And this post clarifies and confirms what I have been saying: the check occurs when you go to your house. You have seen needs develop when you are in your house. This does not occur when you don't go home. It only occurs when you go home. Whether it happens when you first get to the house, or sometime after you are already there to me is irrelevant. The point is that the trigger for garden needs/pests/health is linked to you visiting your garden house.
The needs or pests checks are triggered when you go home. It is not tied to your logging on to the game.
You can log on to the game and play as much as you want, without any fear of your plants wilting or dying in your absence, so long as you left the plants cared for before you left your house. If your plants were cared for before you left, then the most that will happen is they will develop needs or pests, and/or will progress a stage of growth, when next you return to your house. So long as you come home with full energy to care for all the needs, then your plants will be fine -- you can tend to needs and eliminate pests.
As you said, it is wise to do this as the last thing you do in the house, and then not return again to that house until you have energy to care for the plants again.
However, you absolutely do not have to log off at that point. You just have to refrain from going back to your garden until you have energy to tend to the garden. I frequently tend plants first thing when I log on, so I don't forget to do it, and then I go play sometimes for a few hours after that. My gardens are still just fine.
And by leaving your house, I did not just mean on vacation. I meant while still playing your character, just not going to the garden house.
However, the question of whether the cycles are sped up by more frequent visits is an interesting thought, and you may be right on that account. If the checks occur when you visit, then you may in fact speed up the process by visiting more often. For me, however, this is offset by the fact that if you visit without full energy, you may have to buy energy with crowns to tend to plant needs.
As I said in one of the earlier posts, I usually tend gardens once a day. That works pretty well for me. More often than that gets to be an expensive energy drain. However, less often is perfectly safe and fine, as it will not harm the gardens.
But the most important part is to always go to the garden home with full energy to tend gardens when you go. Progress to wilting occurs when you leave the garden with unmet needs.
"However, the question of whether the cycles are sped up by more frequent visits is an interesting thought, and you may be right on that account. If the checks occur when you visit, then you may in fact speed up the process by visiting more often."
My experience in this matter is really about timing. More frequent visits CAN speed up development but only under specific circumstances. While you are away from the house, logged in or not, plants will only progress to the next stage and then stop until you visit and address needs. So if your plants are only 30 mins from the next stage, and you visit, take care of needs, then leave until tomorrow... Your plants will be at the 0-bar of the next stage when you return tomorrow. If you decide to wait until they change stage and visit again, then leave the house until tomorrow, they will progress 24h into the next development bar.
Let me clarify that I am speaking about wilting. If I garden and remove all pests and needs, then go play another wizard...I can assure you that my garden develops needs and pests in a matter of hours. If I do not login for days, then that timeframe is moved on for days too (like prolonged stasis).
Now, plants moving over into a dead state is different. That has been confirmed by KI that plants will not move into a dead state if you are not logged in and they were not wilted prior (they have never mentioned anything about the house itself). Below is the post from KI about that (and it also indicates that your plants can wilt regardless if you visit the garden house or not). Read it along with the previous link provided.
Regardless of how we see the issue, I believe Finn's earlier advice is best. If you are going to garden, make sure you do so with enough energy to eradicate all pests and needs that has crept up since your last visit, as leaving either pests or needs when you leave will be very bad. For Crowns players, this is usually once a day while members can garden more frequently.
If I do not login for days, then that timeframe is moved on for days too (like prolonged stasis).
Even if you do log in, the effects are the same.
Overanalyzing checks, cycles, etc, etc is irrelevent. It really doesn't matter how often your plants accumulate pests or needs, how many it has the next time you check, nor how long they have been there.
The important piece of information is that the wilting effects caused by pests and needs will not be activated until your castle is visited, and the wilting process won't begin unless you leave your castle without taking care of all needs. It's really no more complicated than that.
Not sure how my post confirms that needs or pests checks occur when you go to your house, since every post I've quoted from KI have all said "login" and there is no possible way to check your plants without going to the house. I've only merely seen evidence of the plants being "timed" given that they refresh every 15 mins. and the fact each plant has a different "timer" (it isn't far fetched to assume this "timing" continues without you present in the house). Even prevention spells are timed...48 hours, 96 hours, etc. In fact, likes and dislikes directly affect the "timer" even while you are away. In one of the posts I quoted from Zeke, he even made reference that the plants will continue to grow even during maintenance down time (and possibly change cycles without visiting your house).
Additionally, if what you say is correct, every castle on tour with a garden would be at risk of dying continuously, simply because that house is top rated and has a player in it constantly. Somehow, I don't think KI would allow that, but rather even if the castle is on tour it is still tied to the "timer" that started when you first planted the seed (or the current cycle).
