DPS meter policy needs to be revised

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:Also, I am being told that ArcDPS only "estimates" values during combat. So it's as accurate as DPS golem, and should be enough for you.

I miss the part of using the dps golem during an actual run. How do I use this dps golem during the Vale Guardian fight? Is there a way that I'm missing here?

You are not using dps meter either.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:Also, I am being told that ArcDPS only "estimates" values during combat. So it's as accurate as DPS golem, and should be enough for you.

I miss the part of using the dps golem during an actual run. How do I use this dps golem during the Vale Guardian fight? Is there a way that I'm missing here?

You

are not using dps meter either.

But someone else does and gives me my data.

[Cynn.1659]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

But I do care about my numbers. I don't want to use a meter to see them for a variety of reasons (mostly technical) that I already posted and you obviously ignored.

ArenaNet provided you the solution with DPS golem. I don't see why my privacy should be invaded by default, with no option to refuse sharing my numbers, because you refuse to use this tool. If you want the numbers, use the meter. I don;t want these numbers but people still can spy on me.

It's not private data to begin with, so there is nothing private about it.

ArenaNet authorizes the use and development of 3rd Party tools under the banner of a "DPS Meter". "DPS Meters" is defined as the collection and processing of combat related data in order to develop a statistical and visual representation of that data. This combat data maybe collected from anyone inside of your immediate social group. Social groups are defined as including the player character, and current party and/or squad.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/66m13h/anet_this_really_should_be_part_of_the_game/dgjwapj/

If you join party/squad you agree to have your combat data be gathered by a meter. Combat data is not private, it does not belong to anyone. So this whole privacy crusade has no meaning.

Want a real privacy concern? It's called win 10. It collects all sorts of personal information about you, and sends it to microsoft

[Rawrfish.3845]

So everyone is posting paragraphs about how dps meters shouldn't be allowed because "they might get bullied" and gear checks aren't in the game for the same reason and I realized anet is shaping this game for kids or something. We're all adults and I think we can handle "you have awful dps" every now and then. Do you get offended when someone honks at you while your driving? You forget about it and move on with your life. Half of the post are even hypotheticals. "Well someone can bully me". So what? They should take the chat system out before someone bullies me. The chat system only encourages bullying and serves as a way for people to do it. They should remove the mail system too because someone sent me mail saying I was poor once.

I've been doing end game content in WoW for a long time now and DPS meters are extremely important for late game stuff. I can't think of a single time someone got harassed for not pulling their weight. Just a quick kick and maybe a "sorry your DPS was too low". Not allowing a DPS meter only allows poor performance. I don't even look at mine outside of raids because who cares? Not having a gear check feature makes the game feel like I'm playing some outdated MMO missing basic features. Sometimes there's a mage doing more DPS then me and I want to see what gear he has to compare to mine. Maybe sometimes I want to see what gear they have transmogged because it looks cool. Not having add-ons in this game just limits my ability to customize things in a way to make it more familiar and comfortable. I can't move UI elements around why? Engine changes I understand, but come on.

The game we play is limited by the fact someone can't hit report and move on. They're scared they might have to use that button. I've never once used it in WoW in maybe 10 years. Maybe I got lucky, who knows. We have to be honest with ourselves, people are mean and what can't avoid mean people forever and you're going to run into a meanie eventually. At least in Guild Wars you can block them and move on.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Rawrfish.3845 said:So everyone is posting paragraphs about how dps meters shouldn't be allowed because "they might get bullied" and gear checks aren't in the game for the same reason and I realized anet is shaping this game for kids or something. We're all adults and I think we can handle "you have awful dps" every now and then. Do you get offended when someone honks at you while your driving? You forget about it and move on with your life.

I've been doing end game content in WoW for a long time now and DPS meters are extremely important for late game stuff. I can't think of a single time someone got harassed for not pulling their weight. Just a quick kick and maybe a "sorry your DPS was too low". Not allowing a DPS meter only allows poor performance. I don't even look at mine outside of raids because who cares? Not having a gear check feature makes the game feel like I'm playing some outdated MMO missing basic features. Sometimes there's a mage doing more DPS then me and I want to see what gear he has to compare to mine. Maybe sometimes I want to see what gear they have transmogged because it looks cool. Not having add-ons in this game just limits my ability to customize things in a way to make it more familiar and comfortable. I can't move UI elements around why? Engine changes I understand, but come on.

