DDoS attack killed my Palace of the Dead file

Hullo! Tonight at around 8:55 pm EST me and my group were running in our fixed palace of the dead party when the attack happened and destroyed the server. Sadly, this counted as us having a KO and when we logged in, our save file was garbage. We did not die in the instance, we didn't even come close. We were standing in a hallway and suddenly the data center went down.

Now, normally I wouldn't be posting this kind of thing if it were a case of us all disconnecting for various reasons, but this was completely on the SE side of things and we couldn't have done anything about it. My group was wondering if there was any way to roll back our save file back to 171 (We were only on 172) so we might continue our climb. Our entire reason for going in was to get the night pegasus for a good friend of ours and we'd really like to continue with that goal.

My assumption is that a rollback on the save file is entirely possible, seeing as how it can keep track of all the information including pomanders. Please assist us, we really want to do this nice thing for our friend. We all still have our save file there, none of us have deleted it yet.

Sincerely, Midian Kurono of Balmung

Good morning and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Unfortunately, rolling back the save file is not a service we provide for a situation like this. What most likely happened is that the server didn't register that you had disconnected, then you character was defeated before you were able to reconnect.

It's an unfortunate situation, but we wouldn't be able to alter the save file in any way.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

I have to say that is sincerely wrong for you not to restore that save. This was not an error based on the player's fault, this was an issue with SE's servers being attacked to cause this fault. As a provider of service where money is paid, this is not an out of the question request and has nothing to do with "it's not a service that is provided" which is a cop out response. We've been dealing with all kinds of server issues that are with your internet provider so the least you can do is restore the save file for the man based on YOUR server being attacked which caused the issue. Quit kicking back and putting the blame on someone else and take responsibility and fix issues instead of saying oh not our problem. If the security was where it needed to be, DDoS attacks would never have happened as these are very low level attacks. Yes it comes from multiple places but a bit of security that should have been there all along would have fixed this. It makes me wonder if all this time the even lower level of DoS and causing issues then. It's very upsetting to read responses like this where there is a lack of taking care of customers who pay you for a service and all we hear is it's not our fault, deal with it as we won't do anything about it. Come on now!

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Originally Posted by Leviathan1usa

I have to say that is sincerely wrong for you not to restore that save. <wall of text>

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Or, y'know, they don't have the tools to roll back one specific PotD save file, without doing a server roll back to before the OP got disconnected.

I'm sure the other thousands of players on Balmung would be just fine with losing anything they've progressed on, just so one player can continue on from floor 171.

Well its an error of the system, a dc there should just roll back the save and not make it useless...

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Or, y'know, they don't have the tools to roll back one specific PotD save file, without doing a server roll back to before the OP got disconnected.

I'm sure the other thousands of players on Balmung would be just fine with losing anything they've progressed on, just so one player can continue on from floor 171.

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From a server-side, files would be related to specific characters in that instance which can easily be located as well as the back up of the file which should be able to be located by the character name which in turn would show the others in the group. If SE doesn't have back up data which would make them utterly worthless as a company providing a service this big if they don't keep things backed up. I would highly doubt they don't otherwise in the event of a crash of the servers, you'd have to re-level your characters. It's not difficult to roll back one file for a few users, so I don't buy that excuse.

i wouldn't even attempt to continue a solo potd save file during this ddos era

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Originally Posted by Leviathan1usa

From a server-side, files would be related to specific characters in that instance which can easily be located as well as the back up of the file which should be able to be located by the character name which in turn would show the others in the group. If SE doesn't have back up data which would make them utterly worthless as a company providing a service this big if they don't keep things backed up. I would highly doubt they don't otherwise in the event of a crash of the servers, you'd have to re-level your characters. It's not difficult to roll back one file for a few users, so I don't buy that excuse.

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That doesn't mean that GMs have any ability to invoke such actions.
As they HAVE rolled back server states before, it seems to be an all-or-nothing sort of deal.

Gms on other f2p mmos has why can't they fix them here. When played Tera online they had no problem restoring a deleted item, restoring a deleted character, seen them even teleport players out of a bugged area where wouldn't let you leave. Don't see why they can't fix a simple save here. Tells me there support for this game is very bad if they can't even do what other gms can on f2p games.

