fflogs and privacy

[Dzian]

Wanting to hide your fflogs is a massive red flag

The problem with those sites is they don't really tell you all that much at all.

You cannot for example look at a parse on fflogs and be like ok that players dragoon is i1000 and has an i950 weapon. And gear is a MAJOR component in damage, especially with the games power creep..

So while you may look at a parse see a player is green and conclude that players terrible. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're playing the job properly but don't really chase the treadmill to much. It's tedious af having to rebuild every job every patch..

It doesn't take much to drop you from lets say the 90th percentile right down to the 60s, 50s. Mayve even 40s Sometimes just 10-20 i-levels. And if your around 50% your basically "average"

Better gear alone can take a player from green to purple in some cases but players just see green and automatically conclude bad player. When in reality you can be a good or great player just not in the latest and greatest gear because treadmill is tedious af.

This is also why many players pad the level requirements on PF groups so much because gear goes an incredibly long way to cover for a bad player.

I do very much agree with the op that these things should be opt in. Not opt out. And any player dated from players not opted in should be anonymized. And show as "unknown dragoon" or something

ITo be honest, this is one of those situations where... The absence of information is almost always interpreted to be worse than the presence of it, as people can only assume the worse. So it typically does raise red flags with a lot of people due to the nature of the game.. - Now whether it should or not is a different discussion.

Not at all. In the case of an opt in system the lack of information on a player would almost always be interpreted as they havent registered to the site. Or don't even know it exists.

[Kohashi]

The problem with those sites is they don't really tell you all that much at all.

You talk like somebody who has no clue what they talk about yet act like they do.

FFlogs is extremely useful to tell information apart from the rhetoric here that somehow showing your logs is an infringement of your privacy.

1. You can see what gear they are using so thus make an estimated guess of their ilvl. You can even see the stats they have + materia melded in.
2. There is no playing optimally but not chasing the treadmill. You either play well and understand your class or you don't.
3. While parses are never the only indicator if somebody is good or not it's a basepoint. If somebody has BiS however they only have grey parses then something is amiss (I know cases too, funny enough)
4. Parses are influenced to a degree by how well the team also plays + RNG crits but that is mostly only for pink/ orange parses.
5. You can also further analyze a player's rotation and how well they did by looking at their casted spells in a fight.
6. You do a lot of assuming what people think. Sure some might think that but the vast majority don't care enough to do a full background check of a person's parse or rotation. You are really not that important for people to really go deep and scrutinize you.
7. FFlogs is generally used for self-improvement. It is a great tool to see where you lack and where you need to work on, you or your team, that is. It's an awesome tool to plan for example mitigations based on looking at the damage taken by the team, periods, and overall pace of the fight.

[Kaurhz]

Not at all. In the case of an opt in system the lack of information on a player would almost always be interpreted as they havent registered to the site. Or don't even know it exists.

Logically speaking, this would be the case, yes, and I do agree in principle, but with how normalized the website is already, and with the design nature of the game, and how people play the game, those same people will still only go on to assume the exact same. Granted, there's a rationalization for your logs not being visible under an opt-in system, but people can still only assume, and bias will take it towards the worst rather than the better, and people simply won't have the time to investigate each individual player first-hand to find out. If you are doing that content, then those that cared about the logs in the first place, will still care about them even under opt-in since it's the most fundamental evaluation. Logs are like a pre-screening into a players performance.

Whether I agree or disagree in principle, which in principle I do agree, but I just don't think it would change much with the community where it matters, as it has already been far too normalized in the game. Call me a pessimist.

[Collin_Sky]

The problem with those sites is they don't really tell you all that much at all.

You cannot for example look at a parse on fflogs and be like ok that players dragoon is i1000 and has an i950 weapon. And gear is a MAJOR component in damage, especially with the games power creep..

So while you may look at a parse see a player is green and conclude that players terrible. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're playing the job properly but don't really chase the treadmill to much. It's tedious af having to rebuild every job every patch..

It doesn't take much to drop you from lets say the 90th percentile right down to the 60s, 50s. Mayve even 40s Sometimes just 10-20 i-levels. And if your around 50% your basically "average"

Better gear alone can take a player from green to purple in some cases but players just see green and automatically conclude bad player. When in reality you can be a good or great player just not in the latest and greatest gear because treadmill is tedious af.

This is also why many players pad the level requirements on PF groups so much because gear goes an incredibly long way to cover for a bad player.

