SE: Please copyright takedown FFLogs.

[Barraind]

Because I come from the old school of gaming, the old school of MMOs. We didn't parse people's logs (aside from our own)

What?

We've been parsing since MMO's had parsable combat logs. Its literally how we discovered EVERYTHING in EQ, from heal chains to optimal mana management to figuring out how class damage compared to others to figuring out exactly how certain boss mechanics worked to figuring out the exact benefits of tertiary stats, to figuring out the exact effect of ac on db/di distribution.

Saying old school MMO players didnt parse anything but themselves is ludicrously nonsense. We parsed EVERYTHING in our combat logs because none of this information was available anywhere else. Until Lucy (and she didnt quite have the right info on boss mechanics if it had the same name as other spells. She couldnt [and still cant] properly assign spdat id numbers to specific fights and just guessed)

[Delis]

WoW and FF XI weren't the birth of MMORPGs. I'm talking about the old school: UO, EQ, AC, DAoC - Back when even voice chat was extremely uncommon (and was a game changer for raids) - The old school way was full of wonder and mystery.

You couldn't look up builds or optimized rotations. It was possible to run into a player who had figured such out, alone, on their own, and to only gape in awe at what they did which you might've never thought possible.

Where high end bosses, over years, might not be defeated because people couldn't figure out the mechanics. (There was one such in DAoC that was finally killed, one time, between all the servers, despite hundreds of attempts.)

I started playing MMO's late '99 with Everquest. I remember using parses once it came out. (It was made in part to show that Warriors were being out dpsed by Paladins and Shadow knights and since Warriors didn't have any spells just their auto attacks, taunt and kick it meant they were not being brought along to tank raids etc.) There were also sites that had guides on Raid bosses even before Planes of Power came out. Once AA's came out people figured out optimal builds for classes and those were posted up on various sites like everlore and class specific websites like the Cleric site and Warrior site. Just because you may not have been aware that these sites etc were out there doesn't mean they were not out there and people not using them.

[Noitems]

According to fflogs I've barely done anything. Just proves my point that fflogs arent a good judge of player ability.

I don't use fflogs/act during my actual raid runs on higher end content (others post mine), HOWEVER I absolutely look at them every so often to see my progression. I have logs dating back to Sigmascape where it was new content and I sucked. I was first starting to tank and I had multiple and deaths gray parses. That was back in like Feb of 2018, and I look back now and I'm generally green to blue pending on the fight for my first time. Is it incredible? No, but I do see massive improvements in my parses between was I just thinking that I was doing okay to actually seeing that I'm doing my job fine. Which in turn points out what I died to and how I stand compared to other players, giving me some pride and accomplishment. You can only get better, is the best mentality you can have in this game.

Natural instincts on a fight (like my Seiryu example) can help when you have it down to a science but you can't ignore that numbers do give you an idea as to how you're doing, and lead into why you're getting them especially for early progression.

I give my respect out to those who do uses their fflogs as it shows that they actively want to improve and are willing to take criticism on where they can improve.
Because if we're being honest not everyone is your boogie man toxic parse player, people just want their time to be spent wisely and with the right people. The only reason why some people are getting defensive here is that there's much more to a fight then just living/mechs and your original comment is like a blanket statement very much downplaying that especially for those that are going through savage and especially ultimate.

[Melichoir]

In my experience, so long as you're not dying to mechanics all the time, you won't have a problem with DPS.
Every case of failing to put out the DPS at enrage I've seen has been down to too many deaths and associated res weakness.

Die less, DPS more.
It's easy to tell who keeps dying.

09S party DPS to clear was what..35k about? If your casual DPS player did only 4k DPS, your healer did two, and your tanks pulled three apiece, Youd hit enrage even if you did all your mechanics right. And 4k damage on a casual player was not uncommon (Heck I see some players struggle to hit 3.5k in current content at 80.) Simply saying "stay alive and dps more" is an oversimplification. Yes, dying impacts your DPS, so its obviously an issue, but it's not just that. Having good uptime on boss, and knowing your class and coordinating with your fellow players to maximize your dps to beat the enrage. And speaking bluntly, most of hte player base is not up to snuff as they currently are to beat those enrages. It doesnt mean they cant. I am more confident almost teh entire player base could raid savage and clear it before Echo if people just practiced and pushed themselves even a little bit.

As a point, pushing DPS to 6k a DPS, 3.5k a tank, and 2k a healer would just beat the enrage.

It's not a matter of just being alive. If it was, more people would be completing savage.

[HyoMinPark]

In my experience, so long as you're not dying to mechanics all the time, you won't have a problem with DPS.
Every case of failing to put out the DPS at enrage I've seen has been down to too many deaths and associated res weakness.

Die less, DPS more.
It's easy to tell who keeps dying.

That doesn’t necessarily determine the weakest link in a party. For example, I once joined a Tsukuyomi EX farm back when it was still fresh, and there were some...questionable DPS in there. Despite very few deaths, we still hit enrage the first time we pulled. Okay, so we try again. Maybe the deaths were too much (there weren’t a lot but still). I ended up dying to something, and I laid on the floor dead for a full 45+ seconds before the healer deigned to raise me. Meanwhile, the SAM and DRG in the party that had NOT died were doing LESS damage than me: the dead BRD on the ground for 45 seconds. For some reason, I don’t think my death would have been an issue with hitting enrage in that run (had it actually played out—it was a wipe again).

How would one discern that the SAM and the DRG were actually the problems here without a tool for it? It would be impossible.

Sometimes, it’s the people that aren’t dying that end up being the bigger problem.

