SE's Inability to protect players from stalking in-game

[FKSTALKERS]

Let's talk about Square Enix's inability to keep players safe in-game. First, I'd like to bring up the blacklist system... WHAT A JOKE. The only thing this feature does is block direct messages from the other player; This does NOT however remove them from the Player Search. Should you type in the name of the blacklisted player into the player search, you'll notice that you can A. Still see their location, B. See which FC they are connected to and it's location. Additionally, players can still view each other via the lodestone. Name changes do not prevent further stalking, as this player can simply type in your old name into the lodestone and recent changes can still be observed via the previous alias. Though not on my list, but still worth mentioning- even if players have been blacklisted, they can still stalk you in character and communicate to you through message books. The blacklist feature is literally useless.
Now, let's talk about the friend list. In-game, when a player removes another player from their friend list, the player removing said person will still be on THEIR friends list. Even if you blacklist a player after deleting them, they will STILL be able to see you on their list and use your name as a means of teleporting directly to your location (should you be at your personal home, apartment, or free company.
Furthermore on this matter, let's look at what happens when we EB (Eternal Bond) to another player and things go sour. Even if one player deletes their ring, if their previous partner still has their ring, they can use this to teleport directly to you every 30mins. Their ring is not destroyed and they will still have full use of it.
Now, SE claims to take stalking and harassment seriously, but based on these observations and my own experiences with having a stalker for the past YEAR, SE has done absolutely nothing to prevent this despite REPORT after REPORT after REPORT for: stalking me zone to zone, stalking me at my personal apartment and FC- Creating alts with similar names as my own character or my own alts. Messaging in my personal estate books, emoting, and just general harassment. I have reported this user nearly 100 times over this past year and I'm disgusted by SE's automated GM responses that have done absolutely no justice for this players deeds. This originally started with another player. She was stalking them which resulted in them quitting the game. Since then, she has been stalking me.
When googling online about harassment in FFXIV, it's sad to see that many other players who are also experiencing similar problems are not finding relief from reporting in-game to GM's. Many of these players either quit the game or had to move data centers.
Please understand that I am a vet in this game and have been playing for 6yrs. Instead of backing down and following the advice of these threads, telling me to bow down and just leave, I've decided to advocate for change. I want to see this kind of harassment served justice as well as see SE put in ACTUAL PREVENTATIVE MEASURES for the safety and privacy of it's players. I'm pissed and I'm not backing down. WE WANT RESULTS, WE WANT CHANGE, WE WANT TO ENJOY OUR GAME WITHOUT HARASSMENT/STALKING!

 

[Six]

Hello FKSTALKERS

First of all, welcome to the forums. I've moved your thread to a more appropriate location as we on FFF are not in direct contact with Square Enix. It's just a fan community.

Secondly, sadly, I'm also aware of how poor the system is. They really could do with taking some of these things more seriously, even investing the time to listen to players and their feedback when it comes to problems like these.

Of course you're never going to meet everyone's expectations but I definitely think they could improve in a lot of ways.

I, too, think that you shouldn't just give up your game (especially after playing so long). I do think it's good to rise above. Good for you for spreading awareness. Perhaps something we as staff on FFF can think about promoting a bit more as well.

 

[FKSTALKERS]

Hello FKSTALKERS

First of all, welcome to the forums. I've moved your thread to a more appropriate location as we on FFF are not in direct contact with Square Enix. It's just a fan community.

Secondly, sadly, I'm also aware of how poor the system is. They really could do with taking some of these things more seriously, even investing the time to listen to players and their feedback when it comes to problems like these.

Of course you're never going to meet everyone's expectations but I definitely think they could improve in a lot of ways.

I, too, think that you shouldn't just give up your game (especially after playing so long). I do think it's good to rise above. Good for you for spreading awareness. Perhaps something we as staff on FFF can think about promoting a bit more as well.

Ah, thanks so much for moving me to the correct forum and the warm welcome! This is truly a topic long overdue! It is my hope that SE will make proper changes and look into this situation if people respond and share some of their own experiences with stalking, harassment, and what concerns they have with the blacklist system and player privacy.
I've been through worse things than this, but since she's been so keen to stalk me for an entire year despite my attempts to ignore her, then its time I actually invested my time to ACTUALLY do something about it and call out SE for their lack of action regarding these problems, not just for me, but all players affected by these issues!

 

[Dionysos]

Very sorry to hear about your experience.

While it has never affected me (so far) by your description I can see that SE have quite a way to go towards stamping out this sort of behaviour. I'm glad that you are refusing to leave the game you love because of stalking. You're right, it absolutely is the stalker behaviour or SE's treatment of stalkers which needs to change.

