Bunny here. Putting on my glasses, getting out my pocket protector, and getting my magic fingers and thumbs ready to type those zeroes and ones. Basically…it’s Nerdy Time!!
For whatever various reasons, our game likes to frak with our minds and heads and nothing seems to quite go right. We panic. Throw our device. Scream. Yell. There may be many tears as well. Just slowly take your thumbs/fingers off the device or you may crack the screen. Lol. It’s ok. I am here to help. All of us are. Promise.
In this post, I will be going over the basics of using the New Friends & Neighbors Screen Menu EA put into our games a lil bit back. Help you find and locate items easier and make sense of it all. So sit back as we dive on in.
There are a lot of cool new changes to the Menus now and it can be kind of overwhelming to try and find information. To help, I am going to break down each icon section to make a bit more sense of where everything is tucked away now and how you can find it.
In your game in the lower right corner is the Bart & Milhouse Icon. This is the Friend & Neighbor shortcut. Tap on it. (You will sometimes also see a number in Orange on it. That is your Pending Friend Requests. If a NEW one just came in, the words NEW will also show right above the Icon.)
You will now be transported into the Friend & Neighbor Main screen. Here you will notice many things.
Your Friend Points information in the lower Left Hand corner. Telling you what level you are on, how many points you currently have, X points you will get for the next X amounts of neighbors visits. 
Your Neighbor Screen Icons on the lower Right Hand Corner. 
Center Screen that will show your Neighbor Friends Lists, their current XP Level, how many actions you have left in their town OR the time left until you can visit and get actions again, as well as a visual of their town progress.
So now that you have the basic idea of the Main Neighbor Screen, let’s dive in even deeper and break it apart.
LEFT SIDE
Friendship Level Icon. This is what you can see both on your Neighbor Screen as well as while you are tapping through your Neighbors towns in the Lower Left Corner. It lists were you currently are at in your Personal Prizes, the amount you need to get the next Personal Prize, and how many FP you will earn for your next neighbor actions. Which breaks down to the following.
| Friend Points | Actions |
| 10 | 30 (about 10 Neighbors) |
| 5 | 30 (about 10 Neighbors) |
| 4 | 30 (about 10 Neighbors) |
| 2 | 30 (about 10 Neighbors) |
| 1 | 180 (about 60 Neighbors) |
So as you can see, these will span for a total of 100 Visits roughly. So make sure you use them wisely. Avoid the “Other Springfield” as they are not a neighbor and don’t really benefit from a visit. Also if you have outside friends, like from Facebook, you will run out of FP before you get to the end as again only 100 Actions total.
Tapping on the ? icon in the top right corner of it will just give you the basics of how Friend Points work. The Friend Point Guide. 
RIGHT SIDE
Facebook Icon. This is where you can tap to link your current Facebook account to your TSTO game. WARNING: This will link the Facebook account currently logged into on your device. So if you have multiple, make sure you log out FIRST, log into the Facebook you want, THEN launch the TSTO app to link it. Once you tap on the Facebook icon, it will take you to the approval screen to accept the link to your Facebook. If you are currently logged out, it will instead give you the pop up option to log into Facebook and link it.
Friendship Points Icon. Tapping on this will tell you what “Trophies” aka what Personal Prizes you have currently earned by collecting Friend Points, what the next Personal Prizes will be, how many points to the next one, and what the current Donut Buy Out is for the current Personal Prize is if you want to rush it aka “Get It Now” option.
Tapping the ? here will again just take you to the Friend Point Guide.
Handshake Icon. You may use this icon the most as you play as a lot of Neighbor/Friend interaction happens here. Tapping on the Handshake Icon will open up the Main Neighbor/Friend Management Screen. (Again you will see a number in the Orange bubble if you have pending requests and/or the word NEW if you have any new Friends.)
Due to there is a LOT of info here, let’s break the tabs down even more as well. (To protect MY neighbors, I have blurred out their pics/information.)
