Hi! This is for the team at EA who are hopefully picking up on feedback and looking to constantly improve these new forums. What I’d like to stress, and ask for from all us lovely Simmers, is that this isn’t a place for being overly negative, aggressive or angry towards the team or specific staff. I’ve seen quite a few reactions that are just that and if we want to improve things, while we don’t have to be overly positive either, we need to be constructive at least. Having been a member of the original Sims forums and the newer rendition in recent years, I think it’s fair to say what keeps the forums running is the sense of community. So a few things I think that would help this would be:customisation for profiles - avatars, signatures, adding social media links or blogs/websites so we can find each other elsewhere. Paying specific attention to each rendition of the game, the Sims 3 community is massive and has been around a lot longer. So please consider us when making changes! I can see the sims 4 forum/threads already have plenty more tags and options than ours do as well as sub forums that we haven’t been able to keep. We have a whole community of storytellers that benefitted from the stories and legacies subforum and whether the game is 15 years old or not it deserves to live on. Changes to the formatting of threads and replies. I’ve noticed it is already hiding multiple replies under a “show more” filter which limits conversation. Also nesting replies is confusing, the original board style was much easier to navigate and chat on, which is what these forums are all about. As already highlighted, changing the automatic filtering by likes to newest would make it feel more relevant and conversational as a quick fix in the mean time. I personally miss being able to bookmark threads, especially since the sims 3 forums have lost our sub forums and all the migrated ones are in the franchise discussion (please rectify this!). I can’t navigate to what I want to read and am losing track of what I’ve chatted on unless I get notified. Could we also have a list of the rankings just out of interest? I have no idea what a traveler is but apparently I am one 😂 As always, super grateful to the team for taking feedback on board and looking forward to improvements and developments as they come! Happy Simming! Lizzie

I would like to have: -Custom avatars-Signature banners-A way to hide the panel of stuff that's on the right side so that the main text area becomes centered on the screen instead of being shoved to the left side of the screen-The option to make the font size slightly larger (as a personalization option)-Sub-categories within the categories (for example, "Sims Creative Corner" divided into stories, lots, sims etc. like we have on this forum)-A quicker way to return to the Sims 4 main page after looking at your own profile (currently, once you open your own profile, you can only jump back to the EA Forums page and then have to re-click on Sims 4 to get to the Sims 4 page)-A way to jump straight to the last comment that you read, but still have all comments be in chronological order (like we can do here) so you can continue reading the discussion from where you left off.-A way to turn off the snippet text below the thread names so the list of threads showing on a category's main page doesn't look so overwhelmingly cluttered. I just want to see the names of the threads and who created it not the first paragraph of each thread in that list.-A way to turn off the automatic line skip when hitting "enter". I would like to control whether a line gets skipped or not myself, not have it be automatic.I am very disappointed by: -Images in threads that were imported from the old forum no longer being seen as images. A lot of the threads we nominated to be moved here were nominated because we wanted to preserve all those screenshots people shared. The story threads and screenshot sharing threads in particular are completely ruined because all the pictures are not visible. To expect us to go back and re-link each and every image in thousands and thousands of comments is very frustrating.Things I do like:-The tool bar is at the bottom of the text box instead of the top. This is awesome. When creating a long post, I don't have to keep scrolling back up to the top of the box to use the tools.-Being able to actually see the images I include in the post as I am writing and putting them in (rather than only seeing the link until I post the comment). This is really helpful for making sure I linked the right image.More detailed comments:I find the new forum very cluttered, in a way that makes it feel unpleasant to me.The main reasons are:-too many things on the screen (especially the side panel on the right needs a way to be hidden from view)-the main panel is shoved to the left (off center, making it feel uncomfortable to read)-the lists of threads have lengthy snippets that make make the whole thing feel overwhelming and cluttered to me. It gives me that off-putting "wall of text" feeling that makes me want to just leave.Old forum, list of threads is centered. There is nothing else on the page besides the list. The list is just titles, so many titles fit on the screen, and it is easy to read what the titles are.New forum, list of titles is shoved to the left side of the screen because of the unnecessary panel of tags and highlights and featured stuff that I don't even want to see when I am looking at the list of threads in this category. And each thread has a lengthy snippet that makes it so I can only see a couple titles at a time, and I also just feel off-put by how much text there is.The same problems occur even when reading just one thread.Old forum, nice and clean, centered, just the thread I'm reading. New forum, cluttered and off-centered.For me, it feels unpleasant and makes me not want to stay and try to read anything. I feel overwhelmed by sensory input, and just generally uncomfortable. We need some options to hide the side panel, hide the snippets, and to make the main thread or category list centered in the screen. Different people will probably have different preferences, so it would be nice if these options could be personalization settings for our own accounts.I also find it difficult to read lengthy threads such as long ongoing discussions, and serially posted stories. Using the "by oldest" sorting option puts things properly in chronological order (this is good), but then I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the part I haven't read yet (this is bad). The "by newest" option puts things in reverse chronological order (which is useless because then the story is backwards). I would like an option to put things in chronological order and then jump straight to the posts I haven't read yet.It's like if you have a book and your only options are start at the beginning and read forwards, or start at the end and read backwards. You have no option to start where you left off last time and continue reading forward.In general, this new forum doesn't feel as inviting for having discussions and sharing things as the old one does. It feels more like a forum to ask questions and get answers. Obviously, we can still use it for discussions, but it just feels like it's not set up with that use in mind.

