTCTL;DR: Assuming some user error, the only major issue is bug infestations. Clarity in some places would be helpful. I couldnāt find if you had any specific requirements or preferences for beta test reports compiled anywhere. If thereās anything I can change to make my test and write-up more useful in the future, please let me know. I have no experience with the creating side of modding or what is specifically required from a beta tester. I removed all mods except BL, BE, MCCC, and XML (from 12/03/2024). I cleared my cache. I started a new save for the purpose of testing this lot challenge. I played that save for 35 in-game days in spring, summer, and fall in Newcrest. I started with just the Complex Garden lot challenge. When I found myself struggling with bug infestations, I added the Lively Garden lot challenge. I didnāt use any other lot traits or challenges. The lot had every available BL plant and most of the EA plants. Iām not sure if some things arenāt working or if Iām just not bright enough to figure it out, but I had more difficulty than I expected with the challenge. If the challenge is functioning as expected, then I think we need more information on how this challenge functions in order to make the best use of it. I believe additional information will help reduce user questions and user error in the long run. Pros: Nothing broke on me. The game itself functioned as expected. Plants didnāt revert back to mounds, sims didnāt get stuck on tasks, plants produced harvestables as expected, reloading the lot did not shut down my game, etc. Plants no longer serve as a money printer. They require work from me and from my sim, so I am disincentivized from just planting everything. I love it. I had a great time trying to work the lot challenge. It made me feel like I was learning about plants, gardening, and permaculture. Gardening was more rewarding. As far as I could tell, plants with some specific weed traits spawned weeds at the expected rate, given their listed traits. (For example, pumpkins and their immediate neighbors didnāt spawn weeds at all.) However, plants that are weed-prone did not seem to spawn weeds at a higher rate than they do without the lot challenge. Plant water retention seemed to function as listed, but it was hard to tell because water need is less visible than weed growth and bug infestation. The only thing I can remember off-hand is cranberries. Based on the listed trait, I expected cranberries to dry out faster when they were not placed in the BL mud bog puddle. But when playing, cranberries seemed to require as much water as any other plant. Cons/User Error: The nutmeg tree is listed as both ābug proneā and ārepels bugs.ā I donāt know if this is an error and these are conflicting traits, or if this was intentional and the traits can work together. I couldnāt find the ārepels bugsā trait in the BL gardening reference in-game, but the BL website says of sweet mint, āThat fragrance repels bugs so strongly that bug infestations on nearby plants and beeboxes will disappear.ā This was not my experience with the trait when playing the lot challenge. Neither the scents of sweet mint nor chives nor any other fragrant herb could stand against the infestation of bugs upon their neighbors. Bee boxes got mites at their regular rates, even when placed directly next to a bug-repellent plant. The bug infestation rate was a nightmare. Bug-prone leafy greens (cabbage, kale, lettuce, etc.) spawned heavy bugs almost every single day. (When I reinstalled the commonly-used LittleMsSam's Gardening Workaround Fix, infestations happened multiple times per day.) I placed bug-repelling plants less than one tile away from bug-prone plants, but it didnāt help at all. I placed plants that spawned ladybugs directly next to the bug-prone plants, and the ladybug plants ended up infested. My sim was spending hours every day spraying the bugs on leafy greens. The plant quality decline was really cool and challenging, but also frustrating. I fertilized the whole garden with expensive fresh fish every time fertilization was an option, but the quality of most plants (mostly notably all BL and Cottage Living mushrooms, most trees, all tomatoes, all berries, and BL peppers) continuously dropped. Even the Outdoor Retreat Fungal Infusion Fertilizer couldnāt hold a plantās quality at ānormalā for 2 days. I couldnāt find any references in-game on which plants are heavy feeders. All of the plants acted like heavy feeders for me. The info boxes that appear over plants did not contain āheavy feederā information, and neither did the notebook under āComplex Gardenā or individual listings for the researched harvestable. Heavy feeder information would make this portion of the lot challenge much more enjoyable. Information on which fertilizer would be best for these heavy feeders on the mod download page would be very useful. My sims would never have the time or money to buy, compost, or fish enough fertilizer to maintain a garden at ānormalā quality. A couple of plants have the note ācleans livestock.