There needs to be a solution with the social menus. As new packs are added on and more socials are added to the menu, the menu becomes harder to navigate. Especially in times when I need to select a specific social.

@EA_Illium , I agree with @canelacaliente and @JonaO703 ! The menus are convoluted and tedious to navigate! The more packs we get the longer the whole process takes! 😞 Sometimes a choice will not show up , but if you click away to reset it and try again the choice will be there again. 🤨 This is like gambling on whether the interaction you want to use will be there or not! And most of the problems that I have are in the "Friendly" category, as that is where most of the interactions are located. Sometimes I"m looking for "Get to Know" and it is at the beginning of the Friendly section, but if I choose another interaction first , with the intent to Get to Know right after that, suddenly Get to Know is way in the back of the Friendly loop (or not even there at all!) 😢I think this could be improved by making more sub-categories in the Friendly category. So all the weather/season related interactions would be in their own sub-category, as would all the vampire related choices, university related choices, etc., and even the creative related socials and nerdy socials in their own respective categories. so that they are all easily located together and not mixed in with the generic Friendly socials like "Ask about Day, "Get to Know", and "Hug"! 😇

@Trismagistos , I forget that people don't pause the game to choose socials and to interact with objects!!! 😃🤣 I always pause the game! I can't watch a relative of mine play because they never pause the game and it drives me bonkers! 🤪 But that is good that you mentioned it in case someone else reading this hasn't thought of that! 😎But even with the game paused it still takes me a long time to sort through all the choices, and even more so when your choice doesn't come up at all and you have to click off so the choices reset in hopes that the one you are looking for will be there this time. And you bring up an excellent point about Sims who have maxed many or all of the skills! 😇Of course, it will take a bit of time no matter how socials are formatted, like you said, but I think sub-menus (at least with in the Friendly socials) would help with a lot of this. This is where I disagree with @canelacaliente . Getting rid of socials is a problem... not everybody will agree in what to get rid of, and like @JonaO703 stated, some of the not necessary ones are great to pass time or to just provide variety if you are trying to fill your Sims social need! 🙌 Not only this, but for people who have their whims activated (which I always do) sometimes Sims get a whim to "Get to Know" somebody that they already know all the traits, so eliminating this choice completely should not happen! I think if your Sims already knows all the traits of someone, then it should always be at the back of the choices, but if they don't know all the traits of that person that it should always be near the front of the choices! 🤔 As it is right now it is random, and that doesn't help anybody!!! 😞@canelacaliente , if the choices are better organized, than that will greatly reduce the amount of time wading through them! "Friendly" socials is such a large category that it has become a dumping ground for all the interactions that don't fit neatly anywhere else.😞 By having sub-categories, we can eliminate a bunch of options simply by not clicking on the sub-category head! So, if you want only work-related socials, you would just click on that sub-category and ignore the other sub-categories like "weather" , "vampires" , "family", "neighborhood", "creative", etc. This would streamline it so much! I think we need organization, not elimination! 🙂I also think having the choices off to the side might interfere with our action queue icons. The right side would be better though.😉 However, I like the social choices to be right where I click when I click on a Sim to socialize with... I don't want to have to go back and forth with my mouse if I want to do multiple socials, clicking on the Sim and then going to the side of the screen over and over. That would actually a bit longer.☹️ Plus, every version of the Sims has had the social menu as a pie menu. And if they ever were going to change that, I think it would be best to do that in TS5 or some future version where they could design that from the beginning. And if we could have some sort of stabilized order, without a social being at the beginning of the pie menu, only to be pushed to the back at the next interaction or randomly disappearing, then that would be a great help! 😅

@EA_Illium If we break up the socials into several submenus, we will run into the same issue.Here are the solutions I came up with:Make the socials more situational. Don't show all the socials at once. Only show the ones that apply.If a Sim knows all the traits of another Sim, the "Get to Know" social will no longer appear. Sims can no longer use certain socials after a relationship level is gainedHave the socials that appear be based more on the Sim's emotional state and traits rather than just having all socials available. Instead of graying out socials, just remove them from the menu.Reduce the number of socials available. Many have no real effect on gameplay.Change the social menu to a list with iconsI think the best solution would be to change the socials to a list with icons. Here are some overlay ideas:Here is an example of a list-style menu in another game:

