Final Fantasy XIV players have had enough of in-game harassment, and are asking Square Enix to put better safeguards in place in order to counter it.
In a recent Reddit post, user ‘ItsTracer’, opened a discussion on Final Fantasy XIV’s social features. The post claimed that every feature was enabling “stalking and harassment” due to safety functions not going far enough to protect its users. The issues highlighted in the post include blacklisting not preventing players from being matched with you and friends list removal being one-sided. These problems seem to stem from the Lodestone database, which makes it easy to find character names, locations, servers, and even appearance.
The main solution which players are asking for is the option to make private Lodestones, or to disable it completely.
“I’m begging here; please make [the] system safer. Let us turn off our Lodestone/privatize it. Make a friends-list-removal work for both ends; if you delete someone, you don’t want them to keep you in their friends list. Divorce should turn off the rings entirely, not just yours.”
The moment you’ve ALL been waiting for!
Presenting the #Endwalker Job Actions trailer! ?https://t.co/yoQWncFgZk
— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_EN) September 18, 2021
The Final Fantasy XIV team isn’t against making user-friendly changes. Previously, Square Enix changed the design of the Sage Class icon after fans expressed concerns over trypophobia. Many fans reported that the original design made them uncomfortable, leading the developers to change the icon to be more accommodating. The design change wasn’t drastic, but it was enough to improve the experience for many fans. It’s likely, then, that should the developers receive enough feedback they might be willing to implement better safety features into the MMO.
The Reddit post which, at the time of writing, has received over 6,000 upvotes and over 1,700 comments, proves that this isn’t an isolated issue. It’s clear that, for all of its merits, FFXIV could benefit from a few upgraded safety features that will improve the experience for everyone.
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