Extent of the grafting bug? By Design

[oshizu]

**Edited by Playalot
QA guys have stated clearly that plants not growing the resulting harvestable from splicing two plants together is BY DESIGN. There is now a Chance Element in splicing so if your plant does not produce the desired spliced harvestable your sim will have to try again:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/BY-DESIGN-Splicing-doesn-t-produce-new-harvestable/td-p/6882771/page/3

(My apologies for taking over your post @oshizu  )


Oshizu's original post starts below:

My apologies if another thread like this already exists.
I did look for one but couldn't find an independent thread.
I've read here and there that post-patch splicing doesn't work to produce a third plant.

What I would like to know is whether grafting is okay if I only splice two plants together that wouldn't result in a third plant.
For example, if I spliced an orchid to a daisy, would both plants produce flowers?
All my plants are sheltered in a greenhouse and I'm playing 4th-gen legacy so I already have a complete garden collection.

I know I could test this myself but fear losing any of my new flowering plants.

[Ynde]

I'm pretty sure I've gotten both strawberries and snapdragons from a spliced plant (which should have produced a third plant, but didn't). I've also attempted to splice a couple of tree fruits in with faster-growing flowers, and so far I haven't gotten anything but the original flowers from those plants. I'd say you don't have to worry about losing the plant you graft onto, though, so far I've always at least been able to get the original produce from all my grafted plants, once they re-grow after the grafting. But that's just going by my limited experience, my testing hasn't exactly been extensive.

[oshizu]

@Ynde

Are you saying that:
You get two types of harvestables when you splice two plants which normally would produce a third harvestable?
But if you graft two plants together that never produce a third harvestable, you can only harvest the original plant (the graftee, so to speak)?

I've only played Seasons for 2-3 in-game days so far.
My two-type spliced plants show both harvestables at the moment, so I'm wondering if it's temporary.

Thank you for sharing your experience Ynde.

[callycat]

It doesn't seem to be that simple, unfortunately. I've had two plants produce one fruit of the third harvestable after splicing, but dozens that only produced the original two, some that produced only the original and some that didn't produce anything at all (all while in season or in greenhouses). Similar mixed results with spliced plants that wouldn't produce a third. 

Edit - and one of the third harvestables that I managed to get, when planted never produced anything. 

[Heart Foam]

I had this same worry with my happy eugenics riot of fun. But in another save I've been playing with the flower arranging, and to get perfect new plants I've been planting perfect tomatoes (I'll call that bush p) and grafting holly (I'll call that bush q) as one example on to that, and the spliced bush p definitely produced both perfect tomatoes and perfect holly.

So I think tomatoes are safe. Some plants are probably more buggy than others.

[Ynde]

With the newest patch, I am now getting at least two types of produce from each of my grafted plants. I have yet to get a dragonfruit from either of my two snapdragon/strawberry/dragonfruit plants, though. It seems as though four is now the largest number of harvestables you can get from a plant, so maybe that's causing the problem, or possibly I just need to keep trying a while longer.

[MrsFlynn]

It appears that splicing doesn't produce new harvestables is by design.

[BY DESIGN] Splicing doesn't produce new harvestable
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/BY-DESIGN-Splicing-doesn-t-produce-new-harvestable/m-p/6894966#M66194

[oshizu]

Thanks for calling our attention to this MrsFlynn.
I was getting ready to tear out all my three-harvest plants to replace with two-harvest plants. *sighs

[Playalot]

I'm not very happy with this change and it would have been nice if the devs had told us of this change in the Live Stream for example.

[Heart Foam]

I've got a save where I've been testing new things this past real life week, and doing the gardener career, and I'm trying to get orchids and bird of paradise. It's been maybe 10 in-game days, and I haven't got either of the fruit I'm trying for.

I get that it's a lower chance... but maybe it's too low? I'm wondering how I'm supposed to get these plants at all.

[scoed]

I am so glad my garden was super well established before this last major patch/expansion as they sure did nerf garden splicing. And worse they did it with zero communication. Greenhouses are now mandatory for year round profit as most plants only produce one season a year yet require 3 seasons worth of care, splicing is a bad joke, and well seed packets are random and the best way to get rare seeds. This is by design but very annoying making gardening less fun. This isn't counting the forever watering/weeding/spraying for bugs bug, the can't buy the rare seed packets bug or the disappearing scarecrow bug. I used to enjoy gardening and every non-apartment living sims family had one but at this time I am frustrated with it.

This lack of communication added to lack of communication on other areas of the game like say cheats, sure is frustrating. Nerfs aren't fun, but sometimes needed, but surprise nerfs they tell use about a week or so later, after we spend time trying to fix (clearing cache files, repairing the game, looking for fixes on the forums and the like) the intended nerf thinking it is a bug, that is not acceptable.

