Plants Reverting Evolve to Normal [ Edited ]

[crinrict]

@SimInfinity It doesnt' really matter what I think. It's been forwarded and QA will decide if it's a bug or not.

EDIT:

Also, there might be multiple issues at play here. Some could be by design while others are odd (quality going down)

[SimInfinity]

Thank you for responding. My question was based on you indicating you put it on "unsure". Not EA, but you. But it is a moot point if it has been forwarded. I suppose we'll have to play without any environmental effects. Fortunately the Footprint feature is not the most exciting feature, once you've seen it a few times, it loses its appeal.

I can say that having played for several real-life days with Eco Footprint turned off, that all my plants have continued to behave as they normally do. And a few of them have now reached Perfect stage and have stayed there. The vertical gardens also work just fine.

I can also say that from digging through the tuning files, it would appear that the gardening bonus is how fast a plant grows and how often it needs maintenance (weeds, watering). I have yet to find any mentioning of auto-(d)evolution.

[crinrict]

@SimInfinity You also said that your main concern is that it's not being fixed because of the tag and that's not an issue.

I'm mostly basing the tag on the first post and at some point, decreasing quality came in the mix.

I think, there's a general misconception of what I do here. Yes, I forward stuff but I mostly work for the community to keep stuff together and the bug forum clean (and yes, that's very hard to do and there's cases where there should be multiple threads but if people report in existing threads, splitting becomes very time consuming) and providing a list so you guys see what's already been reported. I invite you to go look at some of the other bug forums to see how it's handled there. Maybe you would prefer that.

EA/Maxis is monitoring this forum and they decide what gets fixed and what not and when. I have nothing to do with that. Me too counts and traffic in a thread are important, that's why I merge threads that are the same.

There's basically three states a thread can have: Fixed, Issue reported (most tags) + By design. By design and fixed issues are closed (although there have been fixes for by design issues also if they became really popular) while the others are open. I'm just trying to distinguish between the issues so people get an idea of what to expect and maybe try find their own info.

So basically all of these are in my eyes open issues that were sent to Maxis:
- Workaround: There's a known workaround to the issue that might or might not work for you
- Open: Popular issues
- Needs Input: Reported issues, a few more people saying they have it would be nice
- Needs Saves: QA needs saves
- Needs Info: Anyone got something to add that could help narrow down the issue ?
- Unsure: Sounds like a bug but could very well be by design. I know this is a borderline tag and no matter how I tag stuff, there's always someone not happy with it. Same if I put something to as open or needs input where people are convinced that it's by design.

At the end of the day, it's impossible to do right by everyone.

I'm also currently not reading threads as I'm busy playing another game and basically just handle new posts and not existing ones. That's just how it is, I don't work for EA so I can choose to do that.

If you have further question (or want to discuss further how it works), please use this thread to not further derail this thread: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/PLEASE-READ-Information-Questions-about-the-bug-forum/td-p/636...

[tigrina_tigs]

I think the quality going down is related to the air quality issue. Plants go perfect when air quality is good from the Eco Footprint Green, but since there is also a bug in some neighbourhoods at least that makes the footprint bounce, the plant quality also bounces.

The weird thing is that my lots shouldn't have the footprint as I turned it off, but both air quality and the plant 'level' don't bounce. Footprint stays green and the plants level up to perfect and stay there.

/to me it feels very very weird to have plant quality bounce, as they are so linked to Gardener aspirations and also just gardener work? i do think it's by design but i really don't like this design. it makes everything gardener useless. you can have the hydroponic planters and just weed and 'debug' your plants and have an entirely different career next to it. or live in an industrial or bouncy neighbourhood and have your work undone by air quality.

[SimInfinity]

Whatever it is, it's very annoying. Yesterday I noticed after loading up my save that all plants were back to Excellent. After coming back from the Flea Market, they were back on Perfect. And the Footprint is turned off, those plants have been working just fine for a week now, I actually had to work to get them to Perfect.

However, I still believe there is indeed a connection, as every once in a while when I take an action towards either Eco or Industrial, I get the notification telling me my neighborhood is now Green. So even turning it off doesn't completely turn it off.

I have to say, I love what the pack offers, just not how it goes about it.

One of the worst things is how NPC's harvest everything now. I don't even have a chance to harvest my own plants now, let alone wild plants. I fenced in my garden and locked it for everybody but my household. The first guest I invited into my home didn't even stop to talk, they walked right through my sim (literally) and to the vertical gardens, harvested them all, then came back to have a chat. That's just wrong. This is the first pack where I wouldn't feel bad about killing off random sims. Garbage collector is even worse, they don't need an invite, they invite themselves in for a quick meal and some games on the computer. And harvesting my plants of course.

[SimInfinity]

Yup, still linked. I checked all my plants to see if they could be harvested. They were all Perfect. Then I went into build/buy to store the fabricator in my Household inventory, changed my mind and came back out without making any changes. I got a notification "Eco Footprint is Neutral" even though Eco Footprint has been turned off. I checked my plants again and they were all Magnificent.

So much for turning off Eco Footprint being the workaround. Now I need it to glitch back to Green if I want plants to be Perfect again...

[tigrina_tigs]

I've had exactly this happen (I also play without eco footprints in theory). It normally glitches right back when I go into build/buy again.

Somehow I can travel with the family anywhere in the worlds, even vacation doesn't change the 'non-existing green footprint', but the family inventory changes it (sometimes).

[Yaanika]

I turned off the eco footprint too, in hopes that would fix the gardening bugs. But no, it had no effect. Plants still revert to planted and the quality randomly changes all of the time. Sometimes I still get notifications that my neighborhood is now green or neutral, even with the option turned off. 

[SimInfinity]

I have noticed that even when you turn the footprint off, the game doesn't seem to realize that upon leaving BuildBuy. So if you go into buildbuy and place an object, it tends to make it jump, and the plants jump quality as a result. Just now I placed a TV and upon leaving BuildBuy the footprint jumped to Neutral and the plants to Excellent. When I placed a solar panel, the Footprint jumped to Green and the plant quality to Perfect.

The buffs are also applied when the Footprint notification appears.

EDIT:

Did it a second time. I was neutral, plants were Excellent. I went into BuildBuy, placed the generator into the household inventory, came out of BuldBuy. Immediately got the Eco Footprint is Green notification and all plants were Perfect again.

Can people try this?

EDIT2:

Even easier. I went into BuildBuy today just to move a newly planted plant to a better spot. As soon as I came out, I got the Eco = Neutral message and all plants had reset to Excellent.

I was so annoyed that I used the cheat to change it back to green, which works even when it's turned off in the game options. Lo and behold, all plants were perfect again. So, if the Gurus need to reproduce it, use the cheat to shift up and down and automagically see the plant quality change,

For the rest of you: "eco_footprint.set_eco_footprint_state 0"

[Yaanika]

@SimInfinity +1. Can confirm.