Catastrophic Friends List / Blacklist Oversight

[Marcus_Sheridan]

I guess there was an interview back in 2019, and someone asked Yoshi why this isn't a thing. He said they don't want to offend the other person by removing your name from their list. It might hurt their feelings.
So yeah, to hell with you and your reasons for removing them. We care more about keeping them happy by...

- Letting them know which server you're on, or if it's the same server, knowing which zone you're in.
- Letting them know if you pay for a name change, and what that new name is.
- Letting them know your online status, which FC you're with, if you're in a party right now...

The friend list is such a handy tool for stalkers, and such a shitty feature for the victims. And this new blacklist is even better!

- Now they get perfect stealth for following you around the world. They know what zone you're in, and they could be standing right beside you. But you won't see them because they're invisible. And somehow that makes it better, right? "Out of sight, out of mind"

If anything, blacklisting someone should make ME disappear from their screen, not the other way around. I don't want them seeing me standing around AFK or whatever. I want them to keep on running and never look at me again. My name should fall off their friend list, my name shouldn't show up on a player search, nothing about me should be accessible to them ever again.

If Squenix really cared about harassment, they'd do better. But instead they're worried about dishonoring or offending the stalker.

[LittleArrow]

I can't support this enough - SE, please remove us from other people's friend's list if we remove them from ours.

The devs are literally creating the most complicated system in all of social aspects of gaming in any MMO I've ever played in the 20+ yrs I've played MMOs with this silly make person invisible + mute list + blocking out words features when all we've asked for, for years has been to REMOVE US FROM FRIEND'S LISTS THAT DON'T HAVE US IN THEM.

It's insane to me. I can't blame it on cultural differences between JP and ENG b/c even other asian MMO's will remove you from other people's friend's lists! It is honestly such a shameful thing to not fix this but create multiple other systems that do not fix the problem of stalking. Also considering how FFXIV was in the middle of a pretty serious real life stalking case IN JAPAN!! This is ridiculous. FIX THE FRIEND LIST PLEASE.

[SpiritMuse]

This is absolutely something that needs to change. It has needed to change for years. Right now, FFXIV is a stalker's and harasser's paradise. They continue to have complete access to their victims, now even with the handy dandy ability to be invisible while doing so!

We need to be removed from the fiends list of people who are no longer on ours. Yes, maybe it would be "awkward" for some people to find out they've been unfriended by someone, but it is ludicrous that adding friends requires consent from both parties, but once you're on there you can never take that consent back. The expanded blacklist features are a stopgap measure, at most.

[Gralna]

There is actually a worse thing. If Former friend ever looked you up on lodestone they might well know the unique identifier number for your character. That number does not change if you change servers, fantasia, change name; It doesn't change ever. If Former friend becomes a real stalker your only recourse is to roll a new character and start over. That ident number is in plain sight for everyone to see.

With lodestone update alongside 7.0, you can now completely make your lodestone profile private. If set to private, anyone trying to access it just gets a broken link page instead.

[Xylira]

I guess there was an interview back in 2019, and someone asked Yoshi why this isn't a thing. He said they don't want to offend the other person by removing your name from their list. It might hurt their feelings.

Having had to remove someone from my friends list that started getting weird, I can absolutely say that it really doesn't prevent hurt feelings. They still eventually found out that I'd removed from my friends list when they noticed they could no longer estate teleport to me, and they went ballistic anyways.

Needless to say they ended up on my blacklist, but they continued to stalk me for a while after because they could still easily find out where I was. For all I know I'm still on their friend list.

[Wind-up-Star]

I am so disappointed with how blacklisting works. I was praying that it would kill the eternal bonding ring and finally remove me from the list of someone who has been stalking me for three years now. It was such a freeing thought, that it would be over and I would be able to do things in peace without looking over my shoulder to make sure he didn't show up where I was again.

The other annoying thing about this is adding someone to the blacklist who isn't right in front of you is a mess. You can do it remotely with blist add but only if the person is online and then you get into the territory of the Stalker who has multiple character and the one you knew them as was not their content main. Who knows when he will next log in that character so I can blacklist him but at this point why bother if it is just going to be like before, except now I don't have to see him while he's doing what he's always done.