If I remove someone off my Friend List, it should remove me off theirs too

Hello

A bit of a serious topic that can be a very very serious matter. It's not as simple as many people will like it to be and unfortunately, due to constant harassment against my friends, it needs to be said, whether its an echo or a repeat of another post, I can't stress this enough about how serious this can be to some people.

Issue No. 1 - How Friend Lists work, and why its flawed.

To the naked eye, the friends list is just the same as any other. You can add friends, see who's online and maybe what they're doing. This is fine and this is information that shouldn't have to change. So what's the problem? When you remove someone off your friend list, you aren't removed from the other person's friends list - basically meaning, they can still see what you're doing ingame and where you are.

Let's create a fictional scenario that can be very repeatable and can actually happen.

Let's say for example; Person A meets Person B and they decide to talk and have fun, they add eachother to their friends list and log off for the night, it's all good for now.

Now Person B, for one reason or another is *attached* to Person A to levels of creepy and stalky behaviour. They approach Person A and starts talking about some really concerning stuff that alarms Person A - depending on the severity, Person A can either tell person B that what they're saying isn't right or remove them from their friends list. It could even be both.

Person A has now removed Person B from his friend list, but on Person B, Person A is still on person B's friend list. Person A blacklists Person B and teleports away, but now Person B can see everything Person A is doing - To what world they're on, to their location, to what instance they're in. The game has unintentionally enabled stalking and it's damn right creepy that its even allowed to happen.

Issue No. 2 - YoshiP's previous response on this manner.

In 2019, Yoshi P was interviewed - here's a post to it here https://gamerescape.com/2019/01/04/y...-yoshi-p-walk/

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Q: When I delete a person from my friends list, I want my character to disappear from theirs, as well!

Yoshida: That would lead to the problem of “Why did he delete me?” and might cause trouble, so we didn’t do that on purpose.

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What do you mean this might cause trouble? Yoshida, with all due respect, your intentions severely backfire. You've created a system where stalking is enabled and causes more harm than good. People are stalked severely and the friends list is a great method to achieve that if the people in question have talked to eachother.

I'll say this with good intentions right now - people who remove you from their friends list do so for a good reason. If I'm removed from someone's friends list, that's fine, personally I don't care and I don't think many others will care either. Will I be disappointed? Sure, I might be disappointed, but in the long run, ultimately people will just not care and stop caring.

The obvious solution - Make Friend Lists back to back. If Person A is removed from Person B's friend list, then Person A's grief will be moderately reduced because the Player Search function doesn't perform nearly as well as the Friend's List or Linkshell's ability to enable stalking.

Another benefit is that it can make people give up on stalking a lot more quicker when the game is against them in stalking a player ingame.

And lastly, people who remove one from the other's friends list will bring more good than harm if a fight breaks out between 2 players over a disagreement.

I am begging, you are doing more harm than good by having this "intentional feature" in place. I am fully aware that reporting stalkers to the GMs is the right thing to do because stalking is in the terms of service as a prohibition and justice can be dealt, but just GM intervention does not remove the problem of stalking

I hope this can reach the right ears. It's a very serious manner and I'm furious that my friends can't have a peace of mind because of a certain group of people. Thank you for reading.

The person can still see where you are by doing a Player Search of you, even if you weren't on their friends list.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The person can still see where you are by doing a Player Search of you, even if you weren't on their friends list.

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Yes, I talked about it. It's significantly worse as a stalking tool.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The person can still see where you are by doing a Player Search of you, even if you weren't on their friends list.

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Having someone on your friends list means they can teleport to your house, which they can't do simply looking you up in Player Search. Regardless, it's a poor stance for Yoshida to take. If someone opts to remove a person from their friends list, they likely have a reason. He's essentially placing more concern on the person being removed feelings than the one making the decision to remove them.

Unrelated, but you can edit your post to get around the character limit, OP.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

He's essentially placing more concern on the person being removed feelings than the one making the decision to remove them.

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I couldn't have worded this any better because that's exactly what Yoshida needs to change.

Also, cheers for letting me know about that trick with the character limit, I've merged the posts now.

Yoship's stance on this is purely from a Japanese standpoint. that's the main issue. that it doesn't take into account how friendships/relationships end in every other place in the world. unfortunately they're the ones pulling the strings on this. more fuss would have to be made over there to get a stance change.

I've never needed to do this but is there a way to block other people? I think that would be a better tool if you feel like someone is stalking you. Then they wouldn't be able to see if you are online or where you were at all.

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Originally Posted by Wasselin

I've never needed to do this but is there a way to block other people? I think that would be a better tool if you feel like someone is stalking you. Then they wouldn't be able to see if you are online or where you were at all.

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The block/blacklist function does not prevent them from looking you up in player search, nor does it remove you from their friends list if you were originally on it. They can still see everything you are doing. All blacklist does is prevent them from sending you tells (I think also you don't see messages from them in general?) and you cannot join PFs by that person. That's it.

