Question about FFLogs

[Zekrin]

Hi~I'm a new player of FF14 & 1st post here.

The question is... I just found ACT & FFlogs last week, I'm a little confused about the FFlogs...
Isn't that webside kind of illegal or something like violating in-game privicy policy?

I mean...lots of logs been update there but most(or some) of them didn't get permission from the player who created the logs, right?
Some of these players don't even own a FFlogs account.

And more, the wedsite requires a player to create an account, upload your log, then you finally can choose NOT to show all your logs to everyone on the internet.

It seems like some "Force" to me, something like "You must use our service to protect your privacy", I don't know it just me(feeling WTF?!) or...

Just want to know how everyone think/feel about the FFlogs, not to bully or condemn the users.

[Ruinfeild]

Basically as long as you don't use it to harasse or bully other people, SE looks the other way.

[ZoLMiTRiPTaN]

You can easily add “flogs-hidden” (without the quotes) to your Lodestone profile to opt out without having to create an account on the website. However, you may end up blacklisted by PF groups and statics for doing so.

Personally, I don’t mind being parsed by someone else and having my data uploaded. You don’t need a parser to tell when someone isn’t playing well or contributing to DPS. I still don’t quite understand why people hide things like their achievements on Lodestone or their parses. Anyway, anyone that uses parsing or fflogs to harass other players is doing it wrong.

[RoyalBeef]

The only issue I can see with privacy is when you tell your girl you're at work and she sees on FFLOGs that you actually played FF14 at that time xD Or when you call in sick for work with migraine and your boss or co worker sees you have a ton of FFLOGs for that day. They'd have to know your character tho,and they could also see it on lodestone or ingame. But still, stuff like that is also why I never connect any gaming accounts to my social media and stuff like that ^^

[Shougun]

Might be fine but personally would recommend removing the name of all those tools and websites. Just in case (can't do too much about the title, but I'm thinking more on that other program's name).

As for an official sort of stance Yoshida has on record said that they wont go out of their way to punish the use of parsers, and have watched streamers who use them, but it is very much a don't ask don't tell situation when it comes to official channels (forums/game). Don't talk about it, at least in the stance of you're using it, and especially don't harass someone about it (which should be obvious lol).

As for the uploading of other people's data, it's sort of par course of the time but I'm not up with the times. I really dislike my privacy being breached (imo) without my consent. It's a dead fight in the era of mass data but still one that I'm uncomfortable with. I hid all my stuff (facebook, cookies, browser fingerprint-ish lol, etc) not out of shame or legal concern, but like when I first did the lodestone I blanked it all out just because I thought "none of your business". I've later opened it, like I'll do allowing certain scripts or cookies for websites, just because I found some websites or features that suited me (Apkallu Falls is pretty neat), but that's me deciding to release it then. I don't like others deciding that for me.. makes me.. something between uncomfortable and queer feeling. I'm not an intensely private person but I just like to decide my own sphere and not have unknown snippets of whatever be attributed without context or personal influence lol.

So my thought is the website that shall not be named shouldn't list people without permission granted, but I figure then the community in a general average sense, in hardcore portions, will make it non-optional. Alternately if they don't do it some other website probably would, potentially making that one become the new main source. Age of data /shrug.

[RoyalBeef]

Might be fine but personally would recommend removing the name of all those tools and websites. Just in case (can't do too much about the title, but I'm thinking more on that other name).

As for an official sort of stance Yoshida has on record said that they wont go out of their way to punish the use of parsers, and have watched streamers who use them, but it is very much a don't ask don't tell situation when it comes to official channels (forums/game). Don't talk about it, at least in the stance of you're using it, and especially don't harass someone about it (which should be obvious lol).

As for the uploading of other people's data, it's sort of par course of the time but I'm not up with the times. I really dislike my privacy being breached (imo) without my consent. It's a dead fight in the era of mass data but still one that I'm uncomfortable with. I hid all my stuff not out of shame when I first did the lodestone but just because I thought "none of your business". I've later opened it just because I found some websites that suited me but that's me deciding to release it then, I don't like others deciding that for me.. makes me.. something between uncomfortable and queer feeling. I'm not an intensely private person but I just like to decide my own sphere and not have unknown snippets of whatever be attributed without context lol.

So my thought is the website that shall not be named shouldn't list people without permission granted, but I figure then the community in a general average sense, in hardcore portions, will make it non-optional. Alternately if they don't do it someone else probably would, potentially making that one become the new main source. Age of data /shrug.