And, as others have pointed out, you aren’t even considering rotational issues that may not be inherently obvious without a tool to see numbers. It’s not uncommon to run into players who don’t really know how to string together a basic rotation, much less an opener. Do you know why “Skip Soar or Disband” was such a meme in HW? Because all it took to push Zurvan to ~74% (the point where he would skip the first Soar) was for the party to just execute a decent opener. How many groups failed in that? More than people care to count.

“Don’t die” just doesn’t cover it.

[Mirassou]

"FF Logs - Hiding Character Parses

We understand that privacy is important to many players. When parses of your fights get uploaded without your permission, this can be very frustrating.
To hide your character on FFLogs, you don't even have to make an account. Simply log in to your character on Lodestone. In the Profile section of your character add the following code: fflogs-hidden.
Once you have saved this to your profile on Lodestone, type your character's name into the search field at the top of FFLogs site and load your character page. In the upper right corner of that page is a link labeled Update. Click that, and once your character has updated, your parses will be hidden from view.
You can use the code fflogs-visible to unhide a character if you still don't want to make an account and claim your character on the site.
Because of caching on the site, please allow up to 10 minutes for parse visibility changes to propagate through to the entire site."

I know I must be overlooking something obvious, but where exactly on the Lodestone Profile section do you enter the code? I've checked all the dropdowns etc. and can't seem to find it.

[Lilseph]

"FF Logs - Hiding Character Parses

We understand that privacy is important to many players. When parses of your fights get uploaded without your permission, this can be very frustrating.
To hide your character on FFLogs, you don't even have to make an account. Simply log in to your character on Lodestone. In the Profile section of your character add the following code: fflogs-hidden.
Once you have saved this to your profile on Lodestone, type your character's name into the search field at the top of FFLogs site and load your character page. In the upper right corner of that page is a link labeled Update. Click that, and once your character has updated, your parses will be hidden from view.
You can use the code fflogs-visible to unhide a character if you still don't want to make an account and claim your character on the site.
Because of caching on the site, please allow up to 10 minutes for parse visibility changes to propagate through to the entire site."

I know I must be overlooking something obvious, but where exactly on the Lodestone Profile section do you enter the code? I've checked all the dropdowns etc. and can't seem to find it.

Go to the Lodestone and log on. Click on your character pic and then click con "character profile". Scroll down under the job icons (showing your levels). You'll see a line that says "character profile" and there's a little pencil on the right. Click on it. It will open a text box where you can write that command. Confirm twice and you should be set.

[Belisaire]

It is a slippery slope they are on to be honest to collect data on users who haven't opted into any terms of service or anything like that. That's dodgy in a legal sense. Facebook is similarly getting chewed out for having shadow profiles, data that's collected about you before you even opt in or sign up (and it is the exact same scenario, other people share data about you without your permission). FFLogs makes it your problem to fix (by forcing you to have to go to your lodestone profile and add some tag).

I think its fine for people who want to opt in but collecting data on folks who haven't signed up is increasingly becoming very dodgy.

[Alucard135]

I think its fine for people who want to opt in but collecting data on folks who haven't signed up is increasingly becoming very dodgy.

More of a reason why people should read the TOS of the things they use before they use it. And I mean FFXIV TOS.

[Melichoir]

It is a slippery slope they are on to be honest to collect data on users who haven't opted into any terms of service or anything like that. That's dodgy in a legal sense. Facebook is similarly getting chewed out for having shadow profiles, data that's collected about you before you even opt in or sign up (and it is the exact same scenario, other people share data about you without your permission). FFLogs makes it your problem to fix (by forcing you to have to go to your lodestone profile and add some tag).

I think its fine for people who want to opt in but collecting data on folks who haven't signed up is increasingly becoming very dodgy.

It's not dodgy and their not collecting 'your' information. People keep thinking that what you do in FFXIV is private. It's not.

Let me illustrate it this way.

You are going to a theme park. You pay for your ticket. Once you are in that theme park you can play any game you want, however there are other people in that theme park. They are also playing games, taking pictures, recording video, etc. If you get into a game where both of you are playing and theyre recording the game, it's not a violation of your privacy if they post their video clip online. Much like if you go to Disneyland and take photos of your family and catch other people in the photos, it's not a violation of their privacy. Consider this from another angle: If you were recorded via Streaming apps in ffxiv, is that a violation of your privacy? Under the idea that 'recording you and posting it online' like fflogs supposedly does, it would be. So youd have to advocate that people arent allowed to stream FFXIV. Which means you can kiss all those class/dungeon/raid guides good bye, along with any fun compilations or the like.

Now the thing is you brought up FB, but the issue with FB is quite substantially different. For starters, FFXIV has no RL personal information on you. I dont know who you are in RL based on your avatar, nor you about me. You can assume things. Perhaps Im female, with black hair and green eyes and of medium skin tone based on my avatar. And that might be on the mark. It might be off the mark. I could be 15 year old black guy with a crew cut, or a 45 year old asian lady with a bob. So nothing about our avatars or our actions in game directly or indirectly tell anything about us. If you raid EX modes, it doesnt tell me who you are. You are, for better or worse, anonymous in game.

However, that isnt the case with FB. They do have information that reveals the RL you. Age, sex, race, location, speech habits, what pages you follow, products you buy, ads you watch, etc. They have a ton of personal data on you as a RL individual. And they sell that data (either as statistics or as direct personal information but omitting things like name). The information they sell is directly related to you.

FFlogs collects information from a public environment and do not sell that information to other parties. It is literally a public blog that aggregates data from individual posters. FB collects private information for individuals and sells that information to third parties, mostly without your permission.

The whole bit about it being dodgy is down to a misunderstanding on players' parts. Plenty of us are trying to show that you are not having your 'privacy' violated. People are misunderstanding that when you play FFXIV, it is not a personal space of your own. It is a theme park with other players. Again, this would be like goign to disneyland and getting mad that people are taking pictures that might capture you. Disneyland isnt a private environment.