@JonaO703 , I can totally understand how you could get caught up with completing whims! 😃 I used to be the same way, but have been able to igore some of them, and then just focus on those ones I really want to do! I find they are a great source of rewards points and if I want to purchase the Rewards items then I need the points to do so! 😉 But for players who never use these reward items or traits, then there really isn't any reason to complete the whims! 😅I am a bit confused where you said " Also, I think if lists were generated, they should not be persistent. They should pop up and go away just like they do now." 🤔 I think you might have meant to answer my point about the social interaction menu conflicting with the action queue, but I also mentioned this could be fixed by putting the social interactions on the right side of the screen. 😉 But my main problem with the list idea was that if my Sim is in one area of the screen, the social options should be near the Sim, and not not near the edges of the screen like @canelacaliente 's examples showed. So, if they do ever do a socials list, I hope it would be near the subject you are interacting with! 🙂That said, I still don't think anyone understands why I think submenus for the some of the existing Friendly interactions would be helpful. I think they would be helpful because submenus already work! What I mean by that is that if you are doing Romantic interactions, the choices from the Mean interactions menu never show up in the Romance submenu! And the only Joke interactions that show up in the Romance menu is the "tell dirty joke" choice, which makes sense. This is what I want for the current Friendly interactions, the ones like Weather and Vampires, and Work-related interactions! The "Friendly category is entirely too large as it exists now. It needs to be broken up in some way and better organized! I don't really want a list of interactions because while we won't have to click as much, we will still have to do a lot of scrolling! 😞 I don't want to have to wade through a long list of choices without any organization to the system! 😣 So if it is the New Years Eve and all those choices are at top, then I still have to wade through all of them to find a work or vampire, or other category? That would still be tedious. ☹️I do completely agree with you about the holiday socials since it is always the complaining one first and all the ones anyone is most likely to want to use are all 5 or 6 clicks deep ! That is really aggravating! 😥While I love the idea of them giving us a choice of weather we use the traditional (but improved!) pie menu or a list, I don't think they will do that, unfortunately/ I guess what it boils down to is that it would be nice if we could see different versions in action of what each person is suggesting instead of just us trying to describe what we actually mean! 😅It would be really funny if we could do this and then all of us change our minds and I end up wanting a list and you and @canelacaliente ended up wanting better division and organization in the categories'! 🤣😉

@canelacaliente OMG yes! I was just thinking about this yesterday. Sometimes I have to click "more choices" four to six times before I find the one I'm looking for. There certainly needs to be better organization and also some game driven assistance. Here are a coupld things I've been thinking about.- I think part of the problem is with the initial wheel. First, it would be great if the game recognized things like holidays and challenges, then bumped required interactions to the initial menu. Then, when clicking more choices I would prefer to see all the main social menus at once. For example, my spellcaster's magic social menu is always in the secondary menu. It would be nice if all available menus were displayed at first click of the more choices there.- Perhaps social menus could be further divided into submenus? Friendly socials in particular are way too numerous. Maybe there could be options like Friendly-Trait-based, Friendly-Moodlet-based, Friendly-Family-based (ie. parenthood) and so on? No matter the layout, I think multiple clicks are inevitable but as you said, we need better navigation! Thank you for starting this!

Social Menus Too Difficult to Navigate

16 Replies

JonaO703
Hero
5 years ago
@PugLove888 I think you hit on one really big point here when you said "I don't think they will do that" pertaining to having the menu options. I'm not optimistic we'll see any of this change, especially with so little participation in the discussion.
Actually, my initial reply was the first in this thread to mention submenus. So I agree with you that we need to separate the friendly socials somehow. Maybe what I said wasn't exactly clear though. I was just trying to see @canelacaliente 's point that it still forces you to dive into further menus. I really am not trying to fight with you. You're trying to understand what others are saying and I certainly appreciate that.
Ultimately, everyone is going to have their own preference. “You can’t please all the people all of the time” (John Lydgate) To be clear, I'd like to have the Friendly socials separated, whether by sub-menus or new primary menus labeled by trait, pack, career, etc. Either way, it will still give us a bunch of things to search for and click but at least it will be more organized and easier to find the ones you want. I also think navigation would be easier to display in a list and if that means it appears as an opaque menu overlaying the active sim, that's okay by me. Currently the pie wheel only gives us a certain number of menus / socials to choose from. So I personally think a list would be able to show more at once and easier to navigate. Though I do realize others will have a different preference. And as I also said before, pushing socials related to events / holidays to the top would be most helpful.
I do hope we hear more ideas from other players on this topic. I hope others click "me too" to show the developers that this topic is important. Until that happens, I think we're just going around in circles.
canelacaliente
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
@JonaO703 In proper UX design, a wheel would not be used for so many options. The wheel worked better when the game came out but now it is ineffective.

