Looks like the request for better safety features is gaining some traction.

https://www.ign.com/articles/final-f...afety-features

I mean it has be stated that SE has a dated view on how their black listing works, it has been requested for many years now just appeared it needed the the influx of new players and slow “news” cycle to gain some form of maintain stream attention.

Now question, do you think other long time requests or grips be gain more exposure now? Are the fears of new content creators violating the ToS openly with their mods get attention? Will SE do something regarding bots in general? :glares: You know who you are, man has been boting since I started playing back in HW. Granted, I have never reported them because we are friends, but I know others have.

Honestly I do hope SE starts look into their dated systems, like being able to mail between alts would be nice. Sure it is not needed, but when that bug was in place where you could add your alts to your friend list it was a awesome I legit I have extra reintainers for free. Granted I know that is probably part of the reason they do not want to make it so you can mail between ALTS, still would be nice.

I would even take being able to trade more then 1 million Gil at a time.

OR do you think this will just be another one of those brothel related articles that just fades away into the ether?

I've been asking for a better blacklist system for YEARS! If older MMOs have a better blocking system than your current game, you know there's a big problem.

My main grip with the current "blacklist" system is this:
- You have to physically find the person in the world, or at least be near them to see them chatting in order to add them to black list.
- Have to do it through the social menu to "add to blacklist"
- People on your blacklist can join PFs under another person, even if you're in the party. You just won't see anything they're saying.
- You cannot type a person's name + server manually, which is a huge annoyance/problem. You used to be able to, but it disappeared after world visit was introduced. They need to bring this back without going through all these hurdles.
- Blacklisted people can still show in the same duties as you. Happened to me a few times within the last month or two. Not fun.

I'm HOPING they bring back the manually putting people back on your blacklist. Just make it easier to to do "@server" at the end of someone's name. -_-

What even is this article? Was there even a statement by SE? All I'm seeing is a couple paragraphs about a Reddit post. Must have been a slow day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SturmChurro

What even is this article? Was there even a statement by SE? All I'm seeing is a couple paragraphs about a Reddit post. Must have been a slow day.

---

Yeah though I do wonder if this was just product of a slow news cycle or grounds for potential greater influence due to increase player base and exposure.

Said reddit post has gained a fair bit of traction outside of the subreddit, which tends to draw some outside interest from journalists.

Glad it got some outside attention. This is a critical feature in sore need of modernizing. I haven't had it as bad as sme of the posters on that reddit, but someone from an old FC stalked myself and my friends for a while when we left. I changed data center because of it.

In before they go woke and change it to blocklist :D

Or wrong forums?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jin-

In before they go woke and change it to blocklist :D

Or wrong forums?

---

I mean, it really wouldn't be that big of a deal to change it to that. Still means and accomplishes the same thing. lol

RMT issues were handwaved until Yoshi saw firsthand at how bad it was outside the JP servers when he had to deal with the spam /tells.

Unfortunately I think the jank blacklist/unfriending being one sided will stay until something lights a fire under him again since the last time it was brought up he kinda shrugged it off with a "well, if someone sees they've been unfriended their feelings might be hurt!" remark.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SturmChurro

What even is this article? Was there even a statement by SE? All I'm seeing is a couple paragraphs about a Reddit post. Must have been a slow day.

---

A news report about some random reddit (belch) topic.
It'd be like having a news report about how in my opinon, I think Reddit is a terrible website and I never use it. A useless but not untrue news report.

No actual statement from SE, nothing is happening thusfar,

Given how the lodestone works, we'd probably need the site as a whole to be upgraded in order to implement the desired privacy settings.

On the other hand, those who are committed to stalking players are just going to resort to third party platforms in an effort to tilt their targets which moves it from somewhere that Square Enix can take action to a platform where they cannot.

I certainly hope this incentivizes some improvements. I've never had to personally deal with any issues related to stalking, but if it helps, then it's worth it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theodric

Given how the lodestone works, we'd probably need the site as a whole to be upgraded in order to implement the desired privacy settings.

On the other hand, those who are committed to stalking players are just going to resort to third party platforms in an effort to tilt their targets which moves it from somewhere that Square Enix can take action to a platform where they cannot.

