Hello, a warning to you all: there is a hacker called "Grincher" who has been going around to servers and bricking people's saves. this isn't a joke or a lie. from what I've seen hosts can't ban him. so whatever you do, if you see him LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. It might be a better idea to wait a day or two...
Seems like Grincher can corrupt save data. So, do not open any mail from Grincher, leave any room you see Grincher in, and do not join any room with a 1,000 player limit called "Grincher's Happy Room". This is not a joke.
Edit: Kicking Grincher from your game does not work, they are not affected by the kick action.
Definitely possible, a similar thing happened in both DS3 and Elden Ring shortly after release IIRC. I'd imagine this is a troll who decided to target Webfishing explicitly because of the "straight" title drama.
It's really freaky to experience it in-game. They keep joining my games, and they can't be kicked, so they just sit there, menacingly. As soon as I found out they could corrupt save data I just started leaving whenever they joined. It may or may not be true but I don't want to risk it.
Honestly, this is the kind of shit that obviously sucks for players, but is excellent for the culture, so long as it stays confined to this one account. It's a spooky legend.