The game we play is limited by the fact someone can't hit report and move on. They're scared they might have to use that button. I've never once used it in WoW in maybe 10 years. Maybe I got lucky, who knows. We have to be honest with ourselves, people are mean and what can't avoid mean people forever and you're going to run into a meanie eventually. At least in guild wars you can block them and move on.

This is not what this thread is about.

[maddoctor.2738]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:Ask yourself this, In real live if you were playing a co-operative RPG board game (for example) would you 'kick' a friend and tell him to get out of your house because he is badly performing? that would be rude and nasty right? , and yet thats what happens with the performance is king mentality which meters encourage. Thats the problem.

Raids is fair enough (although its still kitten behaviour, but raids demand it if fights are tuned), but when someting is not tuned it just does not get the benefits that outweigh this cost.

That's irrelevant. When you play with friends you don't kick them for doing crap dps either, unless they are not actually your friends.A random pug isn't your friend. What's rude and nasty is someone getting into a group they don't belong to by lying and cheating

[Awaltir.5302]

I first started playing GuildWars in June of 2005. I've been through a lot of MMOs, the thing that has always set GW/GW2 apart is the core casual nature of the game. It's built right in to the game; the original was even more casual at it's core, your basic junk tier level 20 sword had effectively the same stats as a weapon someone would grind for months to acquire. GW2 is a bit more tiered that that, but still, the exotic gear you can cobble together from story quests and drops is only marginally worse than Ascended stuff which people spend 150G to craft a full set of, which is identical stat wise to Legendary which people grind for months to obtain.

The game is nicknamed Fashion Wars for a reason.

What I'm getting at is, GuildWars2 isn't other MMOs. The idea of a DPS meter doesn't sit well with some of the people who play this game, in a way that doesn't translate to other MMOs. I play GuildWars because of it's casual nature, not in spite of it. I didn't flee a failing WoW to come here, I've been here all along. I just hope ANet understands better than any of us where there playerbase is on this issue.

This is untrue and I don't believe you played gw 1 for a long time. There were certain parts of game that needed you to take certain builds or meta farm builds. Sometimes it even eliminated you from content for example you needed eye of the north to go into domain of anguish farm when bear form was still relevant, only other option was monk and no one made an issue of this back there. You have to understand that there is challenging content and people should be able to verify that someone is up to the task.

[Swing.6439]

I agree with this, you should only be able to use the meter for yourself. I feel like judging someone just by their dps output and kicking them for it without explanation and just tearing them apart is a terrible way to help people learn. (If you're a meter user and you don't do this, I apologize, but most of the ones I have met have been self-righteous jerks that are full of themselves.)I do raids with people who use these, and I watch them rip people apart. It hurts me to see it, and I'm not even the one being made fun of. It isn't hard to tell people what to do before a raid. You literally just ask if they know the mechanics, and if they don't listen on what to do, THEN you can get irritated.This is a game. It is meant to be fun. Please let people have fun.

[Paladine.6082]

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

I find your posts very informative. I had no idea that such thing can be brought up in context of law regulations. Do you mind if I include your post as a highlight in my opening message for everyone to read?

[hoc.8506]

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

You are trying to allude that in game information on any kind of performance linked with a nickname is the same as showing personal information (photos, id or phone numbers etc.) publicly on the internet.

You are in effect now arguing that any game that has performance stats or scoreboards breaks EU law.

[Paladine.6082]

@hoc.8506 said:

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

You are trying to allude that in game information on any kind of performance linked with a nickname is the same as showing personal information (photos, id or phone numbers etc.) publicly on the internet.

You are in effect now arguing that any game that has performance stats or scoreboards breaks EU law.

Technically, as a principle of law - if those stats are generated on the players terminal equipment then, yes - that is entirely correct unless the user has consented to such use; even if they are generated on the server if they are used along side an identified user or can be used to identify a user, consent is required as there is no other legitimate legal basis. Consent must be freely given and must not be a condition of the service and the penalties for failing to obtain consent as of May 25 2018 can be up to 4% of the previous year's global revenues or 20M euros (which ever is higher). It doesn't surprise me that game companies have not understood or done anything about this yet - many other companies haven't either.