UX design is not about pleasing people. It is about getting someone to take a desired action in the most effective way.

Even if options are grouped, the player will have the same problems with navigating to find what they want. The computer has grouped items but it is still difficult to navigate to the option you want.

I have no idea what @puglove88 is talking about. The user isn't presenting any solutions or counterarguments using proper UX design principles.

1. He is arguing about the placement of the social menu. The social menu is on the right side. The character is on the right and it is next to the character highlighted. I quickly created the mock-up in Paint3D in 5-10 minutes. I didn't spend time aligning the icons and text to fit perfectly on the screen. I included an example of a list social menu used in gameplay. From the example, the menu is close to the character on the right side. In the United States, we read from left to right. So the menu would appear on the right side, not the left.

2. Submenus don't already work. The menu for the computer is an example of this. The same issue persists there. If the wheel and menu option were the best UX design, games would use it instead of the list menu.

3. There is organization to the list. In my examples, I use category icons. In the screenshot from the video game, there are categories.

4. @PugLove88 has the ability to create mockups in Paint3d or any other program. All I did was I took a screenshot of the game and I created shapes over it to represent the parts of the menu. I didn't even load it into my UX/UI design software.

5. Based on my research and experience, I am still against the pie menus. I can already test an bloated pie menu by using the menu on the computer. I have played other games that use a list. A list is far superior. I am not going to change my mind.
Psychotps
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
@canelacaliente

I agree also. The menus are a nightmare.

It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't change every single time you go into it. It's like they're randomly moved around every time. This forces you to go through it and read every option every time.

It's like... sometimes the "Funny" is on the first page, sometimes it's on the second, sometimes it's on the last.

There is this thing called "sort" right? With only a dozen options on the first menu level, a simple binary tree sort would sort it in a fraction of a second and not even slow it down.
JonaO703
Hero
5 years ago
I seriously debated with myself whether or not to reply to this thread again. Ultimately, I just couldn't help myself. I confess, I'm a buttinsky. I'm not a programmer and I have no experience in design, UX or otherwise. My background is in information analysis, I have some IT experience and I LOVE playing TS4 (actually I'm pretty sure I have an addiction problem at this point). That's it. I would like this thread to be taken seriously but that's not going to happen if we attack each other for stating our opinions and preferences. Let's face it, online communication can be tricky. It's very easy to read something the wrong way and/or assume unintended slights.
@canelacaliente It's clear you are passionate about this and I very much appreciate that. It's also clear that you've done your research and know what you're talking about. We don't know each other but, for what it's worth, I don't think @PugLove888 meant any disrespect.
Regardless of differing opinions and preferences, the one thing we all seem to agree on is that the Friendly socials are bloated and need to be separated into new categories. Personally, I like the list idea, as I said before, but I'm not going to repeat all my opinions / preferences here. I'm also intrigued by @Psychotps 's "sort" suggestion, I'm just not sure how that would look in the social menus.
Anyway, I am very much interested and invested in this discussion. It is an important topic and I hope it gets serious attention. Changing the interface so that the social menus are easier to navigate has the potential to vastly improve the players' experience and that's really what this forum is all about, right?
canelacaliente
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
@JonaO703 I didn't think @PugLove888 meant any disrespect either. I actually didn't know that person was attacking me. I honestly don't care.
PugLove888
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
@canelacaliente , I wasn't attacking you, so I"m glad you didn't see it that way! 😅 We just have different ideas about how to fix this problem.  @JonaO703 is correct in that I meant no harm! 😊
I just know that the only menu I have a problem with is the Friendly menu. All the other menus are in the proper subcategories. The Friendly menu is way to large and unwieldy! If it was compartmentalized like the rest of the categories it would work like them.
I wasn't talking about the computer menu, and though it is also a pie menu, I don't have much problem with it other once in a great while. The problem is social menu, and for me almost all of the problem rests in the Friendly section of the Social menu. 😞 You might have a problem will all aspects of the social menu, And it sounds like you dislike pie menus overall. I don't mind pie menus as I've been using them for 20 years in all of the Sims versions!  😉 I just have a problem with the Sims 4 Social menu in mostly the Friendly category.

(Also I'm a "she" , not a "he". 🙂 )
Happy Simming! 🥳

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Social Menus Too Difficult to Navigate

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