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Update on The Sims 4 Help Center

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EA_MageEA_Mage Posts: 1,354 EA Staff (retired)
Update: These changes are now live.

Hello all,

We wanted to give you an update on The Sims 4 Help Center - PC / Mac - Bugs & Gameplay Issues section here on The Sims forums.

Starting from 20th of August 2018 we will be hosting PC / Mac - Bugs & Gameplay Issues only on the Answers HQ forums.
A section will remain here on The Sims forums, but this will serve as a direct link to the Answers HQ.

All discussions so far created in The Sims 4 Help Center section will be moved to a read only area here on the forum called The Sims 4 Help Center Archive. This section will remain accessible to all, but no new posts can be created.

Why the change?

Consolidating all discussions of bugs and issues in a single forum will allow us to identify emerging issues much quicker, help us better prioritise bugs that are important or have a high impact to the community and makes it easier to communicate updates on issues and bugs to everyone.

Let us know if you have any questions regarding this below.

PS! The lovely @crinrict has written up a quick guide or a 101 on Answers HQ: Welcome to the Sims Section of AHQ!
Post edited by EA_Mage on

Comments

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    Will a tutorial be posted showing how to post questions on Answers HQ? I know I have trouble navigating that site, that's why I always posted bugs here, it's easier to find things here.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    edited July 2018
    What kind of issues do you have ? I'm open to create a tutorial but I kinda need to know what you guys need.

    What do you find confusing ? Where to post ? The bug forum template ? AHQ is for all games which can make it a bit difficult but the redirects from here should directly lead to the Sims Forum.

    So yeah, let us know what is confusing and how it can be made better.

    I myself have been at AHQ since it opened it's door 6 years ago and I know it like the back of my hand so having a pointer would be good.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
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  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    What kind of issues do you have ? I'm open to create a tutorial but I kinda need to know what you guys need.

    What do you find confusing ? Where to post ? The bug forum template ? AHQ is for all games which can make it a bit difficult but the redirects from here should directly lead to the Sims Forum.

    So yeah, let us know what is confusing and how it can be made better.

    I myself have been at AHQ since it opened it's door 6 years ago and I know it like the back of my hand so having a pointer would be good.

    To me it's kinda confusing on how to reply (like where in a post) if you're having the same problem as someone else. I never see a button or anything.
    The button to add a new topic didn't stand out to me either, I had to look around to find it.
    Everything is all black and white, it's hard to distinguish where to go.
    All of these things could just be me, but if we are going to have to start posting there as a community from now on it would be helpful to maybe have some pictures with arrows and such to show people who are used to posting here what they need to do and how to get there/where to go/what it looks like.
    I know there's been a few times I was in a hurry and told to post there from here, and I just couldn't find where I was supposed to post, so I didn't and I hate that I couldn't help.
    I hope this makes sense.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    OK. Good point.

    I'll talk to Mage on Monday about what can be done to make this more clear. The New topic button is a bit of a issue cause it takes a while to show up sometimes.

    There should always be a reply and a quick reply button at the end of each post of topics and it doesn't really matter to which one you reply. There's isn't really a threaded view or anything so your post will just appear at the end of the thread no matter which post you choose.

    It does have great advantages such as the quick me too button which shows about community severity on issues and also everyone can post and post pics so there isn't a new member rule as we have here.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    OK. Good point.

    I'll talk to Mage on Monday about what can be done to make this more clear. The New topic button is a bit of a issue cause it takes a while to show up sometimes.

    There should always be a reply and a quick reply button at the end of each post of topics and it doesn't really matter to which one you reply. There's isn't really a threaded view or anything so your post will just appear at the end of the thread no matter which post you choose.

    It does have great advantages such as the quick me too button which shows about community severity on issues and also everyone can post and post pics so there isn't a new member rule as we have here.

    Some of those buttons were't showing up for me, I looked a while the other day trying to add a message about something in my game. I was unsure where to reply to the thread, and I found someone having a similar issue as me but didn't see the me too button anywhere, and I've used it before so I don't know where it was or why I couldn't see it.

    I know most people are comfortable posting here because you just find the forum, scroll through the titles to see if your problem is there, if you don't find it start a topic or for new members go to the thread for new members to post bugs.
    On HQ, for me, everything blends together and I'm not sure of where I need to go, or if I'm in the right place. Sometimes the text overlaps and I can't read it at all (multiple sentences on top of one another). I want to help by posting stuff there, but I don't know how most times, it just gets mixed around.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    That sounds weird. Never encountered any stuff on top of each other in all of my 6 years (the design is a bit .. oh well but I think, most of what you describe is a matter of getting used to it. New people get confused here as well so it might just be easy for you cause you're so used to it by know.

    I think with the re-direct it will be less confusing cause you get directed to the correct forum directly but we shall see. Maybe a thread is needed here that gives a tutorial with all the quirks that AHQ has.