Handshake Tab: When in this screen, you will see an alphabetical list of all the current friend requests you have pending for invites into your game. You will see their pic icon and their name only. The option to Decline the request or to Add them to your Friends. Just scroll through the list. If you continue on down, you will eventually jump to the next tab over. 
Bart & Milhouse Tab: This tab is YOUR current Neighbors/Friends. From this screen you can manage your friends. Hide them if you want to scroll through the list during visits and not see certain ones. 
There is even a step further. If you are not too happy with them and want them gone, here is where you can also DELETE them from your friend list. WARNING: This will ONLY work for players added by Origin ID. NOT Facebook.
If you look at an individual Neighbor/Friend, you will see their pic icon, current level, name, and the option to hide them. Tap on their pic icon. This will take you to the Personal Information Screen for them. 
If you added them via Origin, you will see their name at the top, their pic icon off to the side, when they last were logged into their game, what XP Level they’re at, and also the option…Unfriend in Origin. Tapping this option will take them OFF your friend list. You will be asked to confirm. 
Now if you linked your account to Facebook, you will see this instead. All the same details minus the option for removal. This can ONLY be done if you actually take them off your Facebook Friends or Log out of your Facebook Account, removing the link to the game and ALL the friends with it. 
Facebook Tab. This will show you a list of all the Neighbors/Friends you currently COULD have on Facebook and allow you to send them an Invite if you want them to join. Remember this is the same as sending any OTHER app request via Facebook, some may not like it so much. If you are not logged in/linked to your Facebook, you will see more of a blank screen and the system telling you to Sign into Facebook to get some. 
Once you DO link Facebook to your account, you may notice something about the names as you scroll on through the main Center Screen. NEW! Neighbors. 
Origin Tab. This one is similar to Facebook tab. This area may remain blank. It will only show friends you have NOT added to Origin. To date, I have not ever seen a name show up here.
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Now that we have looked at the Individual Tabs across the top of the Neighbor/Friend Pop Up Screen, let’s look at the surrounding options too.
Privacy Settings Link. If you tap on this, you will be pulled out of your game and into a shortcut to Origin. If not, already logged in…it will prompt you too. This is the same email and password you use for the game. 
Once logged into Origin, it then takes you right to the Privacy Settings section for Origin. Here you can set and change your account to fit what YOU want. So if you want to make any changes, this is a great quick link to do so. 
Logging In/Out of Facebook. Here again is another Quick Link for you to Link or Unlink your TSTO game to your Facebook account. What you will see will vary on whether you are currently logged in or out.
Find More Friends. This is the Quick Link to send new Neighbor/Friend requests out. Tap on it and it will bring you to the screen to enter their info. As you can see, you need at LEAST 5 Characters. So those of you with short names, you will run into issues having people send you requests. I would suggest possibly altering your name or adding to it. 
For those of you that for whatever reason still do NOT have your account linked to Origin. This is where you can tap to sign up for an account. We HIGHLY suggest you do so. Losing all your game progress, especially when time and donuts are invested is not a good thing. Just tap on the Find more friends and follow the instructions to set up your account.
Once you tap on the Search bar, you will be taken to the screen to enter the name. By default, it will ask for an email. No worries you do not have to have their email, just enter their Origin ID and search for them. 
You can also drop a few letters or numbers off and allow the system to do a random search for their name if you have troubles. This will bring up any names close to the one you are looking for. Once you you find the person you want, just tap Add and a request will be sent on it’s way to them.
Now from time to time you WILL get the message of “too full”. This can mean one of two things, either YOU have too many friends or THEY have too many friends. So one of you has to make sure you make room for the other. (In the past, we have found that at times the system will count pending requests as friends too.) There is a MAX of 100 Origin friends allowed in the game. Facebook and “Other Springfield” will not count.
Log Out Icon. This is a quick way if you have multiple accounts you want to switch inbetween, to Log Out of the current one you are in. Or if you are wanting to reset the account for technical issues. Just tap on it and you will be logged out.
