Stalking and Harassment, GM/Square Enix Refusal to act

[RaionKansen]

I don't want to be that WoL, but what the heck are people up to where they're getting stalked and harassed?

I've been playing since 2021, logging in at least weekly and daily the first month or two of every patch, and I've never had this issue. Even after joining several social groups, discords, Linkshells, statics, etc

I feel like the majority of these situations has to be the result of ERP gone arwy

[Chasingstars]

The blacklist thing is basically the equivalent of "Oh, you're experiencing a stalker problem? Put on this blindfold. Yes the stalker is still there, but now you can't see them. That fixes the problem, right?"

[MayuAmakura]

I don't want to be that WoL, but what the heck are people up to where they're getting stalked and harassed?

I've been playing since 2021, logging in at least weekly and daily the first month or two of every patch, and I've never had this issue. Even after joining several social groups, discords, Linkshells, statics, etc

I feel like the majority of these situations has to be the result of ERP gone arwy

I myself have experienced stalking and harassment just because I played pvp and some people didn't like me. Can happen if you enter in some unwanted groups, if you play one game wrong or similar, then people usually want to harass and stalk. If you are a friend of someone that they hate -> you get stalked. If you did ERP and you quit with said person, they will stalk or talk bad to everyone. Going to venues and a lot of other things just increases the chance of getting stalked.

I know a couple that play this game and they have been harassed and stalked by several people (guy and 2 girls) for years mind you. For years... That's just obsession or something.

Edit: Also do mind that FFXIV is one of games where drama regularly pops up every month or so and we see big pdf / google doc files.

[RaionKansen]

I myself have experienced stalking and harassment just because I played pvp and some people didn't like me. Can happen if you enter in some unwanted groups, if you play one game wrong or similar, then people usually want to harass and stalk. If you are a friend of someone that they hate -> you get stalked. If you did ERP and you quit with said person, they will stalk or talk bad to everyone. Going to venues and a lot of other things just increases the chance of getting stalked.

I know a couple that play this game and they have been harassed and stalked by several people (guy and 2 girls) for years mind you. For years... That's just obsession or something.

What exactly did that look like for you? Did they just happen to be on the same world & FC as you? Were they messaging you on multiple accounts or something?

Would need more context of the couple and how they interact with other people. I'm not saying that anyone deserves to be harassed or stalked, but there's typically always a lot of information that's left out. Continued Disparaging/offensive remarks would get them permanently banned. I got someone suspended like within 30 minutes of reporting them because they called people trash in a party for an extreme trial like a few patches ago.

[Ankhira]

I don't want to be that WoL, but what the heck are people up to where they're getting stalked and harassed?

I've been playing since 2021, logging in at least weekly and daily the first month or two of every patch, and I've never had this issue. Even after joining several social groups, discords, Linkshells, statics, etc

I feel like the majority of these situations has to be the result of ERP gone arwy

One time I hard focused this Ninja in FL who killed me over and over, I made it my mission to kill him as much as possible, after the match he came to my home world and told me to off myself multiple times until I blacklisted him.

Some people are just mentally ill

They can still play bard music and be heard even when you got them blocked. They can still leave messages in the FC book and we can only ban them from the house 10 days at a time before you need to refresh it. They've said many things in languages other than english to get around the moderation system.

I'm sorry that sounds awful

[ThreeBeastSmile]

I had a bit more success with the GMs in my own matter with this. Was away for over a year. Changed servers. Changed identity. Wanted a reset. Not 2 or 3 days after resubbing, someone from the past sought me out, whom was posing affably at first then went totally sociopath on me... and the worst part was they were acting mostly on the behalf of another who couldn't even be man enough to do it themselves.

Unwilling to be driven off a second time over such nonsense, got a GM involved. The weirdness ceased after whatever was presumably done. I'd seen that puppet like once or twice after that but they didn't try on anything else abusive and then after that I just didn't see them nor the ringleader again. They may still be playing but in that case idc because I just don't run into them.

I suppose it was easier done in my case as I'm relatively private and somewhat uncontactable outside of the game (not on many SM sites and such). That, and those involved were obviously pretty meek to have given up chase like that after a GM prompt that may have been just a telling off for all I know.

ED: It doesn't cease to amaze me how this is the MMO, out of all I've played (and some were your typical toxic by default pvp-focused MMOs where I expect it and brush it off based on that) that this one has... been interesting in the level of extracurricular interest given to people in response to feeling slighted over nothing or... honestly I don't know why sometimes, because they don't directly confront the object of their ire lmao

[TwizzlyTwist]

"what did you do to make someone stalk you"
Really? That's the part we're taking from this? Nothing should warrant stalking as a reaction.

Either way, we're just going to continue barring them and reporting them whenever they show up to try to initiate conversation. We disabled teleports to the FC, so they bought an apartment nearby. Lovely.

[Ankhira]

"what did you do to make someone stalk you"
Really? That's the part we're taking from this? Nothing should warrant stalking as a reaction.

Either way, we're just going to continue barring them and reporting them whenever they show up to try to initiate conversation. We disabled teleports to the FC, so they bought an apartment nearby. Lovely.

If you want I can meet you in game sometime and I'll also file a report, maybe the more people do it the better, idk, let me know!

[Doomed_Raven]

I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with this (going to your private house/GC and using tools to take pictures of your character nude, in sexual poses and seeing their data etc)

This is not normal healthy minded behaviour by a long shot. You do get some nutjobs in this game. GMs don't seem to do much unfortunately but hope this gets resolved or more tools are added by CBSIII. A blacklist should be account wide, it sounds like it currently isn't, if it were new characters would also hidden (or in the case of multiple accounts/trial accounts - they should log the IP and other data to tackle multiple accounts that stalk)

[TwizzlyTwist]

If you want I can meet you in game sometime and I'll also file a report, maybe the more people do it the better, idk, let me know!

I appreciate the thought but we've already had at least 10 people report their behaviour and nothing has unfortunately changed
They've been visiting every single evening for several hours, standing right in front of our FC house gate because they cannot enter the plot itself anymore.
Imagine stalking people ingame instead of taking care of your wife and kids... Ugh..