I do very much agree with the op that these things should be opt in. Not opt out. And any player dated from players not opted in should be anonymized. And show as "unknown dragoon" or something

I lead a strong raid group, though not at a world progression level, it's still very good by most standards. I'm fully aware of the benefits and limitations of percentiles, and I recognize that focusing on them exclusively can be a trap.

When evaluating a player's performance, I look at multiple entire logs, not just the percentile. Did they die? Did they get any damage downs? If so, were those mistakes their fault? Are they using their abilities effectively? Are they managing defensives properly, and at consistent points each pull? Tools like xivanalysis are also invaluable at this point.

That said, assuming a player is well geared (near or at BiS), the percentile can still be useful at a glance:

Grey/Green: Usually indicates a death or damage down, or a fundamental misunderstanding of the job.
Blue: Shows decent job knowledge but missing key optimizations.
Purple: Shows solid proficiency.
Orange: Shows high level play, along with fight specific optimisations.
Pink/Gold: Exceptional performance, often with some RNG involved.

Healers can be trickier. A high median or lots of orange/pink parses can sometimes signal a greedy player who focuses too much on personal DPS. This approach can be problematic during progression, where sacrificing DPS for the good of the pull is the most important factor.

One important factor to note is that fflogs also has a "Today's %" feature, which is useful to show how gear progression has affected overall percentiles.

I have taken gambles on players without logs because of how I've seen them perform outside of raid. With that said, it is a gamble. Usually it goes well, because I know what I'm looking for, but at the end of the day, it's best to have actual metrics to evaluate people with.

To finish off, I will reiterate that wanting to hide all of that is a massive red flag. It is not just about percentiles, but you are signalling to me that you want to hide the entire way you play the game.

[Rehayem]

snip

While it's nice you have that kind of perspective, I think it's important to remember the logs have been and will be used for harassment, whether someone likes it or not. I think it's fair if people that play casually want to hide it because, let's be real, don't think that one really matters that much, does it? Unless people use that to analyze if said person knows their job.

[BigCheez]

The problem with those sites is they don't really tell you all that much at all.

You cannot for example look at a parse on fflogs and be like ok that players dragoon is i1000 and has an i950 weapon. And gear is a MAJOR component in damage, especially with the games power creep..

So while you may look at a parse see a player is green and conclude that players terrible. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're playing the job properly but don't really chase the treadmill to much. It's tedious af having to rebuild every job every patch..

It doesn't take much to drop you from lets say the 90th percentile right down to the 60s, 50s. Mayve even 40s Sometimes just 10-20 i-levels. And if your around 50% your basically "average"

Better gear alone can take a player from green to purple in some cases but players just see green and automatically conclude bad player. When in reality you can be a good or great player just not in the latest and greatest gear because treadmill is tedious af.

This is also why many players pad the level requirements on PF groups so much because gear goes an incredibly long way to cover for a bad player.

I do very much agree with the op that these things should be opt in. Not opt out. And any player dated from players not opted in should be anonymized. And show as "unknown dragoon" or something



Not at all. In the case of an opt in system the lack of information on a player would almost always be interpreted as they havent registered to the site. Or don't even know it exists.

The problem is not that the website isn't useful. The problem is that you don't know how to use the website.

If you're looking at the parse % and nothing else, you're doing it wrong.

Check their clear dates to see how early they have cleared content previously. Check logs for their first kills to see how they play in prog. Check if the player is using their defensives and where they're using them. Use XIV Analysis to check their damage rotation.

The gear that they have equipped is completely irrelevant.

[TaleraRistain]

The problem with those sites is they don't really tell you all that much at all.

You cannot for example look at a parse on fflogs and be like ok that players dragoon is i1000 and has an i950 weapon. And gear is a MAJOR component in damage, especially with the games power creep..

So while you may look at a parse see a player is green and conclude that players terrible. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're playing the job properly but don't really chase the treadmill to much. It's tedious af having to rebuild every job every patch..

It doesn't take much to drop you from lets say the 90th percentile right down to the 60s, 50s. Mayve even 40s Sometimes just 10-20 i-levels. And if your around 50% your basically "average"

Better gear alone can take a player from green to purple in some cases but players just see green and automatically conclude bad player. When in reality you can be a good or great player just not in the latest and greatest gear because treadmill is tedious af.

This is also why many players pad the level requirements on PF groups so much because gear goes an incredibly long way to cover for a bad player.