I am not trying to allude anything - I am merely stating matters of law. A gamer's "nickname" is legally considered as personal information, just the same as their IP address, their real name, their phone number etc. there is considerable case law to support this as well as it being explicitly stated in law itself - this is not even something which is open to interpretation, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the highest court in Europe) has made several rulings on this matter to clarify any issues one might have regarding interpretation.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Paladine.6082 said:Technically, as a principle of law - if those stats are generated on the players terminal equipment then, yes - that is entirely correct unless the user has consented to such use. Consent must be freely given and must not be a condition of the service and the penalties for failing to obtain consent as of May 25 2018 can be up to 4% of the previous year's global revenues or 20M euros (which ever is higher). It doesn't surprise me that game companies have not understood or done anything about this yet - many other companies haven't either.

I am not trying to allude anything - I am merely stating matters of law. A gamer's "nickname" is legally considered as personal information, just the same as their IP address, their real name, their phone number etc. there is considerable case law to support this as well as it being explicitly stated in law itself - this is not even something which is open to interpretation, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the highest court in Europe) has made several rulings on this matter to clarify any issues one might have regarding interpretation.

By attacking a mob that others are engaged in combat with you give your consent because after that the effects you have on the mob are visible to everyone.Also ArcDPS doesn't invade YOUR privacy, it reads my terminal equipment's physical ram, and finds how much damage a mob is taking and by what source.It's information available in my own terminal equipment and is generated on the SERVER, not on the client, therefore your argument regarding privacy is moot.

[Taygus.4571]

My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

[Beanna.6712]

For once Anet made a decision that offends carebears. Praise Anet.

[Paladine.6082]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:Technically, as a principle of law - if those stats are generated on the players terminal equipment then, yes - that is entirely correct unless the user has consented to such use. Consent must be freely given and must not be a condition of the service and the penalties for failing to obtain consent as of May 25 2018 can be up to 4% of the previous year's global revenues or 20M euros (which ever is higher). It doesn't surprise me that game companies have not understood or done anything about this yet - many other companies haven't either.

I am not trying to allude anything - I am merely stating matters of law. A gamer's "nickname" is legally considered as personal information, just the same as their IP address, their real name, their phone number etc. there is considerable case law to support this as well as it being explicitly stated in law itself - this is not even something which is open to interpretation, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the highest court in Europe) has made several rulings on this matter to clarify any issues one might have regarding interpretation.

By attacking a mob that others are engaged in combat with you give your consent because after that the effects you have on the mob are visible to everyone.Also ArcDPS doesn't invade YOUR privacy, it reads my terminal equipment's physical ram, and finds how much damage a mob is taking and by what source.It's information available in my own terminal equipment and is generated on the SERVER, not on the client, therefore your argument regarding privacy is moot.

You are factually incorrect in every thing you just said. One does not give consent unless one gives consent - another action cannot be considered as consent. Attacking a mob is not consent for third parties to process that data and provide it to others - what you see as someone present as an observation is not the same thing at all. Furthermore you cannot as an observer determine how much damage one person is doing in a group (without a DPS meter) you can guess but you have no way of verifying that data or accurately pairing it with a specific individual within the group.

As I sated above - even if it is generated on the server (and I am pretty sure that damage is calculated on the client and then sent to the server but I could be wrong and even if it is not, ArcDPS accesses that information in the terminal equipment of the end user and yes even if it is in RAM it is still classed as gaining access to information stored on the end user's terminal equipment) if that information is processed in a way which identifies or can be used to identify a user it requires consent - period. No matter how much you may dislike that it doesn't change the fact that it is the law. There are multiple legal basis for processing personal information:

1. Freely given consent
2. Performance of a Contract (which doesn't mean what you think so don't bother trying to use "T&C" argument)
3. Protect the vital interests of the data subject (or others) (will this person or someone else literally die or come to physical harm if this data is not processed?)
4. Required to do so by member state law
5. Authority invested by a higher body (again Member state law) or public interest (again not what you think so don't go there)
6. Legitimate Interest

There are no other legal basis for processing personal data under EU law and of those there are only 2 possible basis which would be relevant to gaming data:

1. Consent - Since 1980 and the introduction of Convention 108 (which was developed based on OECD guidelines) which is an international legal instrument, consent has been defined as an informed choice which is freely given by a natural person allowing another party to behave in a specificied way. In order for consent to be considered as freely given it can not be the result of a duress situation. In other words, it cannot be required as a condition of using a service (meaning having T&Cs requiring users consent to this would not be lawful). Under the General Data Protection Regulation consent would be the most obvious legal basis for the processing of this kind of data.