Both the friends list and the blacklist features are terrible in this game, and both need to be adjusted - but this issue with the friends list has been most prevalent and repeatedly brought up time and again. I'm frankly sick of Yoshi's excuse for why it works this way.

In roulettes I've been matched with people on my blacklist, which seems deeply flawed because now you have to work with this person to overcome bosses.

The blacklist feature should prevent teleporting to the person's estate if it doesn't.

It's a questionable stance to take on an official basis because many abusers are known to their victim. It could be a close friend, a lover or even a family member - and for whatever reason, the relationship sours and someone might want absolutely nothing to do with that individual ever again.

It's a real shame there aren't better tools in place to prevent people from tracking players who do not want to be tracked.

I fear the data center travel. I know many who had felt the need to transfer to escape abusers. Once it is implemented... Abusers will have an access all area pass to their victims.

I agree with the statement. I've been harrassed myself and changing the character name wouldn't be enough since I still have been on my oppressors' list and they managed to TP to not only my own house but also followed me to my FC's place. Had to change DC for my health and safety, loosing many good friendships by that. In addition to this, being thrown all alone between the strangers isn't the best experience also.

SE really should reconsider the friendlist system and how does it work.

I know of someone who was extremely upset when they found that unfriending someone didn't prevent them from teleporting to their house, and they found out because the person who had bullied them teleported to their house mere moments after they did. Needless to say that was a nasty surprise.

Related to this a person who is blacklisted by the fc leader should automatically have teleport access to the fc house revoked. My fc had a very near miss with drama due to an unsavoury ex-member abusing the friend of a fc member teleport feature to instantly get to the fc house even though they knew very well that they were unwelcome by a large amount of people. We were so fortunate that those who would have been rattled by their presence the most were not online. Of course they could come anyway through the very long route everyone takes when they have no teleport access, but at least this lengthy process would deter many from bothering to do so. If a person can just instantly teleport it's a zero effort method to easily upset other people with their presence.

Also as far as I know unfriending and blacklisting doesn't prevent someone you married from teleporting to you using the wedding ring, even if you divorce them.

Unfriending and blacklisting needs to actually protect people from those they don't want to be with. As it is now it enables meanspirited people to continue to easily intimidate a person.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The person can still see where you are by doing a Player Search of you, even if you weren't on their friends list.

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True but
A: that's significantly more effort.
B the player search won't yield results if your in a duty. Or as far as I know even visiting another server. And
C: they can't warp to your estates or anything from player search.

Have it as an option at least.
Have separate 'My Friendslist' and 'Friendslists I'm on'.
Removing a friend from your list offers the option to also remove you from theirs. If you decline, you can always go into 'Friendslists I'm on' later and remove yourself from there.

Just from my own perspective, I fled from Primal about 4-5 months ago because of an ex that would constantly stalk me and I am extremely afraid of what's going to happen when the flood gates open. If he hasn't found someone else to occupy his time, I know for a fact that he will try to come find me and make my life hell and potentially harass my current boyfriend. I'm not trying to have a game that I truly love and enjoy playing every day, ruined because of someone who can't take a hint and think that he owns me. (Yes I have him blacklisted across all of my characters but we all know how great the blacklist system is >_>)

This thread really needs to get bigger and get the attention of staff. It's not okay for victims to be afraid of their abusers/stalkers/exes finding them and to be run off of a game because of it. Protections need to be put in place for people.

Frankly Yoshi-P's stance on this seems ridiculous even when you take the JP servers into account. Perhaps the culture over there means stalking and harassment via Friends List usage is less prevalent, but there are these sorts of disgusting people all over the world - and more than enough horror stories about idol culture and their numerous stalkers for there to be concerns over on that side of the pond as well.

Far more drama and 'hurt feelings' come out of the Friends List not working both ways, than it would for someone to get removed from both sides. You know, how it works in basically most other MMOs.

I'm on the fence with this suggestion... Just because sometimes I clean off my friendslist to only have people that are either my besties or the ones that I've been actively engaging with, but I wouldn't mind being on the list of people that I've removed. But if it's for the sake of less potential harrassment, then yes I agree.

Like people said above, the "ban-list" tool should actually offer full protection. And adding to that, not just the character, but the person's account as a whole.

You really can't escape anyone in the game because your lodestone ID never changes. Name changes mean nothing, neither are data center transfers. In a way it's good that it doesn't, because it works on the flip-side too where you get people who are rotten thinking they can develop a new identity on the same toon and deceive others. You won't escape unless you go all-in on a new toon.

On the JP side many have an outside of the game 'ban' lists in a sense. It's not petty like reddit where they force black out names. Like here in the OF you can't witch hunt people, but having a game identity here to prove you are eligible to post and not banned. You can't escape that.

