Opinion on New Forums

I can't recall using a worse forum than this new one.

No profile pictures, so subcategories, no page numbers so having to scroll endlessly, having to sign in every time I visit... I could go on. 

The new forums are grossly unsuited to a huge community such as The Sims, and it's sad to see such a downgrade from the old forums. Interacting with each other shouldn't be a chore. 

Same, I hate the layout and the 'sorting' - it's a pain to have to try to get a view of what replies are new and actually read the things you wanna read. It's so bad. 

The real problem, I think (based on what the EA folks over the feedback forum have said), is that most of the critical problems people have with these forums - sorting, no page numbers, nested replies, no custom avatars, etc. - are all fundamental ways the new forums work. They can't be fixed, because they aren't actually broken. They are quite literally "features not bugs."

I hope I'm wrong or misunderstanding something, because if I'm not the only real fix I can envision would be for EA to scrap these forums and start again with another new backend. I don't think that's likely.

I'm nodding so hard in agreement that I'm giving myself a headache.

I would like to do an interview with the designer(s) of this platform to ask what type of research they've done in order to end up with this -totally out of touch with the (sims) community- answer of a forum. 

The disgraceful lack of page numbers and non-chronological layout, the constant sign out / sign in, the re-loading of pages, the LAG, the JUMPS, ARGH- ALL that and more-completely breaks the flow of any discussion. It drives me ab-so-lute-ly bonkers. 
It's like....it's like...DANG DONUTS I'm going to say it:  it's like bad woohoo. The worst kind of woohoo to be more specific. (Oh well now ye know one of my "milestones".💀)

I might sound like an aul' broken record since I already mentioned it about 50 times or so, but this forum is not designed for the community. At least not the kind of community that cares for having in-depth discussions and sharing easy to follow stories. There's absolutely no way this was built for us. No way.
It was created for EA community managers and moderators to deal with a disposable type of community.  The sims / EA community is too large and has become too outspoken to manage, so perhaps they figured it is best to limit who comes here. Make it difficult for people to stay. No individuality, near impossible to navigate, just say your bit and go.
This is a drive thru folks, not a cosy pub.  "Welcome, schmellcome -don't stay too long now, whatever you do. Bye. "

Speaking of pubs, there are lovely pubs around, but no thanks to whoever came up with this forum. That's all community effort. Guess I'm ready for a Salty Llama now. Whee! 🕳️

I will add my own two cents to this conversation, because I quite agree, this forum is just...awful.  

I showed this site to a professional web designer who once specialized in usability testing. We were looking on my phone while I tried to navigate these forums, and he'd ask me to tap on certain things to see what happened. At one point, the entire site started strobing on my phone. Not an exaggeration. It completely went ballistic, I couldn't tap on anything and couldn't even look at it. Here's what he said throughout:

"That's bad."
"That's...really bad."
"Wow, that's really, really bad."

I pointed to the EA icon at the top and said, "This is the forum of a multi-billion dollar company. Did they hire an amateur? It looks like it was designed by someone they found cheap on Fiverr." 

He replied, "It was probably only designed to work on PC." 

I said, "Yeah, but it functions pretty much the same on that as well." 

He just made a sound of derision.

So I feel a need to point out that the strobing risk is crazy dangerous. I am fortunate that I don't have to worry about seizures, but from what I've read over the years, many people who use the Sims forums do, and they've spoken up whenever changes were made in the game that bothered them. This site needs to be fixed promptly, and if it cannot be fixed, we need to either have our old forums back, or a new one designed by actual professionals who know what they're doing. 

I cannot believe it took at least five months for this forum. There is no way that it was worked on all that time. This thing runs like it was put up in a day. Is this what EA thinks of its communities? Especially the close-knit Sims 4 community who have kept the interest alive in this clunky, buggy game by being creative and sharing stories, creations, hype, and constant feedback for its improvement since its botched release? This is an insult to injury. There are many who use these forums in conjunction with their gameplay, and if the forums cannot be utilized, they will lose interest altogether. I've seen many already stating this. Maybe EA doesn't care about its forum community, but they should darn well care about paying customers who leave because they've taken away their enjoyment. 

I've been on forums of all kinds since 1992, and this is one of the least user-friendly ones I can remember trying to use. It's like someone took the worst features of XTwitter and Reddit desktop and mashed them together. Nothing works the way you think it should, most of the features and customization we used to enjoy are missing, and apparently the content here is driven by "likes," even though anyone who was familiar with the old forum (obviously whoever built this place is not) would know that this makes no sense for this audience. They should have recruited some of us from the old forum to test this place out and provide feedback before they launched it. But we know from experience (July 23 patch, anyone?) that EA does not do such things. 😄

The way these forums were designed makes them good for asking quick questions and getting help/feedback and nothing else, so I think the community that posts here will be significantly smaller in 6 months if things don't change. A lot of the topics (ex. What Happened in Your Game?) are just too difficult to navigate. We can see oldest, newest, and most liked posts, but anything in the middle is buried under endless "show mores". Very few, if any, new people are going to want to bother with this outside of trying to fix bugs in their game. 

Well I have washed my hands of this forum. It is the most un-user friendly website I've ever visited. It's almost worse than Reddit.

I'm unable to find anything. Topics that go together aren't grouped together. It's a hodgepodge. I makes me not want to be here.

When I go to "Load More", it jumps to the top and I literally have to scroll down again, and rinse repeat.

I'm seriously considering starting my own "old-school, regular format forum" where people can discuss and share just like the old official forum.

Plus!!!!! ..... it keeps changing my profile pic!

The layout and text gives me a headache. I used to love reading people's comments/looking at people's pictures, but this forum makes it difficult to do both. 😶

I get so lost I can't keep up with a conversation. And when I hit the show more button it jumps and scrolls back up and I don’t know... I'm just lost. Heck, I don’t even know how to find what I just posted so I can edit and add this so I just made a new reply.