    The me too button only shows up on the first post so maybe you were on a different page on that thread.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    That sounds weird. Never encountered any stuff on top of each other in all of my 6 years (the design is a bit .. oh well but I think, most of what you describe is a matter of getting used to it. New people get confused here as well so it might just be easy for you cause you're so used to it by know.

    I think with the re-direct it will be less confusing cause you get directed to the correct forum directly but we shall see. Maybe a thread is needed here that gives a tutorial with all the quirks that AHQ has.

    The me too button only shows up on the first post so maybe you were on a different page on that thread.

    It was a merged post, so I guess that's why it was confusing and I didn't see it. I never know which post I'm supposed to reply/respond to to reply in the thread. It's very confusing to me, and I've been going there reading stuff a while, it's just the navigation is confusing to me.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    edited July 2018
    As I said, you can reply to any post, it doesn't matter. Yeah, if stuff gets merged and you click on an old link, you may end up in the middle of the thread. Just make sure you're always on page one and then scroll up and you will see the me too button.

    Meanwhile, the Mobile forum does have a tutorial: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Game-Information/Welcome-to-The-Sims-Mobile-forums-on-Answers-HQ/td-p/6259541 .. if you think that's enough, we could just copy/paste this to the Sim forum.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    As I said, you can reply to any post, it doesn't matter. Yeah, if stuff gets merged and you click on an old link, you may end up in the middle of the thread. Just make sure you're always on page one and then scroll up and you will see the me too button.

    Meanwhile, the Mobile forum does have a tutorial: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Game-Information/Welcome-to-The-Sims-Mobile-forums-on-Answers-HQ/td-p/6259541 .. if you think that's enough, we could just copy/paste this to the Sim forum.

    I'm confused as to why the posts are numbered as #12 for the beginning and the posts afterwards are #11 #10, like a countdown. Shouldn't the first post always be #1? And it would be easier to follow if people couldn't reply to the tutorial pages, the first post I saw in the link you posted was a post about someone saying click on a family photo about something...I was confused right away as to what it was trying to tell me. Once I looked around and went to the 2nd page I found the beginning. If you're new to HQ that would be very confusing to someone.
  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    The tutorial itself looks helpful, it's just difficult to find it from the link right away.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    The posts at AHQ are usually autosorted by date. The first post can have a later date if a thread was merged into that.

    Do you have an example where #12 is before #1 ? Never noticed that. Sound like a bug.

    As for the tutorial. That's the Mobile one. We might need something similar in Sims 4, just wanted to know if that's what you're looking for (as that one is for mobile). Always depends if tutorial pages are locked or not. They probably left it open to allow questions. There's a lot of people that just post where they can.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    The posts at AHQ are usually autosorted by date. The first post can have a later date if a thread was merged into that.

    Do you have an example where #12 is before #1 ? Never noticed that. Sound like a bug.

    As for the tutorial. That's the Mobile one. We might need something similar in Sims 4, just wanted to know if that's what you're looking for (as that one is for mobile). Always depends if tutorial pages are locked or not. They probably left it open to allow questions. There's a lot of people that just post where they can.

    When I follow the link you left me this is the first thing I see
    IHshJyw.png

    Then I have to go to page 2 to see the beginning
    zO85XnW.png

    The me too button is on post #11 also. The beginning is #12, and the post that the link takes me to is #1, which is someone talking about something that I have no idea what it is, but it's the first post I see. If someone were to reply a lot to that thread the beginning of the post would continue to increase in number ( #13, #14, etc... ) to be further away from the #1 post where the link takes me, which will make it be in a different place each time someone looks for the start of the thread.

    I'm looking at the site on pc, not sure if that makes a difference for this specific forum/thread because it's for Sims Mobile, and people would most likely be viewing it from a phone.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    edited July 2018
    OK. That's not what I see so let me see if it's something in the settings that causing this. Looks like you see the newest post first.

    Can you go to your settings (click on your user name in the upper right corner and choose settings)

    Then go to Preferences --> Linear Layout Settings --> Linear Format: Sorting order within topics

    That's probably set to newest first for you ? Try oldest first.

    (looks like you can even set it to threaded view if you want)
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    OK. That's not what I see so let me see if it's something in the settings that causing this. Looks like you see the newest post first.

    Can you go to your settings (click on your user name in the upper right corner and choose settings)

    Then go to Preferences --> Linear Layout Settings --> Linear Format: Sorting order within topics

    That's probably set to newest first for you ? Try oldest first.

