In any video game where mass amounts of players can interact with each other, there will always be issues with harassment and bullying. In Final Fantasy XIV, those issues are also present. Due to the lack of tools in the game to combat it, players bring up the issue every now and then, but Square Enix hasn't touched the blacklist or friends list in some time.
Final Fantasy XIV is consistently nominated for being one of the best communities in video gaming, and if you ask the player base, they'll agree with you. But there are some players that still constantly deal with harassment or bullying because the blacklist does very little to deter those who are truly dedicated to their target.
For example, back in October, a Japanese man who began harassing a 29-year-old woman in FFXIV was arrested after sending threatening messages both in the game and on Twitter/X. The conversation around the blacklist has been stoked again after two threads popped up on social media — one on Reddit, and one on the official FFXIV forums — asking for the blacklist and friends list to be expanded or improved.
FFXIV players are still asking for improvements to anti-harassment tools
There are several aspects of the blacklist and friend list system that players have been complaining about for some time now. Reddit threads complaining about removing people from the friend list only working from one side, the blacklist itself, or the Game Masters having slow or non-existent responses. The most recent post about increasing the size of the blacklist has reached the top of r/FFXIV this morning, and most players are in agreement that changes need to be made.
"They need to rework the blacklist and friend list entirely. Like come on. What game lets [sic] you keep players on your friends list that removed you from theirs?" Redditor xX_Anime_Girl_Xx101 commented.
Some are also speaking on their own issues with harassment and frustration with bots. One Redditor even had an issue with an ex of theirs. "I think [the blacklist] and friend list both need reworked. Maybe even teleport rings after divorce too. I don't wanna stay on someone's friend list [sic] when I remove them. I also had an ex stalk me with [the friend list] as well as the teleport ring after I blocked on everything," said Redditor XEnraptureX.
One commenter even called the topic a "dead horse issue" because it has been "discussed for ages". The original poster noted that it's been discussed for ages because it's a continuing issue, which is made clear by the years of players asking both on Reddit and on the official forums for change.
FFXIV's blacklist does little to deter harassers
The way the blacklist currently works is that players need to either physically see the person they want to blacklist, or that person needs to pipe up in chat. Currently, the blacklist holds up to 200 players. However, there's a catch to this. The blacklist is limited in that it only prevents a player from sending tells, joining your party finders, and from appearing in your chat box. One of the biggest problem players point out is that the tool is only used per character. If a player blacklists a person, that person can then go create another character (up to 40 can be created) and continue their harassment until all 40 are on the blacklist.
Because of the 200 player limit on the blacklist, players have started calling for the expansion of it. Tied into that, they are also asking for the friend list to be improved. The topic has been brought up with the developers multiple times, including a 2021 interview with FFXIV director and producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida during the Endwalker preview, and again last year in response to an article written by Dot Esports discussing the blacklist.
In the 2021 interview published by PCGames, Yoshi-P commented on the blacklist and friend list system stating, "I would like to spend more time discussing with the relevant parties involved ... there's never going to be a system that is 100 percent just, but the best we can do is to work towards creating something closer to that idea. So once again, I would like to carry out more discussion and develop our plans for addressing that moving forward."
However, in a statement provided to Dot Esports over a year later, Square Enix still had no answer. "As for expanding the functionality [of the blacklist] from a per-character basis to a per-account basis, it requires careful design from a security perspective. While we are positively looking into this possibility, it is taking some time for us to reach a conclusion in order to ensure the necessary safety."
Over two years after Yoshi-P was asked about improving the friend list and the blacklist, no changes have been made. A question about the progress on this topic that Fanbyte submitted at NA's Fan Fest in July went unanswered. Fanbyte's request for an interview about the subject in October also went unanswered.
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