MrsFlynn Thanks for the information. The way they handled this last few patches and Seasons is very irritating to say the least. Now at least we know and can move on. Sure wish they put this is the patch notes. 3 or 4 sentences would have saved everyone some time.

[oshizu]

@Playalot
I heartily agree. What's the point of stealthily letting us a know--after so many weeks of hype and a week after Seasons' release--that the difficulties we've been experiencing with both new and pre-existing gardens is "by design"?
I smell a glitch that nobody's owning up to... (haha, conspiracy theory!)

@scoed
I share your feelings of frustration and disappointment.
Thank you for expressing that so well!
Gardening was my favorite skill in the game...

[Ynde]

If the not producing the third type of plant is by design, then the mouse-over info for the grafted plants is bugged, because all of my grafted plants claim that they will produce the expected harvestables (the mouse-over pop-up will show "spliced plant" and list three types of produce) and yet not one of them has ever given me more than two types of harvestables. And I've tried multiple times. Thankfully I'm not really into strict challenges. I will be purchasing the plants I have "earned" with the hidden objects cheat. I'm not going to put up with this nonsense.

[Playalot]

I really do agree with the disappointment many of you are sharing. I feel it very keenly as really gardening was the one skill I did with all my sims, it was enjoyable, stress-free and actually I found the whole process of getting a full garden to Perfect as the one aspect of the game I looked forward to doing. 

Currently I am quite at a loss in my game. I have no real desire to play as now that gardening has become so stressful I just can't bring myself to bother playing. I still have the evolving bug so none of my plants evolve nor really need tending, obviously splicing is now a hit and miss with me getting a 'miss' every time. I loath the way the plants Out-of-Season look but planting everything in a glasshouse isn't ideal as plants do seem to grow much slower when they are shelter. (Or maybe this is just another bug I am experiencing.)

I didn't realize until all theses changes that I basically play TS4 as a gardening simulator! I suppose having played through every career and every dlc 'career' (restaurants, retail, vet etc) so many times and having completed every aspirations multiple times that gardening was the one area left of the game that I genuinely enjoyed.

I miss seeing my sims watering, weeding and evolving each plant. Instead now they water all, weed an area and then evolve plants from their bathroom while having a shower now that is an instant interaction that requires no input (no animation) from a sim. Instead I watching my sims Research Plant over and over and over again, performing this interaction on the same plant as there is no other way to really level up their gardening skill now that the plants need so little care. They also prune and shape bonsai but I have never found that fun.

It's difficult to look at the changes to gardening objectively. Had everything else been left as it was possibly I would find the chance element of splicing fun... but on top of all the changes and the bugs, well... *shrug* I give in really. tbh I've been playing through my games in my Steam Library and have no real desire to open Origin.

I also have to gripe about the weather in Seasons. I've now played 3 different save files from Spring to Winter and in all every day in Spring and Summer were either very cloudy or rainy. I'm quite sick and tired of grey depressing days in my game to the point where it is irritating me and I really find it all quite depressing to look at. I realize I can employ cheats (thanks to Twistedmexi), live in Oasis Springs or use the weather controller object but my point is...every single day during spring and summer as non-sunny days?

All this coupled to the gardening changes/bugs..well... No thanks, I'd rather play anything else as TS4 simply just isn't fun for me at all anymore.

[Playalot]

Well, I really have had it now...apparently the slow evolution is not a bug but also by design. I quote SimGuruNick:

"I'm not sure this is necessarily a bug, I think it might just be part of the new gardening design. Evolutions have slowed down, as it's now an end-game long-term goal. The Evolve commodity starts at around 50, and evolution is available at 100. Fertilize gives a solid amount of evolve commodity, depending on the quality of fertilizer but it's around 8. So you need to fertilize a plant about 7 times before it's ready to evolve. There are other factors that can affect the evolution rate as well, such as sheltering the plant. Sheltered plants have the benefit of being protected from the seasons but the evolution rate is much slower. Bluebells, for example, evolve 4x slower when sheltered than when not."

Quality of plants not/very slowly progressing/ No evolve
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Quality-of-plants-not-very-slowly-progressing-No-evolve/m-p/6894834/highlight/true#M66183

So looks like being sheltered also slows this rate down too.... honestly, what is left about gardening that is fun? I'm quite at a loss for any more discussion about this, perhaps tomorrow I will feel less 'ranty'. But who thought these changes were a good idea? This basically makes gardening impossible for rotational players and when playing with Seasons on the 'normal' length it means you'll only get one round of fertilizing in per season. This is absolutely ridiculous.