Hello everyone, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

In response to a long-standing request from players, we expanded the scope of the blacklist feature from individual characters to an account-wide basis in Patch 7.0. However, this inadvertently enabled prohibited third-party tools to deduce whether characters belong to the same account, which had a large negative impact on our players. (Only character-related information was affected; other sensitive information, such as address and payment information, was not affected.)

To address this issue, Patch 7.2 introduced changes to the game's data structure, making it harder for third-party tools to associate characters with each other. In Patch 7.3, we will be making even more significant changes to further obscure data that may potentially be used to determine whether characters belong to the same account.

However, this implementation requires making changes and imposing certain restrictions on features which are currently used by our players. I understand this will pose an inconvenience for our players, but would appreciate your patience as we resolve this issue.

1. Resetting Mute List Data

The chat-masking functionality added in Patch 7.0 will be changed from account-wide to a per-character basis, as part of the data structure changes in Patch 7.3. Furthermore, existing mute list data will be deleted with the release of Patch 7.3. My apologies for the inconvenience these changes will cause.

* The blacklist feature will continue to function on an account-wide basis, which may be relevant when deciding whether to use the blacklist or mute list for your needs.

2. Retention of Blacklist Entries and Removal of Notes

Blacklist entries registered before Patch 7.3 will remain intact, and the blacklist feature will continue to hide characters and their chat messages on an account-wide basis.

On the other hand, any notes attached to blacklist entries will be deleted, due to changes in how the blacklist will be managed. Although these notes are stored locally on your PC or console, like other impacted data, they will be restructured to obstruct external tools from associating characters with each other. With this, the existing data will become unreadable and will be deleted. My apologies again for the inconvenience caused by this change.

3. Impact on Other Features

Characters can be added to the blacklist from the Contact List (which displays characters you've previously partied with), but starting with Patch 7.3, this option will no longer persist after logging out and logging back in.

As the release of Patch 7.3 approaches, the team is preparing safeguards to further enhance the security of data associated with the blacklist feature. However, I wanted to offer my apologies ahead of these improvements, which necessitate resetting certain data and may cause some frustration for our players.

Thank you all for your understanding and continued support, as we continue our efforts to ensure that FINAL FANTASY XIV remains a safe and secure experience.

Naoki Yoshida

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director