2. Legitimate Interest - this would be the only other potential legal basis for processing this information but it fails on a number of points. First, in order for legitimate interest to be a valid legal basis it must be necessary, proportionate and there must be an expectation of the data subject that such processing is likely to occur. Furthermore it must be weighed against the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject and given that Articles 7 & 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights make it very clear that a: (Art 7) all citizens have the right to respect of their private lives and communications; and b: (Art 8) all citizens have the right to the protection of their personal data - there is nothing in this scenario which would provide ANet with an overriding interest of those rights. The stats are not necessary for them to be able to provide the game or to allow the user to play the game; they are not needed to generate revenues and even if they were it would almost never been seen as an overriding interest. They have no legitimate purpose in the game and furthermore it is a third party tool that is processing this data. Given that the third party tool has ZERO relationship with users other than the one utilising it there can clearly be neither consent nor a reasonable expectation for the purpose of legitimate interest.

From a legal perspective this tool has no legal basis to process this data and Anet has only 1 potential legal basis (being consent).

Furthermore, for both consent and legitimate interest the data subject has the right to object to processing. In the case of consent - consent can be withdrawn at any point and must be respected by the Data Controller; with regards to Legitimate Interest the data subject can object and if the Controller cannot find an overriding reason to deny the objection, they MUST by LAW cease processing that data (and as stated above there would not seem to be anything in this scenario which would be seen as overriding the Fundamental Rights of the data subject).

So as I said - no matter how much you might dislike the situation, it does not change the law.

[Taygus.4571]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

[Paladine.6082]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

I find your posts very informative. I had no idea that such thing can be brought up in context of law regulations. Do you mind if I include your post as a highlight in my opening message for everyone to read?

Why would I, I posted it on a public forum :)

[maddoctor.2738]

@Paladine.6082 said:You are factually incorrect in every thing you just said. One does not give consent unless one gives consent - another action cannot be considered as consent. Attacking a mob is not consent for third parties to process that data and provide it to others - what you see as someone present as an observation is not the same thing at all. Furthermore you cannot as an observer determine how much damage one person is doing in a group (without a DPS meter) you can guess but you have no way of verifying that data or accurately pairing it with a specific individual within the group.

It's data on my own computer that was generated on the server and not client side then broadcast to all clients. It's no longer private information therefore the rest of your post is moot and void.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

[Paladine.6082]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:I think it would be best if ANet developed their own DPS meter. Allow players to hide the UI element and hide their own performance from other players.

You aren't going to stop players from using whatever tools and metrics they care to invent in order to increase their probability of success. So just give players the tools to do so and let them decide how they want to participate.

That wouldn't solve anything. Sharing stats would be required by group makers. If you want to achieve that, which I believe is mixing rookies and vets in pugs, you need to be unable to share damage output or else it's wasted dev time. They would also have to go after every single way of selecting players.

It would address the OP's specific concern regarding privacy. It would also level the playing field, removing the advantage from users of third-party software (you are a small minority, currently) and normalizing the use of DPS meters.

Personally, I would love to use DPS meters, but I get odd crashes and the readout on ARCdps doesn't mesh well with the UI at all. I'd much prefer a built-in option, as long as it provides the detailed information MMO players are looking for. For myself, I don't consider that wasted time. On the contrary, I think they've wasted more than enough time fighting this battle. Let's just make it part of the UI and let players use it however they want.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

User name is not an identifier of a person, it is a public identifer for a computer character is it not? If you can derive who the real person is from that character name then that is a different issue.

1. Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,from the data and other information your possession,or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes of the ..