---

In general, those other platforms (ex: Discord) have better tools to help mitigate harassment. FFXIV is definitely the weakest link in that chain. SE can't do anything other about platforms, but they can do something about theirs.

I have always found the loadstone functionalty werid I guess it makes sense since it also allows someone to keep tabs on scammers but outside of that never understood the logic behind it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Breezelyn

- People on your blacklist can join PFs under another person, even if you're in the party. You just won't see anything they're saying.

---

And this is a problem because? It's not your party. Your blacklisting choices should not affect third parties.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

I have always found the loadstone functionalty werid I guess it makes sense since it also allows someone to keep tabs on scammers but outside of that never understood the logic behind it.

---

That's the other side of the coin. The permanent nature of Lodestone IDs can also be used to keep track of bad actors who keep changing their name to avoid social consequences.

The game has flaws in its ability to protect stalking victims, but you also shouldn't throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Blacklisting someone should remove you from their friend list and you should always appear offline to them. There should also be /anon to remove you from player search for everyone, just like there is in XI.

The redditor that started the thread that article references hasn't posted any evidence of the stalking they or their friends claim to be undergoing, so at this moment the claims are unverified gossip. If people weren't around when there was that fiasco earlier this year, we had a GM go rogue for a bit and start taking down RP adverts in partyfinder. But that was quickly determined to be a sole confused GM and not a policy change by simply having people corroborate screenshots of the conversations.

There's a lot of social features that could use some tweaks and upgrades, but this article feels lazy and doesn't even give the counterpoint of the lodestone ID's commonly being used to track scammer name changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sove92

And this is a problem because? It's not your party. Your blacklisting choices should not affect third parties.

That's the other side of the coin. The permanent nature of Lodestone IDs can also be used to keep track of bad actors who keep changing their name to avoid social consequences.

The game has flaws in its ability to protect stalking victims, but you also shouldn't throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Blacklisting someone should remove you from their friend list and you should always appear offline to them. There should also be /anon to remove you from player search for everyone, just like there is in XI.

---

As mentioned I do get that aspect but I can also see the other side of the coin and how it could be troublesome. I have used lodestone to find an old friend it was fairly easy so for someone going through stalker issues it really is not that to find someone. Sure one could always report but in truth I have always found that if someone choosds to ignore a person they should ignore all characters under that account. I get that might be difficult to do and would not be an absolut fix but at the very least it would require the stalker to use friends which then can also be ignored and once ignored they would need to buy a brand new account to interact with you. Sure yhe stalker will still find ya but they would have to go that extra mile for a brief interaction since once they interact witb you again on a different account a quick ignore will solve that.

You have to take everything posted on Reddit with an enormous grain of salt. Not saying there’s not some truth to it, but things are often greatly exaggerated over there.

I posted in that thread before it went to IGN basically saying I was confused by the post. Because so many over there have been allegedly banned just for emoting at someone and no one likes to talk in dungeon pugs for fear of getting banned because of how heavy handed SE is about player behavior.

Now you can apparently get away with stalking with no consequence???

Yeah no.

Again not saying there’s not some truth to it, but Reddit always makes things sound bigger than they actually are.

And the reason IGN picked up on it is because FFXIV is the “it” game right now, and because of what’s going on in WoW.

Better blacklist AND changing the one sided deleting of people off your friends. It is so dumb how you delete someone off your friends list and it doesn't do the same for the person you deleted you just stay on there friends list like nothing has changed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rokke

Unfortunately I think the jank blacklist/unfriending being one sided will stay until something lights a fire under him again since the last time it was brought up he kinda shrugged it off with a "well, if someone sees they've been unfriended their feelings might be hurt!" remark.

---

Bilateral unfriending can still protect the fragile egos of the unfriendee, just mark the unfriender as offline. A better approach would be to mark them as (Unable to Retrieve). But that would require work so they're going to need a better excuse (spaghetti code, please understand)

I think Yoshi-P already said having the duty finder also check your blacklist would slow it down too much.

