Final Fantasy 14 players are asking Square for better cyber safety features to prevent harassment in the game.
A Reddit post on Thursday that has gathered almost 4,000 upvotes at the time of writing outlines several issues Square could take to prevent in-game stalking. Primarily how character names are easy to find on Square's Lodestone database, which can reveal a character's location, server, appearance, and more.
Unfriending a user also only removes them from the person who unfriended them. So, any unfriended user can visit the Lodestone database to find the user who wants to unfriend them. Users can also be matched with players who they have blacklisted.
Final Fantasy players are simply asking for the option to make Lodestone profiles private.
"I love this game dearly, but it's an MMO, and stalkers and harassment is [sic] plentiful," the Reddit user wrote in the initial post. "I've heard so many horror stories, had to console friends who've had to deal with it, and found myself in this situation a few times as well."
IGN has reached out to Square for comment.
Square recently made a change to Final Fantay 14 due to fan requests. The Sage job icon was altered after concerns of trypophobia. In a blog post at the time, Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida thanked fans for the feedback.
"But regardless of such differences, you have given us your earnest feedback, and there's still time to change things," Yoshida said. "Considering also the fact that job icons are prominently visible in the game, and that they also appear on merchandise, we've made the decision to redesign the sage icon."
Final Fantasy 14 has skyrocketed in popularity in 2021. According to Steam Charts, the average number of in-game users playing through Steam on PC in August 2020 was about 20,000. In August 2021, that number reached 40,000. Final Fantasy 14 was released on PlayStation 5 in May, and the game's newest expansion, Endwalker, is due for a November release.
Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN.