DDOS stress. It is so hard to play.

What can we do? How do we communicate to Square Enix we need help?

Mass unsubscriptions. Keep paying and you're just sending the message that you don't really care THAT much.

They clearly know because they make lodestone posts about it. But they seem to just be shrugging about it instead of saying "right, this is an issue, and we're working on a long-term plan to put a stop to it". It seems they're just shrugging and feel helpless about it and hope we'll cope with it because they don't know what to do.

I think it really is just time to unsub

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Originally Posted by Darkshade

I think it really is just time to unsub

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I will likely do this if this continues by the December Patch. People need to understand that a lot of the players take time out of their lives to play. A lot of us don't have much time to spare. So while it seems silly to get frustrated or angry whenever a game gets unplayable, if it continues to happen, the player will eventually walk away and never return. I did that with WoW back in 2020. I can do it again with this MMO if it comes down to it.

DDoS is apparently bad actors using bots to login or overwhelm servers, causing lag or disconnects.

I see Lalafell bots that teleport through the ground and kill mobs 24/7 on the go in every area of the game, which SE/CBSIII seem to do nothing to stop. If I login at 5am when there's not many players up, I will see these bots as inexorable as ever. Now imagine thousands of these bots logging in at peak hours. It may not even be a direct DDoS attack but simply far too many bots, if it is these bots and bad actors trying to harm the game directly (not that RMT bots don't already do that) then the game is buggered.

I didn't notice any lag the last week on my EU Phantom server, but SicaruisSeven makes a strong point above. People have little time and there are so many games that could demand our attention. Not even releases today, but thousands of quality titles dating back to the Sega and Nintendo of the late 80s. A service/game that works is important otherwise people will give up and try else where.

The issue is that the bots do get banned in mass waves at regular intervals... And then come back on new accounts and the cat and mouse starts again.

That's probably exactly what's happening here with the DDOS attacks. They hit, kick us out, the attackers are blocked, we log back in, and it happens again when the attackers feel like it again on a new system.

It SUCKS.

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Originally Posted by Doomed_Raven

DDoS is apparently bad actors using bots to login or overwhelm servers, causing lag or disconnects.

I see Lalafell bots that teleport through the ground and kill mobs 24/7 on the go in every area of the game, which SE/CBSIII seem to do nothing to stop. If I login at 5am when there's not many players up, I will see these bots as inexorable as ever. Now imagine thousands of these bots logging in at peak hours. It may not even be a direct DDoS attack but simply far too many bots, if it is these bots and bad actors trying to harm the game directly (not that RMT bots don't already do that) then the game is buggered.

I didn't notice any lag the last week on my EU Phantom server, but SicaruisSeven makes a strong point above. People have little time and there are so many games that could demand our attention. Not even releases today, but thousands of quality titles dating back to the Sega and Nintendo of the late 80s. A service/game that works is important otherwise people will give up and try else where.

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It doesn't matter who's doing the DDoS. What actually matters is Square's inability to combat it. I mean, come on, it's been happening for weeks now. I got disconnected on 4 different solo runs in PT.

There have been about a dozen or so disconnections since I created this thread... and it happened again just now. I'm afraid to play this game and lose all the time I invested in a Deep Dungeon again. I'm afraid to prog difficult content and get to the final % of the boss and then DC. I'm afraid to have fun with my friends and then have that fun taken away when we're all forced out of the game.

For a well-loved company that is known for taking care of its fan base, what changed? How can they address an issue but not do anything about it? This isn't new. Will we all get a free month of game time and suffer DDOS' in the future? Could this possible be more than a DDOS?

I'm really disappointed.

Whelp. There goes a 96 floor run thanks to this nonsense. Yes, I know I shouldn't be trying Deep Dungeon with DDOses happening, but I wanted the hairstyle before reset. Not to mention, it's not like there's much else to do right now.

Will people just keep attacking them forever? What do they want anyway or are they just being jerks. I hope Square can deal with those jerks so that this doesn't become the new norm.