I will add my feedback here too, in hope it will be seen. I'm just seconding things mentioned already, but I wanted to emphasize that they really are important for so many of us!Please make the chronological view the default one in forum threads. It's the view that makes the most sense for the majority of forum conversations. They are ongoing conversations between multiple people - they are not at all about finding the best answer to a question the OP asked.Please introduce a way for us to find the first unread post in a thread and read from there!Please introduce numbered pages for forum threads - there are many really long threads from the old forum that are very popular, that feel almost like mini-communities in themselves, and numbered pages are essential to navigate through them.Please divide the Sims 3 section into subforums! At least General Discussion, Technical Issues, Stories and Legacies, Building, Custom Worlds.Last but not least, our individual avatars are important too! It's strange talking to players we know without seeing their "face".

There doesn't seem to be a collated feedback thread on here, so I'm going to tack my response on to this one. Copied and pasted from the official Sims forums:At the moment, I don't like the new forums. And I'm not just resistant to change! I'm just resistant to bad design.1) No custom avatars except for certain ranks. Yes, I know that it's "being looked into". But that means it's not a guarantee. The fact that you chose a forum style without first ensuring that users would all be able to choose an avatar is really telling. This should have been a bigger priority, because nothing makes me feel less welcome on the new forum than you taking away a feature I had here and telling me that only your chosen ranks get it now. This should have been looked into and set up before you launched.(As an aside: I don't really want my EA account avatar for the new forum. I chose a Sims-related avatar for a Sims-related forum.)2) Nested replies makes finding new responses harder. I read a lot of threads, and I appreciate that I can read them in chronological order. Having to jump back up to nested replies - on the off chance that there is something new - makes reading through the flow of a conversation incredibly difficult.3) "Show More" instead of page numbers is a pain to load. My browser will eventually give up on loading if a thread gets to be too long. If I can't load an entire thread, I can't read it.4) Forum posts are small and hard to distinguish from each other. On this forum, avatars are big and I can quickly tell when I'm finishing one post and starting another from a different user. On the new forum, I can see when someone has finished their comment, but all of the posts feel more "collapsed" and it's a lot easier for my eyes to slip over posts without fully taking them in.5) The new forum feels cluttered. When I read a thread on here, my eyes are drawn only to the posts/replies in the specific thread. On the new forum, the sidebar of related posts/recent discussions ends up drawing my eye and makes the browsing/reading experience less enjoyable.I was actually expecting the new forum to be closer to the Answers HQ style, which is - bizarrely - a bit more like this forum. Posts are more distinct, avatars are large and noticeable, browsing is done through page numbers. The biggest issue for me with the Answers HQ style is that the posts column is too thin, like it was designed for viewing on a phone (which feels a bit silly because most of EA's games are probably played on PC or console).The new forums feel frustrating to participate in. They feel oddly devoid of character, and easy to ignore, like when you see a bunch of example posts on a blog that are written in Latin. It does not feel like an upgrade or even a pleasant side-grade experience.

