QoL feature for better remembering players that went by a different name.

Would love to see an addition sorta like how steam handles old names for whenever a player changes their name in-game, it can be quite confusing when I see someone with a name I don't know and its quite hard to make it who they were before.

Something like when you inspect the nameplate it shows a "This player was also known before as *old player name*", it doesnt need to show the old name forever, but would work nicely if that info was up for a couple of weeks at least.

If they want you to know their old name, they'll tell you what it was themself.

There are lots of reasons someone might change their name, and many of these reasons include some desire for anonymity.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

If they want you to know their old name, they'll tell you what it was themself.

There are lots of reasons someone might change their name, and many of these reasons include some desire for anonymity.

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I want a feature for a video game, and don't care for this 5th grade behaviour nonsense. Either that or then a feature to auto remove me from their friendlist (and they being removed from mine) automatically.

I have people worth of years of playing the game. The suspicious behaviour aside (if someone from my friendlist is changing their names way too often), if they have a desire to distance themselves from the people they used to know, then by all means, at least a feature to solve the issue of my friend list having new names out of nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Jargal

friend list having new names out of nowhere.

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Just ask them who they are. If they don't answer in a reasonable amount of time, maybe they don't need to be on your friend list.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

There are lots of reasons someone might change their name, and many of these reasons include some desire for anonymity.

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Sadly, some of those people are stuck inside Friendship list of other people, which allow those stalker to still know who you are by some simple deduction.

A feature to remove our name from other people's friendlist is something that is often brought to the table by many players.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

If they want you to know their old name, they'll tell you what it was themself.

There are lots of reasons someone might change their name, and many of these reasons include some desire for anonymity.

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Going to assume the #1 reason of the ones you're referring to is stalking, a simple namechange isn't really going to avoid that. Anyone who gets to the point of stalking will likely rely on a player's lodestone id, which always remains the same.
I don't think this reason is enough to not implement a feature that the OP is asking for, especially since they could just make it a feature that players could opt out of if they wish to.

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

A feature to remove our name from other people's friendlist is something that is often brought to the table by many players.

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Yoshi-P mentioned about a friendlist overhaul, that'll include this exact feature, during a Korean live letter back in January. Although I don't think anything's been mentioned about it ever since.

Hypothetical situation: I remove someone who I've either forgotten or don't recognize from my friend list. They don't remove me from theirs. At some point I'm standing near them, but I don't realize it because they're not highlighted. However, I'm still on their friend list, so I'm highlighted for them. I'm not interacting with them. They feel ignored or snubbed. They contact me. I treat them like a stranger. They feel snubbed. Everyone is having a bad time. End of hypothetical situation.

So back in the real world, I never remove anyone from my friend list because that would mean their names wouldn't be highlighted when they're nearby. And if their names aren't highlighted when they're nearby, and I can't see them first and run into an entirely different area to mitigate the potential for any interaction ever again.

I've played several games that allow you to write a short note about each contact in your friend list. I would find such a feature helpful to remind me who these people I presumably once shared a connection with are. ^^

Also, removing someone from your friend list should remove you from theirs. That would address the stalking problem while still allowing OP to better keep track of their online contacts.

At the end of the day the friendlist system is one of the most archaic things in the game by far, online game's from the early 2000s had better working friendlist than what FFXIV has and its insane.

Load friend-list takes a while > need to wait a refresh in the friendlist window > needs a second refresh if a certain player is from another world/DC. LOL