And if removing someone from your friend list removed you from theirs then they'd know you defriended them and it could still cause social problems.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Breezelyn

- Blacklisted people can still show in the same duties as you. Happened to me a few times within the last month or two. Not fun.

---

I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, blacklisting someone to prevent them from being with u in a duty would be exploitable/abusable instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrafterPrimal

The redditor that started the thread that article references hasn't posted any evidence of the stalking they or their friends claim to be undergoing, so at this moment it is hearsay. If people weren't around when there was that fiasco earlier this year, we had a GM go rogue for a bit and start taking down RP adverts in partyfinder. But that was quickly determined to be a sole confused GM and not a policy change by simply having people corroborate screenshots of the conversations.

There's a lot of social features that could use some tweaks and upgrades, but this article feels lazy and doesn't even give the counterpoint of the lodestone ID's commonly being used to track scammer name changes.

---

That's not what hearsay is. Not only this it not a court preceding, but hearsay is generally using what Person C heard Person B say about Person A as evidence. In the redditor's post, they talked more about the systems in place (of which only the wedding ring teleport is incorrect, I think), and used the experience of others and themselves as examples, although not extensively. There were no accusations thrown around

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steelbreaker25

That's not what hearsay is. Not only this it not a court preceding, but hearsay is generally using what Person C heard Person B say about Person A as evidence. In the redditor's post, they talked more about the systems in place (of which only the wedding ring teleport is incorrect, I think), and used the experience of others and themselves as examples, although not extensively. There were no accusations thrown around

---

You are correct that this is not a court, yet the term is used outside legal settings according to this: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hearsay

Apologies if my English was off, I will edit it to better reflect my intent.

And you are correct that in the original un-edited version of the Reddit post there were no direct accusations, but in further edits and in the replies to that topic OP states:

Quote:

---

Edit: We are aware that there's an option to report for this behavior, but after a group of friends and I reported a stalker who harrassed our friend, nothing came off it. He continued harassing her (and eventually some of us) for weeks, until she quit and he got bored, and he's still playing this game, seemingly unhindered and unpunished. Maybe this is an issue with EU GMs, but they did not take this serious at all.

Edit 2: Yes, she also reported them, it wasn't JUST 3rd party reports.

---

Quote:

---

But to who? Who can I go to after GMs do not protect us? I can't exactly meet with YoshiP himself and say "Please hardware ban this person". To whom and how can I escalate this?

---

To me that is a direct accusation that the EU GM team will not help those who report against bad player behavior. Reddit OP did not lie about a single function that currently exists in-game and through the Lodestone, and if it had just been a post going over the potential for abuse of those systems it wouldn't merit comment because they'd be right.

Then you have the quote the article published pulled:

Quote:

---

"I love this game dearly, but it's an MMO, and stalkers and harassment is [sic] plentiful," the Reddit user wrote in the initial post. "I've heard so many horror stories, had to console friends who've had to deal with it, and found myself in this situation a few times as well."

---

If they're telling the truth the system is broken. If they're lying they are potentially hurting the game by maligning it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrafterPrimal

If they're telling the truth the system is broken. If they're lying they are potentially hurting the game by maligning it.

---

I'm sure it does happen, but I don't think it's an epidemic of sorts. In the very, very few instances that it does happen I have heard it can be frustrating. It's something that should probably be addressed, but I do think they are making it a bigger issue than it actually is for 99% of the game's population. I'm not saying that it's not a big issue for those being affected by stalking and/or harassment. It most certainly is. I really do hope that they get some help with this from the GMs. But it's not a common occurrence. Far from it. Calling it "plentiful" is an exaggeration, at least as far as this game is concerned. Overall, the GMs tend to rule with an iron fist. That's probably why.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sove92

And this is a problem because? It's not your party. Your blacklisting choices should not affect third parties.

---

Agree and disagree with this. I get the whole don't involve third-parties--nothing they did is wrong. However, if the blacklisted person is throwing accusations and harassment to the person who blocked them, then it it WILL affect the third parties in the party. Because the person who blacklisted the offender cannot see what is being said to others. Granted, this is a case-by-case scenario, but it can happen.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mika_Zahard

I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, blacklisting someone to prevent them from being with u in a duty would be exploitable/abusable instead.