    (looks like you can even set it to threaded view if you want)

    To be honest I chose those settings when I signed up for my account over there, I didn't know it would cause me confusion later, it just seemed logical to want to go to the first unread post after I posted something there. It goes to the beginning now that I changed it, maybe something about those settings should be added in the tutorial also for anyone that set their account settings to that and have forgotten, or just made their account settings that so long ago and really don't use the site much.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    Well, hope it's less confusing for you now :D

    Thank you for all your input
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
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  • TheNUBaliciousTheNUBalicious Posts: 113 Member
    crinrict wrote: »
    Well, hope it's less confusing for you now :D

    Thank you for all your input

    No problem :D And thank you for your help!
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    Glad to help. It's good to know what issues people have.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
    AHQ Tutorial

  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    Consolidating all discussions of bugs and issues in a single forum will allow us to identify emerging issues much quicker, help us better prioritise bugs that are important or have a high impact to the community and makes it easier to communicate updates on issues and bugs to everyone.
    This is a joke, right? Tell me this is a joke!!!

    Seriously. You "outsource" this forum to discuss bugs and issues (which you hardly do here) to identify issues much quicker... somewhere else where support is hardly responding to ANY game issue. The impact of this change will be less communication between devs/support and players, less identification of issues, more waiting time for fixes and mostly more frustration for us players. And that all under the disguise of "improving the gaming experience".

    I get much more help from players regarding issues than from support. On this page and throughout other support websites. The EA answers HQ is less visited than this page for this game alone.
  • EA_MageEA_Mage Posts: 1,354 EA Staff (retired)
    Hi @Zasz ,

    Answers HQ has always aimed to be a players helping players forums, with EA staff on hand to moderate and help out.

    Even if not every thread gets an EA reply it does not mean threads are not monitored and tracked in reports, specially when issues occur. Things are escalated and highlighted to different teams every day from Answers HQ.

    We also have SimQA and SimGurus who are very active on Answers HQ specially when it comes to bugs. And the wonderful Heroes, who are players themselves, love helping out!

    Answers HQ also offers many tools that make reporting issues/bugs more efficient and quicker for you and increase our understanding what is impacting the community most.

    Let me know if you have any questions!
    Mage
  • Meltron2Meltron2 Posts: 70 Member
    I just posted some thing on Answers HQ. I found it on the A Way Out board. I have not idea why or how it got there. Answers HQ site is hard to navigate.
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    The a way out board is the first board in the list so that's where a lot of people end up.

    I wrote a little tutorial here that has direct links to the Sims forums: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Game-Information/Welcome-to-the-Sims-Section-of-AHQ/m-p/6931624#M6512

    I'll guess I need to add that quirk as well.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
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  • EA_CianEA_Cian Posts: 1,359 EA Staff (retired)
    Let's keep it civil, people. I've just removed some comments due to some less than constructive content being posted.
    ~my hair color is frequently changing, so my Sim reflects that~

    Have questions about necroposting? Check out our Necroposting thread.

    Bugs/Issues should be posted on Answers HQ, learn more over on Update on The Sims 4 Help Center.
  • paradiseplanetparadiseplanet Posts: 4,421 Member
    I'm sorry, but I can't agree with the closing of this section of the forum. While it's all well and good that bugs can be addressed in its proper place now in AHQ, it doesn't stop the constant new members who ask for help for things that aren't necessary to post in AHQ and are rather helpful quick fixes for their games. This forum is convenient for all those fixes that simply need a game repair or game folder reset or cache file clearing which is the majority of reports here on this forum, of which someone like me who peruses this area see most commonly and I don't expect gurus or forum staff to ever bother looking at. I know you won't change your mind about this decision, but I only foresee more mess and confusion in AHQ from here on in that keeping this section open could easily prevent.
    Origin ID: paradiseplanet27
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  • kreatorakreatora Posts: 557 Member
    edited August 2018
    What will happen with the regular deterioration of the Gallery? We will also have to report the list of additional elements in our games by completing the registration conditions? By the way - the Gallery broke down just a moment ago once more.
    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16650963/#Comment_16650963
    My ID Origin kreatora
    Hero on EA AHQ
  • crinrictcrinrict Posts: 18,771 Member
    edited August 2018
    I'm sorry, but I can't agree with the closing of this section of the forum. While it's all well and good that bugs can be addressed in its proper place now in AHQ, it doesn't stop the constant new members who ask for help for things that aren't necessary to post in AHQ and are rather helpful quick fixes for their games. This forum is convenient for all those fixes that simply need a game repair or game folder reset or cache file clearing which is the majority of reports here on this forum, of which someone like me who peruses this area see most commonly and I don't expect gurus or forum staff to ever bother looking at. I know you won't change your mind about this decision, but I only foresee more mess and confusion in AHQ from here on in that keeping this section open could easily prevent.

    You can do all that at AHQ though ? We're not forum staff or gurus. Most of us helpers are regular users just like everyone else and everyone can chip in there just as they do here. The bug forum is a bit more strict and mostly about reporting what you issues that can't be solved by troubleshooting and need fixing by the devs, but the AHQ tech help forum is basically bugs/issues and tech on here combined. We troubleshoot and find the best way to address an issue and if an actual issue that QA/Staff needs to look into, it gets forwarded to the appropriate people.
    Crinrict's Help Blogs -- Twitter
    Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
    How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
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