Feedback Blacklist Improvements in 7.0

So the way those improvements work is that if you list someone after 7.0 onto the blacklist, you cannot see their character model as well as their messages.
From what I understand this does NOT prevent the blacklisted player to find you in the player search and seeing your character in the overworld. You just happen to not having a clue if they\\'re actually standing behind you or tracking you or not.

People have been asking for ways to deal with harassment and those improvements do not change a single thing.
While it is a good thing that the blacklisted player is completely hidden to the person blacklisting them - the blacklisted player themself is still completely capable of stalking you. And the "best part" is, they can creep up on you without you even noticing.

I\\'d suggest to even further improve the blacklist to also work the other way around. If Person A is blacklisting Person B, not only is Person B invisible from Person A - but also Person A is completely invisible for Person B. Ingame, in chat, player search etc.

Technically you're right, but -
I was trying to having a view of the player being harassed. If I'd be the one I would want them to not being able to interact with me in any shape or form. That includes tracking my current location, taking screenshots of my character, not to mention seeing what I'm currently doing.
That isn't all about not being able to affect our characters - it's about having the opportunity to shut down harassment completely, if that makes sense.

Agreed, I would have liked to see the Friend List and Player Search features addressed because of that.

At the moment (if I remember correctly, feel free to correct me, it's been a while since I've tested this):
You can Player Search a blacklisted character, and a blacklisted character can Player Search you.
If you remove someone from your Friend List, you are still in theirs.
If you remove someone from your Friend List and then blacklist them (and/or the other way around), you are still in theirs.

All of these can be used for stalking, and even if in-game a blacklisted character won't be able to directly affect a player, stalking and harrassment can still happen around the game (through other players, through other platforms). I guess the cold objective truth is that once it leaves the boundaries of the game it doesn't really concern SE anymore, but it would still be nice to prevent this from happening as much as possible.

I also love the addition of the Mute Term feature, but I took one look at Twitter this morning and realized it can easily be bypassed through various means (M Y C A T G I R L I N B I O), so I wonder what can be done to address that. I'll bet 10 gil RP venue shouts and RMT bots will find ways to go around that feature very quickly.

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Originally Posted by ElliotGardner

I\\'d suggest to even further improve the blacklist to also work the other way around. If Person A is blacklisting Person B, not only is Person B invisible from Person A - but also Person A is completely invisible for Person B. Ingame, in chat, player search etc.

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The problem is that if they make blacklisting do this kind of things, then blacklisting itself could be turned into a harassment tool. It would become a little too "black mirror - white christmas" at this point.

Speaking as someone who had to completely remake their entire FFXIV identity to escape harassment, I can see this point of view, but it's more of a "Out of sight, out of mind" concept. When you do Blacklist someone as is, they cannot message you, but you can see them in the over world still. This just make it easier to where to can Thanos Snap them out of your peripheral so all harassment can be stopped entirely.

Sure the stalker is still doing the stalking, but there is no satisfaction in it. They cannot be seen, they cannot therefore harass you anymore even on a visual level. It doesn't get rid of the creep factor, but that's a them issue they gotta work on. I really appreciate this change, I do not want to be digitally stalked on FFXIV ever again.

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Originally Posted by Jessica_VS

I'm missing something and I am asking this in good faith. If we cannot see their characters, why would we care if they are near us? It isn't like they can do anything to affect our characters. Or is there?

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They can still target you and apply buffs/heals which will probably indicate they're there. They can still follow you around reading your chat to try and see if they can wait for you to say something remotely reportable. I think blacklisted people should also not be able to see anything you write in chat, outside of instances.

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Originally Posted by Jessica_VS

This topic comes up often, so is harassment to these extents commonplace? How does it usually start, between former friends, roleplayers, or what?

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For me it was an entire FC. I won't go into details to what happened in a public setting, but on a dime the entire FC turned against me and after kicking me, started to digitally stalk me. I had to pay real life money to try and escape them, but the harassment didn't stop there because some of them made alts to harass and stalk me, so I had to completely remake my entire FFXIV identity with a new character. I had to start completely over in EnW due to harassment.

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Originally Posted by Raim

They can still target you and apply buffs/heals which will probably indicate they're there. They can still follow you around reading your chat to try and see if they can wait for you to say something remotely reportable. I think blacklisted people should also not be able to see anything you write in chat, outside of instances.

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The game still has to be functional though. You can't honestly expect Square Enix to make the blacklist an enforced do not interact. The logic they'd have to build into the duty finder would be insane to ensure no blacklisted players ever got grouped together. Blacklisting someone and not seeing their model is a huge change which solves the vast majority of problems without requiring entire systems to otherwise be rebuilt.