It's a Japanese societal phenomenon as far as I can tell. That whole thing about not risking offending someone the slightest. Japanese society is full of these little "politeness" nuances that could very well sound ridiculous and just illogical to a foreigner.

Instead of bashing Yoshida (or rather the team, obviously) about the decision, it's perhaps more effective to put the effort into encouraging the dev team to recognize the cultural differences and reach an acceptable solution from there, which I'm sure they are perfectly capable of, once they realize the problem.

But ultimately it's impossible to stop stalking in this game because the game exposes your character ID in your Lodestone link, meaning the only way to truly disappear from someone's detection is to delete your character and create a new one, which will give you a new character ID. So something needs to be done about that, too, if the goal is to stop stalkers.

While its an obnoxious thing to deal with and it should be taken away, a firm "shove off" goes a long way. If it gets to an issue where they're stalking you in game and actually hurting your game play experience, contact a GM.

With the current policy, that firm "shove off" can get you warned or worse if they find it 'offensive and profane'. The policies in place right now give all the power to the abuser, I have seen this happen too many times lately.

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Originally Posted by Keramory

While its an obnoxious thing to deal with and it should be taken away, a firm "shove off" goes a long way. If it gets to an issue where they're stalking you in game and actually hurting your game play experience, contact a GM.

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Right, if that actually worked I wouldn't have had to switch data centers. Some people legitimately don't take no for an answer and I hope you can understand that.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

It's a Japanese societal phenomenon as far as I can tell. That whole thing about not risking offending someone the slightest. Japanese society is full of these little "politeness" nuances that could very well sound ridiculous and just illogical to a foreigner.

Instead of bashing Yoshida (or rather the team, obviously) about the decision, it's perhaps more effective to put the effort into encouraging the dev team to recognize the cultural differences and reach an acceptable solution from there, which I'm sure they are perfectly capable of, once they realize the problem.

But ultimately it's impossible to stop stalking in this game because the game exposes your character ID in your Lodestone link, meaning the only way to truly disappear from someone's detection is to delete your character and create a new one, which will give you a new character ID. So something needs to be done about that, too, if the goal is to stop stalkers.

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Yeah, part of it is culture. It's kind of like how raid finder isn't used in NA/EU compared to JP. There isn't verbal toxicity in raid parties over something mundane like there is here, they just rather be firm saying something like this content can't be cleared with the current party and just vote disband. No need to call anyone out.

To be fair it's awfully difficult to strengthen the blacklist in an MMO because everything is tied together from linkshells to duties. Like it won't prevent you from ever matching with them in DF, nor PF if you aren't the party leader. Those kind of checks are just not sustainable from a system standpoint. There is no way they would burden the duty servers to do the math of everyone's blacklists.

Friends lists don't really mean anything, you don't get additional privs being on someone's list or not, and you can always search for someone via player finder. If they are in a duty, it's not hard to be in the same link shell with someone to locate them.

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Originally Posted by Keramory

While its an obnoxious thing to deal with and it should be taken away, a firm "shove off" goes a long way. If it gets to an issue where they're stalking you in game and actually hurting your game play experience, contact a GM.

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The problem with this is stalking can be a very difficult thing to prove.

How do you prove that someone teleported to a city just because you did? The stalker could claim it's just a coincidence. Cities are popular zones. It's especially difficult to prove if they're clever enough to mix in deliberate attempts to go to a different zone in between actual attempts to stalk you to make each teleportation look like normal activity. What if the stalker happens to have a house or apartment in the same subdivision as you? Well then it becomes much harder to prove that they're hanging around in view of your house just to intimidate you.

And given stalking is something that tends to happen over a long period of time, GMs would have to comb through teleport logs (that may no longer even exist depending on how far back they go) unless the player was meticulous in keeping track of timestamps when the stalking occurred. On top of that stalking isn't always obvious from the beginning, over time you can end up realising that player who you see a lot can't be in the same place as you so often purely by chance. So unless you suspect it early you would not document it.

Sure there could be chatlogs of you telling a person to stop following you, but this isn't proof of it happening. It's only proof that you think it is. And if they deny it that proof becomes even weaker. Players who know how hard it can be to prove that stalking is happening are not easily deterred by "a firm shove off".

Indeed. Stalking is as difficult to put down in black and white in reality as it is in a virtual world. Whether one feels being stalked is intimately subjective at times, while very obvious stalkers generally can be dealt with using existing rules regarding harassment.

Honestly I agree it's a good idea to let defriending remove both ends of the friend list link. Tracking down trolls using the friend list obviously isn't what it was intended for. Ideally you should be using the black list for people like that.

A friend list connection should be premised on mutual agreement. With linkshells and now fellowships, I think it wouldn't hurt to make the friend list a much more intimate and well-controlled FFXIV social tool than it was at 2.0.