May I ask, do they ever respond to reports? Do they ask for screenshot evidence or something? Or do they just leave an automated generic bot-generated response at all times?

I thought they had a special prison zone set up for precisely this sort of reason, so it is weird to learn that it isn't used for this.

Again, though, I've never been harassed so I have no experience on this matter. It alarms me to learn about the wedding ring situation as well as the loopholes with friendslists. That said, the friendslist situation does not surprise me much because I had noticed that my own list still has friends I don't think should be there anymore. The game only seems to remove some people automatically if they shift servers, and I'm not sure if it removes them completely in all cases.


In better news, welcome to the forums! I know you joined with a particular aim in mind, but we're a friendly bunch so don't hesitate to hang out with us if you need to unwind or vent or just fancy a friendlier chat.

Perhaps something we as staff on FFF can think about promoting a bit more as well.

I think awareness of this would be good, yeah.

 

[FKSTALKERS]

Thank you for your questions and encouragement on this cause. I also appreciate the welcome! After many conversations with GMs, I have noticed that some responses are automated, however I do believe that most of the time there is another person attached to these messages. Messages I see that are automated involve SE encouraging players to blacklist as well as their goodbye responses which is something like, "Thank you for your report regarding -such and such- I believe I have enough information to begin my investigation and rest assured that if a violation is found action will be taken." Though, after dozens of reports like this, nothing has been done and I've even had a GM be invisible and nearby while this person was following me from zone to zone. WHICH SHOULD BE AN OFFENSE IN ITSELF. The fact that the original person she was stalking had deleted their ring and she still teleported to them after they had deleted their ring and blacklisted them....action should have been taken then too. Something is def not right about how GMs respond to in game stalking and harassment.

 

[Six]

It's a tricky one. On one hand I'm eager to agree and say they should absolutely take cases like this as enough proof / evidence to do something about, or at the least get past their automated response system. On the other hand I think it's difficult to micro manage these things, even if it's a random case here and there. Widespread and with a game as big as FFXIV (player base) wise, I do think it becomes quite hard and tedious (if not impossible) for them to filter out the minor harassment (where this happens but it stops eventually) or the bigger problems that are long standing.

The eternal bonding thing is a little silly, it should break the teleportation if one ring is no longer present. Perhaps worth sending in as feedback on their website instead of in a complaint in-game to the GMods?

 

[Dionysos]

I don't know how the GMs work, but perhaps they have a series of automated replies at hand to make their job easier. So they type from a series of prefabricated sentences and just replace the certain values with your character name, your complaint, or something else. For messages expressing goodbye and that they'll look into it, maybe this is easier for them. However, to us users it is frustrating. It's the same with automated messages when on the telephone. We want to speak to a human!

As Six/Kira says, they probably have a lot of complaints to deal with and a lot of people to watch. They'll want to deal with each case as swiftly as possible.

That said, if it is clear that a person is stalking somebody and following them zone to zone then I do believe something like that should be taken seriously. The loopholes that you describe should be cause for alarm. And are they really that unfixable? I can't see any logic at all in allowing somebody to keep a wedding ring that teleports them to somebody who wants to be away from them. Perhaps they need to add a divorce system (and to make it so that you only need one or the other to want to disband the union, not both). If they are worried about players complaining about losing their rings as collectable items, why not let them keep the ring but just remove the teleportation ability? Or have them teleport somewhere else instead... Like the church where they can meet an NPC politely suggesting they find a new partner in mutual love and respect if they wish to teleport to someone else.

I echo Six here too. It would perhaps be good to go above the in-game GMs in this instance now, since that route hasn't borne any fruit so far.

 

[FKSTALKERS]

I don't know how the GMs work, but perhaps they have a series of automated replies at hand to make their job easier. So they type from a series of prefabricated sentences and just replace the certain values with your character name, your complaint, or something else. For messages expressing goodbye and that they'll look into it, maybe this is easier for them. However, to us users it is frustrating. It's the same with automated messages when on the telephone. We want to speak to a human!

As Six/Kira says, they probably have a lot of complaints to deal with and a lot of people to watch. They'll want to deal with each case as swiftly as possible.

That said, if it is clear that a person is stalking somebody and following them zone to zone then I do believe something like that should be taken seriously. The loopholes that you describe should be cause for alarm. And are they really that unfixable? I can't see any logic at all in allowing somebody to keep a wedding ring that teleports them to somebody who wants to be away from them. Perhaps they need to add a divorce system (and to make it so that you only need one or the other to want to disband the union, not both). If they are worried about players complaining about losing their rings as collectable items, why not let them keep the ring but just remove the teleportation ability? Or have them teleport somewhere else instead... Like the church where they can meet an NPC politely suggesting they find a new partner in mutual love and respect if they wish to teleport to someone else.