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Originally Posted by Jessica_VS

I'm missing something and I am asking this in good faith. If we cannot see their characters, why would we care if they are near us? It isn't like they can do anything to affect our characters. Or is there?

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I think people might be uncomfortable if stalkers can still track your moves and behaviours and draw conclusions (or make up false claims) based on that. Depending on the individual cases some stalkers could use that information in some unwanted ways or spread (misleading) info/said false claims to other players in and outside the game. I know this sounds very abstract right now but I can imagine that there are specific situations or constellations where this could be an issue (e.g., if there are already existing issues/tensions/frictions in an FC or social circle someone could make claims based on where and when a player was interacting with certain other players and pit them against each other).

I have no idea for a solution regarding the blacklist, I'm just trying to speculate why it could still feel bad for people btw.

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Originally Posted by ElliotGardner

That includes tracking my current location, taking screenshots of my character, not to mention seeing what I'm currently doing.

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But all of that is public. Why does it matter if the stalker can see you when thousands of other people can also find your location in game, take pictures and see what you do? It won't be a distraction if you can't see their character being near you.

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Originally Posted by Jessica_VS

My would-be harassers would be extraordinarily bored.

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Yeah I'm sure in many cases the new feature is a good solution. I don't intend to say it's bad. I do think that there are very specific scenarios that might seem out there right now (or that I just can't think of atm) that might make someone feel better if the other person couldn't see them either though. But I don't know how hard it is to implement something like this so I'm not saying what we are about to get is terrible at all.
I'm very happy that they made such extensive changes already. The feature to blank out names and give you the choice to read their chat messages in duties where you are "forced" to play with them is already a lot more elaborate than anything I'd have imagined. So I think they put a lot of thought into it.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Depending on the individual cases some stalkers could use that information in some unwanted ways or spread (misleading) info/said false claims to other players in and outside the game.

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That's the point that I was trying to make. Just because I cannot see a player on my blacklist - they still can see me and all my actions. If we happen to enter a duty together - well, stuff happens. But outside of that ppl want their harassers to not being able to harass them anymore. That's why I suggested that change.

I think the more egregious downside is that if your stalker has alts and they make them before 7.0, as they will get grandfathered in and be unaffected by the blanket version of the blacklist. As the blanket version for 7.0 and onward only prevent messages and models from appearing if their alt was made on 7.0 and onward. Nothing stops a creep right now from filling up all the character slots on their account for later use.

My one issue with this new system is I can't blacklist someone I no longer talk to. I didn't blacklist them when we first fell out, and kept them on my friends list to specifically avoid them in game. But now I can't blacklist after the fact because I need to do it from the chat only. I can't see a way to do it otherwise, not even from searching for them. So I'm disappointed in that fact alone.

I don't care how many threads of this come up, if I catch them, I will come in and support the playerbase.

It is absolutely shameful that SE will not fix the Friend List feature to REMOVE your character after you remove their character! Most of us are adults, and we can live with making an awkward decision in removing people from our friend list knowing that we are removed from theirs - that's the whole point of removing a friend imo.

I used to think this was a cultural thing, but many other eastern gaming companies use this very common system. It is a base feature in almost every MMO I've ever played and it's ridiculous that SE keeps doubling down to keep that feature in their game.

It needs to be changed and just making a player disappear doesn't fix the problem - your friends can still see that player unless they all blist them, your FC mates can still see that player unless they all blist them, etc etc. Removing the ability of a player to freaking stalk you so it spares yourself and those that are close to you from having to deal with a crazy person is not a tall order to ask from this dev team. Shameful they haven't put it in the game.

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Originally Posted by Johners

The game still has to be functional though. You can't honestly expect Square Enix to make the blacklist an enforced do not interact. The logic they'd have to build into the duty finder would be insane to ensure no blacklisted players ever got grouped together. Blacklisting someone and not seeing their model is a huge change which solves the vast majority of problems without requiring entire systems to otherwise be rebuilt.

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Funny. That's how literally every other AAA MMO does it, why do we not expect SE to join the 21st century?

Bump and +1 for making these features actually good

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Originally Posted by Drianjul

My one issue with this new system is I can't blacklist someone I no longer talk to. I didn't blacklist them when we first fell out, and kept them on my friends list to specifically avoid them in game. But now I can't blacklist after the fact because I need to do it from the chat only. I can't see a way to do it otherwise, not even from searching for them. So I'm disappointed in that fact alone.

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Gonna have to find them and /echo <t> I suppose. Don't know why it's as limited as it is.

Same with the term filter unfortunately. Stuff has to be at least four characters (so no 18+), can't have spaces, and it's apparently case sensitive from what I've seen. Oh well.