Additionally, I don't like that the follow feature is set to automatically follow any thread you post on. I only want to follow certain threads, such as the stories I read or discussion threads I plan to be actively involved in on a regular basis. I don't want notifications about every single thread I leave a comment on. And I don't want to have to go and click "unfollow" every time I post a comment on a thread that I don't actually want to follow. I would prefer it to be the other way around. I would like the default to be that I am not following threads unless I choose to click the button to follow.

We need custom avatars back. I feel like we lost our identity. The forum posts needs to be centered because it's way to far to left. It is very uncomfortable having to turn my head left to read posts. I use a computer to read forums, and I'm sure many others do as well. We need pagination because it's so annoying and hard to navigate. This forum is a huge downgrade from the original Sims forum in every way. There was nothing wrong with the old forum.

New Sims Forum Feedback | EA Forums

110 Replies

crinrict
Hero+
9 months ago
You can subscribe to threads. You basically follow them now. It's not a very good place to put this as it seems disconnected from the actual thread but I hope they change this.

Afterwards you should find them here (in theory.. this doesn't seem to work well).
I also think you're auto-subscribed to every thread you engage with.
luciusstorm
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
Like you said, works in theory... doesn't seem to work in practice at the moment. Probably a bug to be shaken out.
crinrict
Hero+
9 months ago
Actually, I found where you see them
Click on your avatar - My settings, then Follows and notification
Lizzielilyy
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
Yeah I’ve been using this but don’t find the interface very user friendly at all. At least on mobile Chrome I’m finding that my notifications aren’t consistent and I’m also getting notified when I’ve posted on a thread that I follow 😂 I much prefer being able to see a list of them on the same page rather than having to load a new page of all my subscriptions. The interface on the previous forum felt more intuitive.
crocobaura
Legend
9 months ago
I don't think it's useful to subscribe or auto-subscribe to threads. First, you get spammed with all kinds of notifications and some threads can be very active. Secondly, maybe you don't want to closely follow all threads and want to only engage with them occasionally. Regarding the forum ranks, they need to space them out further, I got five e-mails with notifications regarding new rank gained and one e-mail about new badge gained and I only made about four posts in this forum.
DaWaterRat
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
Yes, but we're supposed to get notifications. I haven't gotten a notification all day and I'm following one of the busier threads in the new sims forums. (I do have e-mail notifications turned off, because I don't need that kind of spam.)
GlacierSnowGhost
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
I would like to have:
-Custom avatars
-Signature banners
-A way to hide the panel of stuff that's on the right side so that the main text area becomes centered on the screen instead of being shoved to the left side of the screen
-The option to make the font size slightly larger (as a personalization option)
-Sub-categories within the categories (for example, "Sims Creative Corner" divided into stories, lots, sims etc. like we have on this forum)
-A quicker way to return to the Sims 4 main page after looking at your own profile (currently, once you open your own profile, you can only jump back to the EA Forums page and then have to re-click on Sims 4 to get to the Sims 4 page)
-A way to jump straight to the last comment that you read, but still have all comments be in chronological order (like we can do here) so you can continue reading the discussion from where you left off.
-A way to turn off the snippet text below the thread names so the list of threads showing on a category's main page doesn't look so overwhelmingly cluttered. I just want to see the names of the threads and who created it not the first paragraph of each thread in that list.
-A way to turn off the automatic line skip when hitting "enter". I would like to control whether a line gets skipped or not myself, not have it be automatic.
I am very disappointed by:
-Images in threads that were imported from the old forum no longer being seen as images. A lot of the threads we nominated to be moved here were nominated because we wanted to preserve all those screenshots people shared. The story threads and screenshot sharing threads in particular are completely ruined because all the pictures are not visible. To expect us to go back and re-link each and every image in thousands and thousands of comments is very frustrating.
Things I do like:
-The tool bar is at the bottom of the text box instead of the top. This is awesome. When creating a long post, I don't have to keep scrolling back up to the top of the box to use the tools.
-Being able to actually see the images I include in the post as I am writing and putting them in (rather than only seeing the link until I post the comment). This is really helpful for making sure I linked the right image.
More detailed comments:
I find the new forum very cluttered, in a way that makes it feel unpleasant to me.