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Originally Posted by Leviathan1usa

From a server-side, files would be related to specific characters in that instance which can easily be located as well as the back up of the file which should be able to be located by the character name which in turn would show the others in the group. If SE doesn't have back up data which would make them utterly worthless as a company providing a service this big if they don't keep things backed up. I would highly doubt they don't otherwise in the event of a crash of the servers, you'd have to re-level your characters. It's not difficult to roll back one file for a few users, so I don't buy that excuse.

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Then your feedback would be for the Devs to adjust the PotD system to allow GMs to restore saves. It's a tricky rabbit hole with a lot of trust held on the player about how valid restoring their save is (force DCing for example).

In any case, don't blame the GM, they are just doing their job, and relaying what they do and don't have the power to do.

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Originally Posted by Einmimiria

Good morning and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Unfortunately, rolling back the save file is not a service we provide for a situation like this. What most likely happened is that the server didn't register that you had disconnected, then you character was defeated before you were able to reconnect.

It's an unfortunate situation, but we wouldn't be able to alter the save file in any way.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

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@Einmimiria

We did NOT die, that is the problem here. We were standing safe in a hallway. We do have a screenshot showing where all four of us were standing when we disconnected. When we were finally able to log back in, we were all booted from the instance. It took us a long while to reconnect as well, it kept saying that we were still logged in. I've actually seen this as a VERY common complaint with Palace, where if you D/C, it counts as an AUTOMATIC loss, no matter where you are. I've even seen where a fixed party has had one person d/c and lost the fixed party set up.

--Lucifer Mink

Reading this thread makes me very afraid to do palace of the dead, or heaven on high to full completion.

And had this have happened to me, it would be something that would make me concider finding another mmo to play instead. Square Enix needs to treat these DDoS attacks carefully. Loss of character data is a slippery slope without any sort of resolution.

I barely have DCs, or at least used to have until now... but on release i tried solo HoH as soon i was 99/99, ofc i DCed just a few floors after 30 >_<

Nice try. I've heard in other mmo's they could. We was not defeated! We wasnt even close to a mob. Nor was it a patrol in front of us. I pay close to 30 dollars a month. I dumped hours on this just to get my girlfriend a whistle. Heres a screenshot to show you we wasnt dead or close to a mob. I find this very unsettling I'm paying money to play a game that SE cant defend a paying customer. At you can see from the screenshot you will see the time stamp and know this was the time of the attack. I'm keeping my file hoping you will either roll our group back because the HUD is up all the names are there. Or send us a whistle.http://tinyurl.com/y75495aj

I was part of this group and we worked really hard to get to where we dc'd at. We stayed up for over 8 hours to get there. I think we should be able to get another chance cause we didnt die, we didnt dc cause of our own connect problems, and we didnt wipe. We got dc'd from the ddos attacks. There has to be a way for SE to fix this cause there are multiple mmos that could easily fix that so I dont see why SE cant. This was my first time trying to climb to floor 200 and possibly to even get a whistle cause I have been really wanting a whistle. So if you, SE, could please help us fix this, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Originally Posted by prime456

At you can see from the screenshot you will see the time stamp and know this was the time of the attack. I'm keeping my file hoping you will either roll our group back because the HUD is up all the names are there. Or send us a whistle.

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You do know the reason that they won't right? That screenshot is really poor evidence of the DC causing your loss. If they let you have your save back then they suddenly have to be more lenient with others and that opens up a rabbit hole when people start intentially DCing in order to get GMs to reset a bad run. SE are paranoid about this kind of thing, but it's not totally unjustified. At the end of the day can't prove that your DC was caused by the DDos attack wholeheartedly, so you should be asking for the Devs to implement means to protect from it. Your save is a lost cause.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

You do know the reason that they won't right? That screenshot is really poor evidence of the DC causing your loss. If they let you have your save back then they suddenly have to be more lenient with others and that opens up a rabbit hole when people start intentially DCing in order to get GMs to reset a bad run. SE are paranoid about this kind of thing, but it's not totally unjustified. At the end of the day can't prove that your DC was caused by the DDos attack wholeheartedly, so you should be asking for the Devs to implement means to protect from it. Your save is a lost cause.