I do very much agree with the op that these things should be opt in. Not opt out. And any player dated from players not opted in should be anonymized. And show as "unknown dragoon" or something

There are also the things that numbers won't tell you.

My static has an amazing astro. Honestly, I wonder sometimes why he's with our casual static because he's just fantastic. He gets incredibly high numbers but as his main tank I never have to worry that he's too focused on dps and will let me or the rest of the party down when we need him.

My friend who is also the main tank has two static healers who focus on dps and have just as high numbers as he does, but she's constantly talking about how they either let her die to greed or she has to blow all her mit to stay alive. Her healers don't support her and only chase their own numbers, to the detriment of their static's progress sometimes.

Those who only look at log numbers would classify those two healers the same but they are miles apart in their value to the party.

There's also the grey or green parser you might get in PF who picks up things quickly or is incredibly accurate with mechanics. I know most PF groups I've been in would rather have that person than someone with a higher number who constantly greeds and wipes the party, or can't do the mechanics well in a PF setting and seems like they might usually have some sort of callout helping them.

[Kohashi]

My friend who is also the main tank has two static healers who focus on dps and have just as high numbers as he does, but she's constantly talking about how they either let her die to greed or she has to blow all her mit to stay alive. Her healers don't support her and only chase their own numbers, to the detriment of their static's progress sometimes.

This sounds very sus on so many levels. What content are they progging? Because in savage and above doing a kitchen sink to stay alive because the healer is greeding DPS always leads to poor outcomes.

Tank mitigations are very specific and spaced out in a very precise manner. Only maybe as OT, you can afford a few liberties, otherwise not really. If they need to do a kitchen sink and they are MT, on the next TB they will just flat out die.

Also if the tanks die, there is a high chance the rest of the party dies as well. Even normal attacks from bosses are no joke.

This reminds me of a funny story when a DPS friend greeded an opener and Hephastois deleted him in 1 and a half attacks. He just melted. We couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes straight.

[TaleraRistain]

This sounds very sus on so many levels. What content are they progging? Because in savage and above doing a kitchen sink to stay alive because the healer is greeding DPS always leads to poor outcomes.

Tank mitigations are very specific and spaced out in a very precise manner. Only maybe as OT, you can afford a few liberties, otherwise not really. If they need to do a kitchen sink and they are MT, on the next TB they will just flat out die.

Also if the tanks die, there is a high chance the rest of the party dies as well. Even normal attacks from bosses are no joke.

This reminds me of a funny story when a DPS friend greeded an opener and Hephastois deleted him in 1 and a half attacks. He just melted. We couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes straight.

Savage and up in her case. I haven't stepped into Ultimates so just Savage in mine. We're both the main tanks of our statics.

It's not really sus. My healers this tier in this static are great but the healers we had last tier who decided not to come back this tier (a husband and wife team and my friend also has a husband and wife team currently) cared more about their parse than keeping us alive. I remember we were progging P11S and still learning and getting clipped by things and instead of thinking of what they could do to help us see more of the fight by maybe pushing a little more healing, they blamed the rest of us for taking avoidable damage. You're right that the healer greeding dps does often lead to poor outcomes. My point was that my fantastic static healer and her healers get comparable numbers and would look the same if you just looked at their logs, but they are vastly different in how they support us and the value they provide to the party.

[BigCheez]

Savage and up in her case. I haven't stepped into Ultimates so just Savage in mine. We're both the main tanks of our statics.

It's not really sus. My healers this tier in this static are great but the healers we had last tier who decided not to come back this tier (a husband and wife team and my friend also has a husband and wife team currently) cared more about their parse than keeping us alive. I remember we were progging P11S and still learning and getting clipped by things and instead of thinking of what they could do to help us see more of the fight by maybe pushing a little more healing, they blamed the rest of us for taking avoidable damage. You're right that the healer greeding dps does often lead to poor outcomes. My point was that my fantastic static healer and her healers get comparable numbers and would look the same if you just looked at their logs, but they are vastly different in how they support us and the value they provide to the party.

What were you getting clipped by in P11S that didn't just kill you outright? Anabaseios was basically clipped = dead, dead = wipe. There honestly wasn't a great deal that healers could do beyond LB3 to save a pull. They just mit and heal the raid damage and if people fail mechanics then you're cooked. That raid tier was notorious for RDMs not even being able to do much to help salvage pulls.