None of us know for sure how the checks or triggers work, but just because someone said it in a guide, doesn't necessarily make it true. We all suspect the cycles change only by visiting your house, but I personally have noticed a difference in needs/pests accumulation when playing for hours vice logged off (not cycles). I believe we all agree that energy management is really the heart of "advanced" gardening.
As far as the tours point goes, that is a good point and I think you are right -- I myself have not had that experience. I have never put my garden house itself on tour, but I have put my other houses on tour and I have porters to the garden house, and that has not made any difference for me either. So I think you are right about that, it should make no difference.
And as well, "just because someone said it in a guide, doesn't necessarily make it true" -- fair enough and well said.
On the other hand, it also does not make it false. So we have to test it out.
As far as I can tell, we actually have pretty much the same experience gardening. We may be explaining it differently, but I don't think we are actually having different results. I too have noticed the plants refreshing their graphics when at home, and I have had plants develop needs while I am at home.
From what you describe, too, it does not sound like you have ever experienced your plants going from a no-needs and/or no-pest state directly to a wilted state just because you logged on several times. When you check on your plants, you find needs have developed. But what I am saying is that is all you (or anyone) will find, unless you do not tend the needs when you find them.
You can actually log on and off all you want, and it will not make the needs worse nor will it make your plants progress from needy to wilted. The only way to find the needs is to go home. Yes, when you go home, you will likely find needs and/or pests to take care of. But as long as you take care of them, your plants will be fine. The only way you are going to kill your plants, is to ignore the needs when you find them.
If it were strictly a matter of logging on, then I assure you my plants would all be dead. I log on a lot more often than I go to my garden. So if the progression from no-needs to needs to wilting were tied directly to logging on, I would have dead gardens.
I think you are right that there is some timing mechanism involved -- after a certain amount of time needs can develop -- but the trigger for checking for the needs is linked to your going home. If you go home and conditions/timing are right, you will have needs. If you tend them, you are fine and progress positively. If you don't, your next visit home the progression is negative, and wilting may occur. But the progression is always only one step at a time, and only actually happens when you are home.
I see the debate about timing of needs. They can and sometimes do appear while you are present in the house. I have only seen this happen if you hang around the house for very long periods after addressing needs of some plants, others that didn't have any, or just changed stages sometimes develop them. Like Finn said, all that really matters is leaving your house with no needs hanging over them.
As to the tours issue, they may have fixed that issue. I don't have my gardens on the tours because they were causing wilting and excess needs when the tours were first added.
i think Zeke said, if you show any activity, your plants will trigger needs. if you wait a month, your plants will be safe. if you wait a week, they will be in critical condition, or possibly dead. checking on them frequently won't minimize your timer.
i think Zeke said, if you show any activity, your plants will trigger needs. if you wait a month, your plants will be safe. if you wait a week, they will be in critical condition, or possibly dead. checking on them frequently won't minimize your timer.
I'd like to see that, because it's not true. Activity doesn't trigger needs. Only being in the same location as the plants triggers them. If the plants are outside and you have a teleport from another house that takes you inside that home. Even that visit will not set off triggers if you don't go outside. It's really not complicated. If you leave your plants with no needs, they will NEVER develop needs or progress to the next stage UNTIL you visit them again. As for checking frequently, that has been addressed as well. If you check your garden and they happen to be 15 mins away from the next stage, then you leave after needs are done. If you return in 15 mins, they will have progressed to next stage and you could possibly have some needs. If you return a day, week or 2 months later, they will have progressed to the same point with needs. The timer to next stage will be 0 in all those circumstances.
I just got burnt on my EMPs for double rewards. Seems with avid tending my peas decided to get lazy and take an extra day to elder. From now on I am only going back to progress them to the next stage.
Ex. EMPs take like 3 hours or so to go from seed to young. So you plant your seeds with all the likes there and then go back at least 3 hours later and your seeds will turn or have turned to young. Then young to mature is like 7-8 hours. So leave for the next 8 hours (add in a buffer hour if needed) and then come back to move them to mature. After they go mature, simply wait the 2-3 days till elder and go harvest. Or go daily if you want to do mature harvests.
I was at my house 4-5 times per day during this double rewards and all I ended up with was plants taking an extra day to elder and double mature harvests, which is just a headache. And I missed the double rewards (free seeds) to boot. Trying to take that in stride, but since EMPs are only farmed in Avalon with miserable drop rates or bought, by overtending I missed out on about $60 in free seeds for my wife and I.