The main reasons are:
-too many things on the screen (especially the side panel on the right needs a way to be hidden from view)
-the main panel is shoved to the left (off center, making it feel uncomfortable to read)
-the lists of threads have lengthy snippets that make make the whole thing feel overwhelming and cluttered to me. It gives me that off-putting "wall of text" feeling that makes me want to just leave.

Old forum, list of threads is centered. There is nothing else on the page besides the list. The list is just titles, so many titles fit on the screen, and it is easy to read what the titles are.
New forum, list of titles is shoved to the left side of the screen because of the unnecessary panel of tags and highlights and featured stuff that I don't even want to see when I am looking at the list of threads in this category. And each thread has a lengthy snippet that makes it so I can only see a couple titles at a time, and I also just feel off-put by how much text there is.
The same problems occur even when reading just one thread.

Old forum, nice and clean, centered, just the thread I'm reading.

New forum, cluttered and off-centered.
For me, it feels unpleasant and makes me not want to stay and try to read anything. I feel overwhelmed by sensory input, and just generally uncomfortable. We need some options to hide the side panel, hide the snippets, and to make the main thread or category list centered in the screen. Different people will probably have different preferences, so it would be nice if these options could be personalization settings for our own accounts.
I also find it difficult to read lengthy threads such as long ongoing discussions, and serially posted stories. Using the "by oldest" sorting option puts things properly in chronological order (this is good), but then I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the part I haven't read yet (this is bad). The "by newest" option puts things in reverse chronological order (which is useless because then the story is backwards). I would like an option to put things in chronological order and then jump straight to the posts I haven't read yet.
It's like if you have a book and your only options are start at the beginning and read forwards, or start at the end and read backwards. You have no option to start where you left off last time and continue reading forward.
In general, this new forum doesn't feel as inviting for having discussions and sharing things as the old one does. It feels more like a forum to ask questions and get answers. Obviously, we can still use it for discussions, but it just feels like it's not set up with that use in mind.
GlacierSnowGhost
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
Additionally, I don't like that the follow feature is set to automatically follow any thread you post on. I only want to follow certain threads, such as the stories I read or discussion threads I plan to be actively involved in on a regular basis. I don't want notifications about every single thread I leave a comment on. And I don't want to have to go and click "unfollow" every time I post a comment on a thread that I don't actually want to follow. I would prefer it to be the other way around. I would like the default to be that I am not following threads unless I choose to click the button to follow.
Evilfeline
Seasoned Veteran
9 months ago
Since we were asked to leave feedback here for the new forums, here goes. I don't hate them, but they need improvement.
I already miss the sub forums that were grouped together like all of the creative topics being further broken down by building, sims, video, stories, etc. Too many things are jumbled together.
I don't like at all that the default for replies is by likes which I feel says the posting is a popularity contest and the more popular you are the more deserving of attention your posts (and you) are.
The post nesting is something to get used to. I like that I can reply to the original poster but I can also reply to another poster in the thread with out totally derailing a thread. I does make things harder to read.
I'm really hoping that after the initial we will in time be able to customize our avatars. I can understand the restrictions now as I remember very well what happened during the launch of the original Sims 4 board (I don't ever want to see that again!). Hopefully things will go more smoothly this time and restrictions will ease soon. It would be nice to have a ballpark on when that might be.-
Kendrana
Seasoned Ace
9 months ago
Yes, I completely agree with you. On the old forums I had it set up to only be notified when following a thread or when someone mentions (quotes) me, but from everything I can tell there isn't any way to control any of that right now.