ā In this situation, it may be unclear what ālivestockā means and how the plants in question clean them. I had 11 lavender plants fairly close together where my 3 mini goats and 3 chickens hung out, but they all still got dirty at the regular rate. (I used mini goats and chickens because they seemed the most likely to interact with the lavender.) Do mini goats need to eat weeds near lavender in order to receive the cleaning benefit? If so, that information on the mod download page or the BL gardening reference would be helpful, too. In any case, I donāt know if the ācleans livestockā benefit is functioning because it could be user misunderstanding. Closing: I loved testing this lot challenge. The testing was a challenge, and the lot challenge itself was a real challenge. Thank you so much for undertaking this absolutely behemoth project. I canāt even figure out how to change the footprint of an existing in-game object, so I donāt want to imagine what goes into making a mod with this level of monstrous complexity. -Natalya Hnida (Edaās Blessing on Discord)
Luke Hnida
2025-01-19 12:23:12 +0000 UTCI really liked the Sheltered one when it worked.... I liked the Lively Garden one because it does add variety to the gardens. I like to play off the grid/simple living with your mods, and this challenge does make gardening more interesting. Like i need to be careful what I plant next to each other. If you abandon it, so be it.
CJ
2025-01-19 07:59:17 +0000 UTCI'm actually brainstorming this as I have time. I have a couple ideas on how to implement it, but I'm hoping to have it completely fleshed out later this year :0
BrazenLotus
2025-01-19 03:57:09 +0000 UTChi, hopefully not too off topic, but would you consider making a mod where all plants go bad at some point like the giant crops from cottage living? I feel like it would make canning a lot more meaningful. Or does anyone know of a mod like this? Thank you so much for all your crafting and farming mods.
Luciana Keil
2025-01-19 03:36:43 +0000 UTCI definitely missed that one. It sounds like it would add a lot of depth to the game! Iām not actively playing my game right now (life keeps getting in the way lol) ā¦ but would happily test if you do keep working on it.
Pryzelton
2025-01-19 02:05:40 +0000 UTCYes, it's broken and needs an update
BrazenLotus
2025-01-19 01:52:16 +0000 UTCThat makes sense, I can totally see that. So you prefer a little bit of depth, but more as a compliment than a challenge. This was helpful, thank you for the input! :)
BrazenLotus
2025-01-19 01:51:41 +0000 UTCI remember when this dropped. Me personally, though, I am a casual gardener in the game as in I use my gardens mostly for landscaping decoration, so making it harder would not have appealed to a simmer like me. But, this is also why I LOVED your Lively and Sheltered Garden mods. It gave easy depth to my gardens.
daluved1
2025-01-19 01:10:22 +0000 UTCOooohhhhh, ok! I was thinking it was all under one umbrella. Lol
Purrple Rayne
2025-01-18 23:18:11 +0000 UTCI remember your comment on the insects but I thought that was part of the Lively Garden trait, since that's the one that allows you to catch them. This DOES remind me that I need to take a look at that and get it fixed too. šš¼
BrazenLotus
2025-01-18 23:11:36 +0000 UTCI like the concept of the idea. I don't think it sucked! I had mentioned before that I couldn't catch or collect and box the bugs. I did not get any moodlets from the named effects. I did notice that the bug effect would turn on and off all at once.
Purrple Rayne
2025-01-18 23:03:46 +0000 UTCI was in the middle of a Big Game when this dropped. Will start a new save and see what I can find out.
Luke Hnida
2025-01-18 21:39:26 +0000 UTCI liked the sheltered garden one but sometimes it doesn't always work and I think that's just with patches or other mod conflicts
Tiffany Perry
2025-01-18 20:47:44 +0000 UTCSomehow I missed it. I'm downloading now to give it a run.
Megan Titus
2025-01-18 20:43:31 +0000 UTC