I don't mind my name being there, but I really don't understand why they don't just anonymize all names but the uploader's unless they agreed their named to be shown. Adding a #alias (mch#3145 or so) to mask the actual char name shouldnt be that hard to implement

[Enla]

Thing is you can go your entire in-game life without ever having someone upload logs of your performance on there. You'll almost never see it happen for dungeon or normal raids, for example. And even with Extreme content it's not as common as you might think. Sure, someone might be parsing in every group you get, but the number of people who actually upload are kinda low in comparison to the amount of people using the tool for personal reasons. It's really not until you start doing Savage that you'll find your logs going up with a good deal of consistency, and at that stage I'd argue it's kinda to be expected unless you're in a premade that doesn't care about numbers.

I personally don't think it's a big deal to log into the site and opt out given those circumstances. However I wouldn't be opposed to the system changing to 'opt-in' instead. It's not like it'll stop people from parsing your numbers, ACT itself doesn't care about opting in or out, it just provides raw data, it'll just stop them from being shown on the site. Though it also won't stop statics from turning you away for refusal to show your performance. But if you're of the opinion that you don't want to see your numbers you likely aren't the sort to be doing higher end content anyways, so it likely won't matter outside of a little piece of mind.

[SenorPatty]

Well, here's the thing about battle log privacy: it's not private. It's factually not private. It may feel like it should be to some and others may treat it like it is but it's actually not private.

The only thing private about player character is all the information required to access that character: your login information, your account information, etc. That's the thing SE has to go out of their way to protect. But once you're inside the game, your face and your name are just as public as the battle log that continuously provides information regarding your actions in combat in real time to anyone partied with you. As such, the battle log information can be utilized in any shape or form because it's combat data that is visually and more importantly publicly accessed. If today, I go into a party with say, all the people's on this page right now and I simply copy paste the battle log for me to see, for my friends to see, for my blog or basically any visual medium, there's nothing SE can do about that. It's just public game combat information being made...public.

The game is not some private world where it's safeguarded from the real world. The same way someone on youtube can view the game, including the players in the game is the same way people can look up anything on that video, battle log information included tied to those people. Sure, the messy, cluttered and rapid display may very well obfuscate who does what, but it's there. If SE were to, for some reason or other, copyright strikedown the video, it's not because people's ingame information is up. It's because permission to display the game in itself was not granted or revoked, not because of what was in it. Now, fortunately the most part, (and I'm going on a bit of a tangent here) the ff14 video uploading community seems to try for the most part to blur names out, either out of consideration or just in case to not step on anyone's toes. SE has not taken down videos providing gameplay cause no game company that's providing an mmo is stupid enough to takedown what they basically perceive as promotional material. Either way, it's all public. All of it.

So what's to take from all this? You got options. Very unpopular options. You have the option of trying to join the burning crusade against FFLOGS to see if SE can takedown the website. Good luck with that, FFLOGS has basically been surviving that for years as if it were some prestigious sieged castle wall with not shortage of supplies. Another option is to play the "if you can't beat them, join them" game, except you quickly leave the game by opting out of FFlogs after your register with them. You could also send a very stern but polite letter to the ones who maintain the site. As Iron Bull from DA:I would say "It could work...but it won't." And then there's also the mainstream option of...not giving the site any thought or care. It is what it is, it'll be there for better or for worse. Even if it disappeared mysteriously with some allagan magic, some other person would just make FFLOG: A Website Reborn because at the end of the day, so long as the battle log is alive and kicking and public in the game, so will all the machinations to make sure it's brought up in a clear and concise manner for all to see.

[Saintly]

I don't see anything wrong with it really, if anything i hope that they drop their "anti-parsing rule" completely.

To stay on topic tho.
As i said there's nothing wrong with it, it is used almost exclusively by those who do endgame Ex/Savage.

About people who hide their logs i can only think 2 reasons for someone to do that.
1. They have no interest in/don't join such content and want to keep their numbers private. (Which i personally find completely ok.)
2. They want to do such content and expect to get carried since they cant pull their own weight.

As long as someone ain't doing savage or plan to join a HC static the chances that someone, will bother to check his numbers on a third part are minimal.

[Alucard135]

To OP. Remove anything in your post about you using ACT. Some are "report happy" and won't miss a chance to report people for liking ACT and using it.

As for privacy, as some stated, it's not a violation of your own privacy, since you have no claim of the data generated in the game. Only SE does.