fflogs and privacy

[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.