I echo Six here too. It would perhaps be good to go above the in-game GMs in this instance now, since that route hasn't borne any fruit so far.

I love your suggestion about the EB rings and teleporting that player to the chapel! That's actually kinda cute, in an "oh, sad." kinda way. I'm sure GMs are very busy and probably deal with a lot; however, it is in my opinion if they had better tools or protocols regarding in-game harassment, it might actually save GMs and the players a lot of time and trouble. I really don't think stalking would be that big of an issue if SE would just remove blocked players from the player search, or allow players to choose if they want to even be found via player search in general. There are so many different way that SE could be going about this. I posted this same thread on the original FFXIV forums site and someone said that Yoshi addressed this issue:

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.

It doesn't make much sense to me that players are not in control of who they don't want to associate with just because Yoshi doesn't want to hurt feelings? That just doesn't seem right to me and I think it is a cultural difference. It is not uncommon for the Japanese to avoid confrontation. It's also frowned upon for someone in Japan to be stalked and helped after they've acknowledged the stalker. For example, a man has been following a woman, trying to talk to her, bringing her gifts; The police are more likely to help the woman if she did not respond or interact with him because they believe it to be a form of invitation if she does respond to her stalker. By acknowledging this person's' existence, you allow them into your life. Personally, I get the perspective, but I can't say that I agree with it.

Leaving a comment, I don't want to see this thread die.

 

[Jake]

While this is a sensitive topic that would potentially benefit from more exposure, please refrain from double posting to 'bump' the thread in the future. As a result I've merged your posts into one.

Feel free to PM if you have any questions and would like to discuss this further.

 

[Dionysos]

I love your suggestion about the EB rings and teleporting that player to the chapel! That's actually kinda cute, in an "oh, sad." kinda way.

Ha ha. I really do wish this was what they did.

I really don't think stalking would be that big of an issue if SE would just remove blocked players from the player search, or allow players to choose if they want to even be found via player search in general.

This would seem fair to me.
Having personal privacy settings could cut out some of the harassment at least, and that would be pre-emptive and prevent problems from occurring in the first place in some cases.

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.

It doesn't make much sense to me that players are not in control of who they don't want to associate with just because Yoshi doesn't want to hurt feelings? That just doesn't seem right to me and I think it is a cultural difference. It is not uncommon for the Japanese to avoid confrontation. It's also frowned upon for someone in Japan to be stalked and helped after they've acknowledged the stalker. For example, a man has been following a woman, trying to talk to her, bringing her gifts; The police are more likely to help the woman if she did not respond or interact with him because they believe it to be a form of invitation if she does respond to her stalker. By acknowledging this person's' existence, you allow them into your life. Personally, I get the perspective, but I can't say that I agree with it.

That is interesting. I don't really know anything about stalking in Japan. I've heard of a lot of street stalkers who creep up on women and follow them through streets and that these women sometimes silently blend in with other groups in order to escape them instead of running away or turning to tell the person to get away or publicly calling for help, but I don't know how prevalent that is. It's just behaviour I happened to see in one or two YouTube clips about Japan which the comments section stated has happened many times.

It's also possible that Yoshida had another situation in mind there. He may have just been thinking about people who had an argument and had a falling out. Unless the context of those comments made it clearer when he made them.

 

[FKSTALKERS]

SE's inability to protect players from stalking/harassment

Lets talk about Square Enix's inability to keep players safe in-game. First, I'd like to bring up the blacklist system- WHAT A JOKE. The only thing this feature does is block direct messages from the other player; This does NOT however remove them from the Player Search. Should you type in the...

www.tinyurl.com

Same topic, different thread.
I can't say I'm surprised to see so many people trying to troll this thread tho.

 

[Dionysos]

It is a pity that SE appear to have stopped looking at that forum. As one member suggested, the Japanese one might be more visible to them.
Or social media.

I haven't read all of that thread, but whether people judge your personal case as harassment or not is almost irrelevant. Suggesting steps like removing wedding ring teleportation for 'divorcees', improving the blacklists and friend removal, and introducing privacy settings per player, would be in everybody's interests for helping to remove harassment. It is a pity that the conversation went in the direction it did by shutting some of that down.

It could be that the in-game GM route might not be working. Messaging them too frequently might annoy them and reduce the chances of them acting on it, possibly. They also will have little say on implementing policies themselves or some of the features advocated (mentioned above), since they would require changes to the game's coding and would need to be changed in an update. That'll be a decision made at the top. The GMs are just enforcing behaviour from a rule book they have in front of them, more or less. They'll only be able to deal with matters on a case by case basis.
So I'd suggest going above them for these other concerns.