It may just be unpopular opinion, but I find these new forums to be painstakingly difficult to read ,(text is tiny, and colors are blinding), follow thread, my hand hurts from scrolling through hundreds of post I already read since day one to get to current. Newest somehow works but requires a lot waiting of leg work too. Is it just me. Have I been put on a delay?It wont let me post to threads all the time for just no good reason. Notifications are not as clear and prompt as last forum.While I think it may need kinks worked out, I myself may have to take to another forum. I may check in periodically to see if they have improved it, but for now, I can't.Let me know is anyone if experiencing the same or if it's just me.

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.

Opinion on New Forums | EA Forums

crocobaura
Seasoned Ace
4 months ago
It's not just you, everyone's experiencing the same. I put the zoom on page to 150, so text is not that tiny anymore.
FreddyFox1234
Seasoned Veteran
4 months ago
Definitely not just you, we're all finding these forums difficult in lots of ways. Just take a look through the feedback section of the forum and you'll see you're not alone 🙂
- leucosiax
  Seasoned Veteran
  4 months ago
  I can't find anything when i use search- even threads i know are definitely here.
MissIcewolf
Seasoned Traveler
4 months ago
I honestly hate it. It's slow, clunky and I feel I have to click 500 times everywhere just to try to read things here. Not to mention how everything keeps refreshing everytime I click on things. No avatars for regular people, even though the majority here has been a member for 10+ years. And oh, it keeps logging me out every time.

I really miss the old forum.
Jooleeyuh
Seasoned Adventurer
4 months ago
I agree with many, many of these replies.

One of my biggest peeves about the new forum is the default sorting of replies by "most liked." At the very least, we should be able to choose our own preferred sort and have it automatically applied forum-wide. A place where less-popular statements are buried by default and a chore to access can hardly be called a discussion forum, don't you think? And how is a reply supposed to gather more likes when it's kept out of sight, anyway?

Between this "upvote" culture and avatars being restricted to "high ranking" members (even if only temporarily), this site feels governed by one big popularity contest, and it's icky, IMO.
luciusstorm
Seasoned Veteran
4 months ago
I think you'll find that this is actually remarkable popular opinion. 🙂
These forums make me look back at EA_Cade's Rich Text Format attempt (remember that fun couple of days?) with fond longing. 😄
elliebreton
Seasoned Ace
4 months ago
See, that's a good example of how confusing these forums are - Simmingal I didn't even know we had a community hub here or what it was for so would never have looked there.
evilyn_37
Rising Adventurer
4 months ago
I hate them so much. I've tried to post the same comment about a hundred times and it just won't. At one point it said I reached my posting limit. It's hard to read the new comments. popular post eventually get slow because they are so long and it takes longer to read. I also feel like because they are so user unfriendly people are posting less.
SilentK008
Seasoned Newcomer
4 months ago
No page numbers. I refuse to sit here and click "Show More" repeatedly just in order to see what is happening in a thread. You get no feeling for where you are on the thread or where you can find a post again.
I play The Sims 3 and I play BioWare games. BioWare does not have an official forum anymore but at least there is a real forum that we can chat on. I just cannot see myself logging on here in order to see what is happening in a thread. I want to read the content, I couldn't care less of number of likes. It is a community, I want to see what it is up to collectively. I want to see ongoing discussions.
I will be on the BioWare forum, will be back to see if this has improved later on. No idea what happens in this thread that I have responded too since I haven't clicked "Show More" enough times to see it. You could have had numbered pages and then I could have scrolled through it quickly and then I would have had a gist of what was going on. I would have known that on page so and so there were people who had a few interesting ideas and I will return later. I'm not doing this "go fish"-forum, the things are somewhere in the endless "Show More". Nope.
https://bsn.boards.net/
DiscipleOfDuat
Seasoned Vanguard
4 months ago
Oof, yes! This forum is so rough - it's slow and it's not user friendly at all. Who's the genius behind this design? An old fashioned BB forum would've done great! We've had solid forums since the early 2000's... so how did they come up with this atrocity lol?
Mega threads are just not pleasant. I love to visit the screenshot threads, but it's such a pain on this new forum...
BlueSeaWaves
Seasoned Ace
4 months ago
It’s even more disappointing that since the first day there hasn’t been any word from the mods acknowledging any of the suggestions.
I really wish we had the other forum back