Blacklisting is a social feature in Final Fantasy XIV that prevents users from messaging you. It does not exclude them from matchmaking with you if you join groups via the Duty Roulette.
And sadly, we’ve all been there:
Minding your own business, enjoying an online game alone or with friends, until a toxic player goes out of their way to ruin everyone’s fun. Thankfully it’s possible to blacklist these players, although it doesn’t completely cut off all means of contact.
FFXIV is revered for having one of the best communities in online gaming. And while that’s true in some areas, it’s not immune from bad behavior.
Bear in mind that the standard for “good communities” in online gaming isn’t particularly high anymore, either.
So there may well be times you have to make use of the blacklist feature to avoid hassle from toxic random players.
What Kind Of Communication Does Blacklisting Prevent?
Blacklisting a player in FFXIV prevents them from sending you private messages, meaning their primary method of contacting you is cut off. It also prevents them from seeing any parties you list in the Party Finder, and stops you from entering theirs.
The blacklist system has no effect on matchmaking, so there’s every chance you could end up playing with someone on your list through Duty Roulette.
If this happens, just do your best to get on with it and report the offending player to a GM if they cause any trouble.
If you do end up with a blacklisted player in your party through Duty Roulette, you’ll be able to see all their messages in the party chat.
Hopefully this won’t result in any further bad experiences for you. But just be aware that blacklisting doesn’t completely cut out all communication.
If the blacklisted player’s behavior is extremely negative (like if they’re using racial slurs, hate speech, or going out of their way to ruin everyone’s good time) please report them to a GM.
How Do I Blacklist Someone?
There’s a couple of options.
You can do it from the chat log window by right clicking on the character’s name and selecting the “Add to Blacklist” option.
Or you can do it via text command by targeting the character and typing /blacklist add <t>.
Finally, you can do it straight from the contact list.
Open it up, select the character, select “Add to Blacklist” and confirm the action. All done!
It’s important to note that you can’t blacklist someone on your friend list.
You also can’t add someone to your friend list if they’re currently blacklisted.
I don’t imagine that’s something many people have to worry about. But if an online friendship’s gone wrong and you want to block someone, you’ll have to remove them from your friend list first.
Definitely, and it’s as easy as putting them on it in the first place.
Open your Social menu and select “Blacklist”. Find the character you’d like to remove from your blacklist and choose “remove from Blacklist”.
You can put them on and take them off as many times as you’d like, if for whatever reason you want to. I’m not here to judge your friend group.
A really common use of the blacklist is the blocking of bot accounts. This would basically be in-game gold sellers who circumvent Square’s terms of service, or stuff like that.
Personally, I’d equate using your blacklist for that purpose to a game of whack-a-mole.
For every bot you block, two more will pop up. It’s an endless game, and the blacklist only supports 200 players in total.
It’s completely possible to fill it up with bots, rendering it useless for its actual purpose.
And the worst part?
There’s no option to bulk delete.
So if you’ve reached your 200 character limit, you’ll have to remove every entry individually. Ouch.