Crashed again...

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Originally Posted by EmilySummerstar

Will people just keep attacking them forever? What do they want anyway or are they just being jerks. I hope Square can deal with those jerks so that this doesn't become the new norm.

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That's my concern. The attacks have been relentless and over a week now. If they were "just doing it for the lulz", they wouldn't be this relentless. My concern here is that this is about someone intentionally trying to destroy this mmo. Somehow, SE has got to get a handle on this.

Suspects include RMT people or perhaps those recently laid off by SE. Or just some loser with no life and a bot farm at his disposal.

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Originally Posted by EmilySummerstar

Will people just keep attacking them forever? What do they want anyway or are they just being jerks. I hope Square can deal with those jerks so that this doesn't become the new norm.

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Taking down a game is a low-risk, high advertisement test of a DDoS bot network. Governments generally do not go after attackers of games, and the games are large enough to be a viable test target and a good advertisement of their abilities on the black market.

As such, we will have to deal with them indefinitely and because of this, I really hope that SE has a DDoS recovery option for deep dungeon players. Either they return the group to the start of their floor when they log back in or reset the in-progress flag, so all of the hard work is not lost when their systems detect a DDoS attack.

I just lost another PT run in the 90+ range and that cost me hours of work.

I think the goal of these DDOSers is to reduce player numbers. Sad to say but it will likely work if this continues. Lots of people take time out of their day to play this. If that time is wasted, they will eventually just not return and play or do something else. The one advantage that FF XIV has over other MMOs is that it doesn't weaponize FOMO. There are minor FOMO elements like holiday events and the Moogle Tome stuff but those can be safely ignored for the most part. CC PVP is one thing but that is an optional thing for a lot of people. You don't get dinged for missing current content because catching up is easy. Heck you can still be stuck in Heavensward and still not really miss any important parts of the game. So if players are feeling that their time here is being wasted, they will leave to return later or not at all. With the way things have been going, there is going to be more drop offs.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Taking down a game is a low-risk, high advertisement test of a DDoS bot network. Governments generally do not go after attackers of games, and the games are large enough to be a viable test target and a good advertisement of their abilities on the black market.

As such, we will have to deal with them indefinitely and because of this, I really hope that SE has a DDoS recovery option for deep dungeon players. Either they return the group to the start of their floor when they log back in or reset the in-progress flag, so all of the hard work is not lost when their systems detect a DDoS attack.

I just lost another PT run in the 90+ range and that cost me hours of work.

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If the goal is to take down an mmo, just to prove their capability, then it is imperative that they be stopped at all costs!!!

If they take down ffxiv, then what? Somebody else decides to prove their capability by killing WoW? And what's next? Soon, all that will be left are offline, single player games... Nothing else will be viable. In fact, why should developers invest time and money developing or even maintaining multiplayer and mmo games if they can be killed at any time and there's no viable defense against it?

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Originally Posted by jesseleewelch

If the goal is to take down an mmo, just to prove their capability, then it is imperative that they be stopped at all costs!!!

If they take down ffxiv, then what? Somebody else decides to prove their capability by killing WoW? And what's next? Soon, all that will be left are offline, single player games... Nothing else will be viable. In fact, why should developers invest time and money developing or even maintaining multiplayer and mmo games if they can be killed at any time and there's no viable defense against it?

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They have tried taking down WoW before. Blizzard stopped them. It was a rough fight for both players and the company but things worked out after systems were put in place to stop it from happening. This is a pretty uniquely SE issue (not the concept of being DDOSed but that it continues unhindered). They are relying on their silence being interpreted positively by people going 'nothing they can do about it'. It is a fixable issue. Maybe not 100% if the attackers are dedicated enough but it could be improved to make the game playable at the very least.

If 14 dies it is entirely on SE for not doing anything.