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But, our D/C was caused by the DDoS. We had a 500+ player queue to get back in. My discords were blowing up with "Primal Down" "Aether Down". The FaceBook groups were going beserk with messages of the servers going down as well. So there is more than enough evidence to back it up. And SquareEnix knows the time frame the DDoS hit their servers. If they don't then their system is way out of date and needs serious replacing and upgrading. Even the most basic of tech companies have EVERYTHING timestamped. My old retail job had our old point of sale registers time stamp everything. Power outage? Time stamped when the computers died. Computer froze? Time stamped when I had to force restart. Home office had to call me each time they noticed something odd with the time stamps.

And the response to Midi's initial post did say that we probably were defeated before the server realized that we had been disconnected. What has me so fired up is that we did not even come back into the game dead in palace.... we came back ALIVE in South Shroud! Normally, if you d/c in a duty, you reappear IN THAT DUTY, unless you have been vote kicked out. Palace seems to be the exception to the rule. I must also note, that Midian got back in before I was TECHNICALLY out of the game, we were all on voice chat, so the "you were all out of the game" excuse will not work here. Even if we had returned to all of us dead with the loss message on screen wouldn't have been as hard to take as just losing ALL OF THAT progress due to a DDoS attack.

And yes, once again, it was the DDoS attack. I RARELY disconnect. When I do, it's always when there's outlying issues on SE's end, like the recent attacks. Also, RIGHT AFTER we got back in, they even made an announcement that the data centers were being hit during PEAK HOURS to kick the most players off. Let's see, the time stamp there is 8:54pm eastern.... that's 5:54 my time. PEAK HOURS. DDoS.

--EDC

In palace, a disconnect counts as a death. If your entire party disconnected at once, that's a party wipe. Say bye to your save. It's why a single dc in a solo run kills the run.

The best thing you can do if your planning on running something important like that is to keep track of what’s going on in the community outside the game. If your seeing a lot of posts about an attack then your best bet would be to not even bother playing at that time until they threat subsides

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Originally Posted by LuciferMink

But, our D/C was caused by the DDoS

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I don't doubt that, I fully believe you. My point is that you have no proof. Saying "my discord says..." And "I was in a queue" has a small chance of being coincidental. You could have died, then DCed. I don't think you did, like I said, I fully believe you. But the GMs (even if they had the power to do anything), can't believe you on face value, because otherwise they have to believe everyone with similar evidence that you have given, and that allows exploitation of the system.

Like I said, ask for protection measures around PotD so that this doesn't happen again.



Edit: another thing to add is that SE is also under no obligation to do anything regardless. This falls under the same answer as the "asking for a free month" thread. You agreed to the TOS that says that you acknowledge that unexpected server disconnects are a possibility, and should be aware of that when you start PotD, I sympathize, but I'm letting you know your rights in this instance

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

In palace, a disconnect counts as a death. If your entire party disconnected at once, that's a party wipe. Say bye to your save. It's why a single dc in a solo run kills the run.

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This.
It's not that nobody believes you didn't die, but the DCing happening counts as death.

Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy Technical Support Forums.

Unfortunately we are not able to roll back save files, as that is not a service we offer. I will be moving this thread over to the General Discussion as it would be a more fitting category.

I apologize for the trouble.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Well its an error of the system, a dc there should just roll back the save and not make it useless...

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They have to have a full party DC count as a wipe otherwise people would exploit it and purposely remove their ethernet cables if they thought they were going to wipe in order to rollback and get another go at it.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

Gms on other f2p mmos has why can't they fix them here. When played Tera online they had no problem restoring a deleted item, restoring a deleted character, seen them even teleport players out of a bugged area where wouldn't let you leave. Don't see why they can't fix a simple save here. Tells me there support for this game is very bad if they can't even do what other gms can on f2p games.

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Reasons: company rules, access rights, system options and what not. Not every game is the same and not every company gives their GM's the same rights because too many rights can backfire very hard, which happened enough times.

Shite happens. Instance being closed as a result of nobody being online in it counts as a failure (or "party KO" in this case, which I think is kind of a poor way of phrasing it). They can't go and reimburse everyone that ever loses something due to faulty connections (which isn't even always SE's fault); that sort of thing is just too omnipresent for GMs to deal with.

I do think that they should allow instances to remain open for a few minutes if the only participants inside get d/c (meaning that if someone were to d/c in POTD in a safe area they could still potentially log back in alive and well) but for whatever reason, that's not how it works with instances in this game. The funny thing is, some content in FFXI works this way but not most others. Like, when doing solo Salvage runs in FFXI, I have been able to log back in and retain my progress after being d/c'd so long as I logged back in quickly enough. Most other forms of FFXI content though, as soon as it detects no one inside, the instance is closed and you're SOL.