---

Disagree 100% on this. It's not exploitable/abusing to block people that you had bad interactions with in the past in the field or in DF. To prevent a sour situation for all parties involved, people on your blacklist should NOT be able to end in the same party as you. With how many people are queing for DF daily, how can someone exploit this? I'm sure it's not an unreasonable request to keep people, who don't get along at all, from future interactions with this QoL.

Possibly can work differently when it comes to 24-man raids. Place the blacklisted person in another alliance, no abuse or "exploitation" here then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrafterPrimal

If they're telling the truth the system is broken. If they're lying they are potentially hurting the game by maligning it.

---

The post's most advocated change is allowing Lodestone pages to be privated. The Lodestone isn't in-game, but out. I'm not exactly sure how being able to make your own information private would affect the game negatively. This is also the most practical solution.

The other big issue, the friend list one, is already a weird quirk that doesn't make much sense. Fixing that to remove yourself from another person's list wouldn't hurt the game.

The matchmaking issue is one that could affect the game in a bigger way, but more because the algorithm for matchmaking would have to be tweaked, and we don't know how difficult that is. Otherwise, we don't know how duty finder would be affected if it automatically excluded people on blacklists.

The wedding ring thing may not be an issue as some have said it just sends you to East Shroud anyway, though I couldn't say if that's true because I've not been married in game and I don't know anybody who's split. I can't see how changing this function much would greatly impact the game, though.

Is stalking an issue in Japan? Genuinely curious.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Breezelyn

Agree and disagree with this. I get the whole don't involve third-parties--nothing they did is wrong. However, if the blacklisted person is throwing accusations and harassment to the person who blocked them, then it it WILL affect the third parties in the party. Because the person who blacklisted the offender cannot see what is being said to others. Granted, this is a case-by-case scenario, but it can happen.

---

If the blisted person in the party is causing trouble, the leader can kick them out. You can also ask the leader to kick them when they join.

Thing with the blacklist is that it doesn't care for your reason behind the addition. We can't have PF exclude players based on a non-leader's blacklist because people don't add people to their lists only for the most horrifying causes, but also for the pettiest of reasons and the petty ones aren't fair to the rest of the party.

Quote:

---

Disagree 100% on this. It's not exploitable/abusing to block people that you had bad interactions with in the past in the field or in DF. To prevent a sour situation for all parties involved, people on your blacklist should NOT be able to end in the same party as you. With how many people are queing for DF daily, how can someone exploit this? I'm sure it's not an unreasonable request to keep people, who don't get along at all, from future interactions with this QoL.

Possibly can work differently when it comes to 24-man raids. Place the blacklisted person in another alliance, no abuse or "exploitation" here then.

---

If SE can sort out the matching algorithm issues with it (eg. I get matched with X, who has blisted Y. Y is partied with Z for the same content, should the game unmatch me with X so I have more players matched to me [3/4, 3/8] or keep me with X and not get matched with Y and Z), I'm all for it. The only content where this could really be an issue are duties people don't really queue much for to begin with and The Feast (a competitive gamemode must ignore blist to prevent people from fixing their matches).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lium

Is stalking an issue in Japan? Genuinely curious.

---

I would say that stalking is an issue everywhere, but yes. There's that one idol who a stalker tracked down by using a reflection in her eye to find out where she lived.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steelbreaker25

I would say that stalking is an issue everywhere, but yes. There's that one idol who a stalker tracked down by using a reflection in her eye to find out where she lived.

---

Whoa. That's pretty hardcore.

I know stalking is an issue everywhere, but just wondered if they've had problems with it in their video games. Stalking can be an issue in Western games, but I never really hear anything about it in East Asia. But then again, maybe it is but it's a taboo subject there? Like, maybe it happens but mostly goes unreported? No idea, by the way. Just curious.

Regardless of existing cases of stalking, which might be true or not, I'd like to be able to

- Set my profile to private
- Get off people's friend lists whenever I want
- Set myself /anon in game, after which I appear as "job name", as is already the case in PvP.