SE's inability to protect players from stalking/harassment

[AiUsagi]

I've watched multiple friends get stalked. Sometimes for nearly an hour (with the person following them from zone to zone and spamming). In one situation when the person being stalked didn't respond, the stalker just spammed all their friends (including me). To my knowledge nothing was ever done regardless of reports from multiple people. I understand it's likely difficult for a GM to follow a player around and observe inappropriate behaviour, but at the same time, allowing people to just free-reign harass someone seems problematic.

It would be nice if GMs could come up with a system to deal with this type of behaviour. Everyone should be able to enjoy the game without facing regular harassment.

Thanks for your feedback! It's definitely a real problem in this game and I think that's should be changed. This isn't a problem purely to FFXIV, but it definitely seems to me that this game in particular is lacking in privacy features. Sure would be nice if we blacklist a player and they just "disappear" from sight. Kinda like an off switch... :P

[AiUsagi]

This. The forums are a troll-laden hellscape. You'd be better served voicing this on Reddit: the devs pay a lot more attention there.

Godspeed to you, friend.

Thanks for the idea, I'll be sure to post in reddit as well. Posting to this forum is just the start, I have also posted in one other place too. I have every intention to promote this topic until things change. Thanks for the good wishes and advice. <3

[AiUsagi]

This kind of stuff was happening to an FC member. That player got a temp ban and now a permanent ban.

Just being in the same zone or near you. Will not reward a ban, They have to be doing something. Chating spamming emotes.
But all SE has to go on are the logs. and being in the same zone doesn't mean they are interacting with you.
SE does care and does take action.

I've had GMs near me and "invisible" while this player was stalking me from zone to zone(also emoting, without a trail in chat box tho). This wasn't a distanced stalk either, and I'm certain they had me on follow. I hope you're right that SE cares and will do something, but after a year of harassment, that unfortunately has not been that case for me. I could care less about my stalker and her agenda, but I do care that when expressing my concerns to SE about this harassment, nothing was done to prevent it, especially when I have done everything in my power to avoid this person. Nothing has worked, so here I am; not only to advocate for myself, but for all players who have gone through, or are now going through harassment/stalking. Thank you for your response, Ewitt.

[AiUsagi]

That sucks. Not saying you haven't been doing it, but make sure you're reporting these things directly to the GMs in game and to SE outside of it through publicaly viewable methods like social media. If other people can see it, share it and respond with their own stories it can create much more pressure than a forum post.
As Edax says, posting stuff here on the forums might seem like a direct line to those who should be listening but, frankly, it's mostly a waste of time.
Hope you reach some sort of resolution.

Hello Alexalea, thanks for your question. I have contacted SE outside as well. I made a ticket and have contacted SE personally. Unfortunately, their response was that only GM's can take action regarding in-game content. I have every intention to continue to post here and in other forums all over the internet until SE takes notice of this issue of stalking and harassment amongst players.

[Jin-]

I heard there is a plugin called void list or something. With it you can make players disappear from your screen like they did not even exist.
Obviously use with your own risk

[Theodric]

The game attracts a troubling number of unhinged players, unfortunately. With that said, if the situation is not being dealt with despite being reported multiple times over the course of a year then is that not a sign to take your leave?

[Driavna]

The game attracts a troubling number of unhinged players, unfortunately. With that said, if the situation is not being dealt with despite being reported multiple times over the course of a year then is that not a sign to take your leave?

Not sure if I understood you correctly, still, I will say that a victim of this kind of behavior should not be the one leaving. At the same time, an improved ignore will go a long way.

[Shibi]

I never did understand why after you delete people from your friends list, you are still on theirs. That should be fixed.

It should be fixable, and it's a huge problem. Yoshi has said about it last year:

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.

Personally I feel that if you delete a "friend", they should be removed on both lists. It's not in issue that way in other games.

[DarkMasamune]

It should be fixable, and it's a huge problem. Yoshi has said about it last year:

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.

I understand why they did it this way, but to be honest, I agree : we should be removed from their list too.

It's the same problem with the blacklist. I understand why it would be an issue to not end up in roulette with someone you blacklisted (because if you blacklist too many people, well, you'll have a hard time finding other players I guess, plus there is the name issue, since two players can have the same name in two differents servers) but still, it's not pleasant.
You don't feel safe. You can't see what the person is saying in chat but it's still frustrating. If you blacklist somebody, you don't want to come across them.

[AiUsagi]

Not sure if I understood you correctly, still, I will say that a victim of this kind of behavior should not be the one leaving. At the same time, an improved ignore will go a long way.

That response would have been the same for me, so thanks for that. I assure you that I have done everything I can to ignore this person for the longest time, but it only got worse as time went on and it got to the point where she's nothing more than an ugly gnome decoration in my presence. Ive hardly spoken to this person and we were never "friends". She is someone who clearly needs some kind of mental help and I almost feel bad for her, it's really quite sad. Aside from my stalker tho, What Im not okay with is that I put my faith in SE to handle the situation for so long and NOTHING changed. There is absolutely no way that they do not have enough evidence against this person to enforce some kind of consequence. Additionally, its really about the preventative measures that should be featured in the game, but aren't. My stalker should not be able to see me any time she pleases via the player search, especially when she has been blocked.