"Please do not kill each other again or I will be very upset. Arigato." -Yoshida, probably.
They aren't concerned with producing a solution... If they were, they would have very quickly come to know the limitations of doing in-house obfuscation. They would have thrown it away, and gone back to the drawing board. Anyone doing second year or above of their degree would come to the conclusion after a few hours research.
All they wanted to do was do anything for the sake of being able to say "We tried to address it".
I hate to have this response, frankly... But based on their direction with this issue, they simply do not care about it. In-game privacy is an afterthought.
When was the last time there was any news from the devs about this topic?
Its not that big of a deal...
Do people REALLY get stalked in this game? Like for real? How doesn't blacklisting address the issue? I'm confused!
"How doesn't blacklisting address the issue?": Because they can literally stalk you on other free trial accounts, know your alts and everything. Even if you blacklist them they can still mess around with the people around you and make them uncomfortable so they stop hanging out with you for example. You should be happy that you've never been severely affected by stalking because if you were then you wouldn't post this. Also why do some people feel the need to downplay this issue and borderline defend it? Using that stalker crap for yourself or what?
Also yes, people get stalked in this game. Happens a lot with dudes who mistake this for a dating sim when they find out that the person who is just being nice to them is an actual woman irl. I've been through some creepy shit already and others on this forum have been through worse. So yes, it is a big deal.
I downplay because I play on Balmung and I've seen how many drama-queens there are in this game. Like always complaining about being harassed or bullied. One girl was bragging in Shout chat about how she tricked an alleged transphobic player into ERPing with her and how it was surprisingly amazing. I asked if she's a girl irl and if the alleged bigot cared if she was or wasnt a certain gender irl. Somehow she took this as me harassing her because I asked a single question. All this to say, I've encountered a lot of drama queens in FFXIV.
Thanks for admitting that you're downplaying a serious issue. :) Not every server is as weird as Balmung in that regard tbf and using "Oh here on Balmung it's..." as an excuse is beyond me. Just because some Balmung people play drama queen for some sick ass ERP attention doesn't apply to other servers or rather it doesn't apply to people who actually have been through actual stalking incidents. There's a lot of people with valid concerns on this issue, a lot of people who have been actually stalked by sickos who went out of their way to find out more about their victim just to harass them on other platforms or being threatened to get doxxed. So please don't use this "Here on Balmung" card as an excuse for actual serious issues tyvm, needless to say that you will inevitably discredit the normal people on Balmung with that rather poor argumentation.