Simpsons Home Icon. You will see this here as well as when you tap on through the towns. This is your quick link to go back to YOUR Springfield.
CENTER SCREEN
As we covered briefly above, this is the main center screen where you can see your Neighbors/Friends information. You can swipe the screen to the left or right to scroll through the list, see who can and can’t be visited, where your neighbors are XP Level wise, and during events what their item collection is at. The cool part is you can VISUALLY see how they are progressing in their town. This is reflected by the different ways the towns look by showing different stages of Krustyland, Springfield, and Squidport.
The other cool part of this is if you can jump to a certain part of town depending on where you tap on the Center Screen. If you tap on Springfield or Squidport, you will be taken to the main Springfield part of their town. If you tap on their Krustyland, you will be transported into their Krustyland instead. (Of course if you got their by mistake, you can always back out or just tap on their Krustyland Shuttle to take you back to Springfield.)
So that about breaks down the Friend & Neighbor Area. Keep an eye out for the other helpful New Menu posts.
As always, we are here to help in anyway we can. (I even try to harass…errr…I mean contact EA on our readers behalf to see if there is anything more I can find out too.) Just keep hanging in there. Changes happen. We will all get used to it eventually. 😉
***Bunny****
Can you not remove(delete) friends during am event? Example September 5th 2018 there is a Zoo event and I cannot find the icons to remove friends. So is that true or am i looking in the wrong place?
Thank you for your time
-A.J.-
You can always delete friends. Go to the list…highlight their name…and you have the option to delete
i think my town maybe bugged, the reason i say that is because, i have two account, my main and my secondary as am sure lots of people do.so of course am neighbors with them both, i go on to my B town from my main, clear some dinos. following that i login to my B town and there is no evidents that anybody as even visited my town, even though i just have. whiles am there, i visit my main town and a part from the dinos there is nothing i can tap on, not even the building that regenerate quickly i.e Simpson house or Flanders, kwick-e mark. anybody got any thoughs on what could be wrong? p.s its not just for my two towns, i visit all my neighbours, in fact i just added some, but there is never any evidence that they have visited mine. i believe its a handshake icon when somebody visited right?
So I was trying to delete some inactive neighbors so I could add new ones for the event, but every time I hit “unfriend” I get a message saying “an error occurred while trying to unfriend so and so, please try again”. I’ve never had this happen before. Any suggestions?
It happens from time to time. The game can be temperamental with friend requests. Try using the Origin Desktop if you can
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/01/15/origin-help-for-ios-users/
What if I’m an android user? Will it still work?
Yes. That’s just the post I pointed to. We have the exact same post for android users…everything is the same.
I’m having problems adding neighbors:
1) I’m getting an error message that states “failed to send invite. Please try again. ” I’ve tried closing out of the app and going back in, and have tried different names but get the same error message.
2) I’ve never been able to add as many as 100 friends. I’ve always been limited to 5-10. I cannot figure out why.
That error message happens at times, and is really annoying when it does. You may want to try the Origin Desktop to add and manage friends
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/01/15/origin-help-for-ios-users/
Is there a way to just take certain friends that you have through facebook off
Delete them from Facebook. That’s only way outside of unlinking Facebook and removing them all.
I don’t know if this is the place for it ****
http://tstoaddicts.com/2015/02/24/add-friends-for-issue-2-of-a-super-event/
so i am on a 1st generation ipad (and therefore am stuck using iOS 5.1.1 and when i open TSTO it has had the “NEW” over /”2″ in the orange circle over the friends icon (this has been for a few weeks/months, cannot remember)
when i tap over to the friends’ screen there is NO facebook icon in the bottom right area, and when i go to the end of my Friends list it states “Facebook is not supported on this device”…I have also noticed that my friends from FB who i have have been connected to in TSTO have disappeared from my Friends list, yet are still able to come in and help me out with Neighbourly tasks, but i cannot return the favour!
i have been running on the assumption that the “2”/”NEW” notifications are somehow tied to my FB friends, but i have NO WAY to see or fix this. is anyone else out there on a 1st gen. iPad and experiencing a similar situation? i’d like to think that when they keep the updates coming they think of those of us stuck with these virtual dinosaurs (EEEK! it’s FOUR YEARS OLD!) but apparently i’m incorrect…
is this something i need to contact EA about? if so HOW? i have attempted to email them before about other issues and have only ever recevied canned auto-replies and no actual help 🙁
thanks for all you do here!
