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BETA Access Mod Discussion (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-18 20:15:42
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

I 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 😅 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

Megan Titus

Somehow I missed it. I'm downloading now to give it a run.

Tiffany Perry

I liked the sheltered garden one but sometimes it doesn't always work and I think that's just with patches or other mod conflicts

Luke Hnida

I was in the middle of a Big Game when this dropped. Will start a new save and see what I can find out.

Purrple Rayne

I 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.

BrazenLotus

I 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. 👍🏼

Purrple Rayne

Oooohhhhh, ok! I was thinking it was all under one umbrella. Lol

daluved1

I 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.

BrazenLotus

That 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! :)

Pryzelton

I definitely missed that one. It sounds like it would add a lot of depth to the game! I’m not actively playing my game right now (life keeps getting in the way lol) … but would happily test if you do keep working on it.

Luciana Keil

hi, 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.

BrazenLotus

I'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

CJ

I 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.

Luke Hnida (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-19 08:00 TL;DR: Assuming some user error, the only major issue is bug infestations. Clarity in some places would be helpful. I couldn’t find if you had any specific requirements or preferences for beta test reports compiled anywhere. If there’s 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 didn’t use any other lot traits or challenges. The lot had every available BL plant and most of the EA plants. I’m not sure if some things aren’t working or if I’m 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 didn’t revert back to mounds, sims didn’t 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 didn’t 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 “bug prone” and “repels bugs.” I don’t know if this is an error and these are conflicting traits, or if this was intentional and the traits can work together. I couldn’t find the “repels bugs” trait in the BL gardening reference in-game, but the BL website says of sweet mint, “That fragrance repels bugs so strongly that bug infestations on nearby plants and beeboxes will disappear.” 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t hold a plant’s quality at “normal” for 2 days. I couldn’t 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 “heavy feeder” information, and neither did the notebook under “Complex Garden” 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 “normal” quality. A couple of plants have the note “cleans livestock.” In this situation, it may be unclear what “livestock” 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 don’t know if the “cleans livestock” 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 can’t even figure out how to change the footprint of an existing in-game object, so I don’t want to imagine what goes into making a mod with this level of monstrous complexity. -Natalya Hnida (Eda’s Blessing on Discord)
2025-01-19 12:23 TL;DR: Assuming some user error, the only major issue is bug infestations. Clarity in some places would be helpful. I couldn’t find if you had any specific requirements or preferences for beta test reports compiled anywhere. If there’s 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 didn’t use any other lot traits or challenges. The lot had every available BL plant and most of the EA plants. I’m not sure if some things aren’t working or if I’m 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 didn’t revert back to mounds, sims didn’t 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 didn’t 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 “bug prone” and “repels bugs.” I don’t know if this is an error and these are conflicting traits, or if this was intentional and the traits can work together. I couldn’t find the “repels bugs” trait in the BL gardening reference in-game, but the BL website says of sweet mint, “That fragrance repels bugs so strongly that bug infestations on nearby plants and beeboxes will disappear.” 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t hold a plant’s quality at “normal” for 2 days. I couldn’t 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 “heavy feeder” information, and neither did the notebook under “Complex Garden” 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 “normal” quality. A couple of plants have the note “cleans livestock.” In this situation, it may be unclear what “livestock” 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 don’t know if the “cleans livestock” 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 can’t even figure out how to change the footprint of an existing in-game object, so I don’t want to imagine what goes into making a mod with this level of monstrous complexity. -Natalya Hnida (Eda’s Blessing on Discord) P.S. I would pay expansion pack prices for this finished mod. If you abandon this mod, I will still play with it forever unless it ends up breaking my game somehow.

TL;DR: Assuming some user error, the only major issue is bug infestations. Clarity in some places would be helpful. I couldn’t find if you had any specific requirements or preferences for beta test reports compiled anywhere. If there’s 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 didn’t use any other lot traits or challenges. The lot had every available BL plant and most of the EA plants. I’m not sure if some things aren’t working or if I’m 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 didn’t revert back to mounds, sims didn’t 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 didn’t 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 “bug prone” and “repels bugs.” I don’t know if this is an error and these are conflicting traits, or if this was intentional and the traits can work together. I couldn’t find the “repels bugs” trait in the BL gardening reference in-game, but the BL website says of sweet mint, “That fragrance repels bugs so strongly that bug infestations on nearby plants and beeboxes will disappear.” 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t hold a plant’s quality at “normal” for 2 days. I couldn’t 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 “heavy feeder” information, and neither did the notebook under “Complex Garden” 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 “normal” quality. A couple of plants have the note “cleans livestock.” In this situation, it may be unclear what “livestock” 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 don’t know if the “cleans livestock” 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 can’t even figure out how to change the footprint of an existing in-game object, so I don’t want to imagine what goes into making a mod with this level of monstrous complexity. -Natalya Hnida (Eda’s Blessing on Discord) P.S. I would pay expansion pack prices for this finished mod. If you abandon this mod, I will still play with it forever unless it ends up breaking my game somehow.

Megaroni Noodles

Hi. 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.

Brianna Loyd

I use and love both sheltered and lively lot traits. I must have missed the beta last year

Diane Sweeney

I 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 :)

Betty Ann Kattner

I use the sheltered garden lot trait on all my lots with gardens and love it. Thanks for your hard work!

Genaeve

I would absolutely love this. I did not know it existed. (Sorry for the late reply)

Miranda Angell

i love the waste not one, i havent really used the others

icedtangerine

I love the complex lot trait. I really enjoy the added challenge of needing to be intentional with my planting, and it makes gardening in the game feel more immersive imo. While testing the mod, I also experienced daily infestations, sometimes multiple times a day. Even when bug prone plants were completely surrounded by bug repellant plants, they would still get infested daily. I also experienced issues with an inconsistency in plant evolution. Some plants would evolve almost immediately upon planting without ever using fertilizer. Other plants would take a little longer, but I would be able to evolve them a day or two after planting, again without fertilizer. At first I thought it was the great soil lot trait messing with it, so I started a new save and didn't put that lot trait on, however the evolution remained inconsistent. Relating to the plants that get mice infestations: are there plants that repel mice, or a way we could catch them? Maybe if we have a cat, there's an option for the cat to catch the mice? I really enjoy that in the references it lists how the ingredients can be used, and found that very helpful so thank you! Unrelated to the complex lot trait, I tried to use the sheltered lot trait in conjunction with it, and it wasn't working. Plants that were out of season remained dormant. I play a lot of homesteading saves, and your mods are a must have for my folder. Thank you so much for all of your hard work, thought, and care that goes into your mods.