The thing is, it's not about doing it "this one time for you", it's about having to do it for everyone else.

Even if the disconnect was provably due to the DDoS and you didn't deserve to lose it, someone has to investigate that request, find your data,, confirm what happened and correct it. Multiply that by everyone who ever thinks they've been disconnected unfairly and deserve a reset, and that's going to be a lot of work - over something that isn't necessarily their fault either. The line is drawn at a harsh point, but it saves them the headache of borderline cases and abuse of the system.

It's understandable that they just set a blanket "we will not do this, or we'd have to do it for everyone" rule - assuming it's even possible to do it from a technical standpoint.

You were dumb to be doing PoTD during a well known DDos attack in the first place and you also have 90 Mil, the Pegasus is 24 Mil. If you care that much about it JUST BUY IT get over it. If you honestly cant just accept the fact that companies can't control all DDoS attacks you need to stop playing MMOs period.

This does get me thinking: why can you reenter an instance after a dc but you can't for potd/hoh? It's not like you can cheat death if you try to force close during combat. Time still goes on while you dc. Is there a form of abuse that's being prevented that I don't know about?

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

This does get me thinking: why can you reenter an instance after a dc but you can't for potd/hoh? It's not like you can cheat death if you try to force close during combat. Time still goes on while you dc. Is there a form of abuse that's being prevented that I don't know about?

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Probably to avoid situations where players could force a DC if something goes awry, wait a bit and then hope the monster that was gonna KO them wanders off.

People keep acting as if the DDOS attacks are SE's fault.. They aren't.. And they are in no way obliged to compensate us for any losses that we incur because of them.

They still do though, but only if it's within their power, and if it's not going to set an abusable precedent.

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Let's pretend the GM team are the police and they are chasing me, a criminal.. And we run by you, minding your own business by the sidewalk:

If say one of them accidentally (or purposefully) shoves you to get you out of the way and you get some minor bruising, you may actually have a case at getting compensation from the police/govt.. Because it was their fault.

If I punched you in the face, dropped kicked you to the side, and you broke multiple bones, the police/govt are in no way obliged to compensate you.

But again, sometimes they will.. if it is within their power.

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You lost your progress because of the DDOS attacks.. and that's sad. It really is. If you weren't being so damn entitled, I'd be more sympathetic.

But again.. it's not SE's fault. Do they have the power to fix it? Likely yes.

Can they fix it without inconveniencing others (i.e. not having to do an all-or-nothing rollback)? Maybe, maybe not.. Let's pretend they can.

Is it going to set an abusable precedent? Hell yes. If they reroll your progression, it opens up the doors for other people to blame external issues to ask for a roll back.. or worse, create fake external issues.

It's a slippery slope.

Better to not have it become an issue by not giving up that ground in the first place.

As for you guys, it's sad, but shit happens. Deal with it.

I'm going to be in the minority here but I really wouldn't mind Palace of the Dead getting nerfed. I typically don't approve of nerfing especially to side content, but I wouldn't have a problem with the 101+ floors acting like the previous ones now. You could still do the deathless or solo runs since ti would still act the dame. This way people who have connection issues or whatever can still get what they want out of it.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

I'm going to be in the minority here but I really wouldn't mind Palace of the Dead getting nerfed. I typically don't approve of nerfing especially to side content, but I wouldn't have a problem with the 101+ floors acting like the previous ones now. You could still do the deathless or solo runs since ti would still act the dame. This way people who have connection issues or whatever can still get what they want out of it.

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I'd rather mass quality of life rather than lazy nerfs, but thats just me :rolleyes:

Square Enix are a cautious company. They take the "We're going to just block it for all to prevent abuse" approach a lot of the times. Not entirely without merit either, given the entitledness seems to be mostly a Western thing (though I'm sure JP has some entitled people, but it seems more prominent in western culture), and them being Japanese. Best to just play it safe unless you grew up in that kind of environment and learned how to deal with it. Here's the thing, all the stuff you got from previous floors (I think 170 was the last checkpoint you passed, so anything from before 170) is still yours to keep. Just roll with the punches and give it another crack after the DDoS settles down.