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You may want to check with them, but I am seeing many “older” devices start to have issues with these fast pace and constant new updates.
As far as FB, it may be there. It may also be requests to you or from you. Try to clear out ALL areas. Either approve or deny the pendings. See if that helps.
After thinking about it more, I really like Mike’s suggestion ( “I’d much rather the info showed when they last visited me, than when they last played, I`m sure I have players that never or very rarely visit me but play regularly.”) If EA were to give us that info when we’re visiting a neighbors town, it will tell us (while visiting the neighbors town) that our neighbor 1) is or is not visiting our town, 2) is or is not actively playing and 3) it gives us more information to make a choice about keeping or removing that neighbor. Some people may want only active visitors, others may just want active players. I’ll contact EA and suggest they add the information.
I have on a few occasions new friends added into my list automatically. I suspected they are from the list of pending friends request. Does the game work such that if an existing friend unfriendly me, someone in the friend request list get automatically added? I am puzzled.
Is your account linked to Facebook? If not, it also could be a recent friend changed their name. People don’t just get added from Origin unless you accept them or link them.
Oh so we can change the game player name? I didn’t know about this. Thanks. I observed this before I link the Facebook account by accident. Do u know how to unlink myself from Facebook?
Take a look at this very post you are commenting on. 😉
I,d much rather the info showed when they last visited me, than when they last played, I`m sure I have players that never or very rarely visit me but play regularly. An easy way to check this would be ace.
Also how about a recommend a friend thread on tsto addicts?
That is something kind of already taking place on the “add friends” forum. The difficulty of it, it kind of crosses that personal info bounds. It is one thing if the person themselves post their ID and you comment under it your thoughts on them as a neighbor vs you just handing out someones ID. Make sense?
If they give you permission, I can see it as an OK. But still…grey area.
yeah understand what you mean, the other down side would be that those recommended players would be in undated with requests.
You mentioned that you had never seen a name show up in the Origin tab. I believe that if you play other Origin games, and have friends there, that those friends would show up on this tab if they aren’t linked to your TSTO game.
Well I am meaning as far as TSTO is concerned. 🙂
I love this breakdown because during Clash of Clones I was lost on how to accept friend requests. The new menu really confused me at first lol.
But, the towns in the center of the screen have been like that for a while. When I was still on my iPod, I would accidentally jump straight to Krustyland. That was a little bit after it was released. And before then, you still saw your friend’s towns. I think it was around Whacking Day when I got neighbors, so that might be when I remember that…
I wish EA would show the last time my neighbors played when I’m visiting their town. I’d rather know this than their conformity rating. I don’t like visiting neighbors towns, searching all over for something to click, not finding anything to click and then later tapping their icon to find out that they last played 4 weeks ago. Bunny & friends, thanks for all that you do to keep us informed, we appreciate what you all do.
Suggest it to them. 🙂
They do. I don’t remember how I found it, but when I was fiddling with the friends menu, it said how many weeks since last log in. I think it was in the part where you go to remove them.
The info is in this very post FYI miggs. I think what VCB is asking is an EASIER way to see it. Like right on their town when you are tapping through. Or somewhere quicker than having to open the neighbor tab, scroll through the list to find their name, tap on their icon, then be able to see it. 🙂
Just a warning though…I have found MANY times, those times can lie. I have seen where I was JUST in my game, but my stats showed I wasn’t playing for weeks. Same with my neighbor. They had been visiting my town for over a week, but their stats showed it had been 12 weeks since they last played. So be careful if you are going off that info. I look more for who recently left me a handshake or by what progress I see in their towns.