I've been disconnected 7 times today so far .. though not every time had a queue of 100+ when I came back on so I don't know if it's a full serverwide issue anymore, it's weird. All I know is ever since last night's maintenance things are actually about 3 times worse than they were before, at least for me...

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Originally Posted by Appleboops

I've been disconnected 7 times today so far .. though not every time had a queue of 100+ when I came back on so I don't know if it's a full serverwide issue anymore, it's weird. All I know is ever since last night's maintenance things are actually about 3 times worse than they were before, at least for me...

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No - it is a server-wide issue, a lot of people just do not bother trying after a few kicks. I got in completely without a queue after a kick earlier and the aetheryte i was standing by was empty. Nothing. Nobody. Today has been unplayable, and the servers are now busted and desperately need a full restart. Instances with 7000+ ping. I just did a frontline and it was a slideshow. I think one of these server crashes actually broke stuff.

Hey hey hey, it's another crash! We love this! Subscribe monthly and can't even play the game! 4 hour downtime maintenance to add a single piece of furniture and not even address the server stability issues. Wahoo!

We're being DDOSed again. Happened at 9:06 CST. Please stop ignoring us.

It would suck if the only games that succeed aren't those with likeable content but those that can deal with DDOS attacks. Marketing slogan would be something like "You might not like what we provide but we can dependably provide it. :D" Total yuck.

I am curious to know what sort of changes they made regarding pilgrim's traverse that is meant to mitigate the disconnects. As far as I've seen it will still result in a KO regardless.

The ddossing this expansion is beyond bad.

Where is the compensation for game time lost?

White knights, please don't sit up here and talk about how xyz big corp gets ddossed too. We are playing a sub for 1 month of game time, that ticks on a clock even if you don't pay.
If FF is getting dossed the entire time, we need to be comepnsated for that lost time.

Downplaying the issue is not it. If people can be outraged by other stuff, you need to be as outraged about not being able to play at all.

Having the FT clear achievement count increase to 100 compared to BA and DRS's 10 is one thing but when you allow a DDOS to go on for more than a week(and probably will last even longer due to negligence) it especially becomes annoying to have a potential clear count reduced by 1 every few hours. Developers please don't aim for a record of 2 weeks of not doing anything about this.

It's gotten out of control. I had the day off today, tried logging in this morning, DDOS. Came back this evening, tried to log in again, made it 90 seconds into a raid roulette before another DDOS. I've been playing MMOs since SWTOR launched when I was kid, I have never seen a game struggle with constant DDOS the way XIV does. Either this game is uniquely targeted by bad actors or SE is just incompetent compared to every other MMO company out there.

Got 5 in the past hour. It is getting worse and no word from SE...there was hope they would deal with this with today's patch but no. The game is essentially unplayable atm.

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Originally Posted by Toutatis

Got 5 in the past hour. It is getting worse and no word from SE...there was hope they would deal with this with today's patch but no. The game is essentially unplayable atm.

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The more they ignore us, the more players are eventually just going to leave before the December patch even hits. Sorry but unrestricted glamour is not going to mean anything if you can't even play the game.

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Originally Posted by SicariusSeven

The more they ignore us, the more players are eventually just going to leave before the December patch even hits. Sorry but unrestricted glamour is not going to mean anything if you can't even play the game.

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Totally agree. I've already had a couple guildmates unsub because this was the final straw.

I beat the 100 floor of POTD solo a few days ago. I think Deep Dungeons are turning into a personal favorite piece of content of mine. It's also really evergreen and rewarding.

These DDOS's are extra depressing as it makes climbing the whole mountain for any of them just too risky.

I am genuinely baffled they have not done a full server restart. After the relentless issues yesterday during one of the crashes something must have broken in the background serverside. The evening was mostly crash free but the ping... holy crap. I am legit scared to queue into anything, not just because i might get kicked but seeing that number in the high 4 digits makes anything painful.
Overworld is kinda okay but instances - especially with more than 4 people - were almost unplayable. I am endlessly disappointed that they don't even care enough to do a basic quick reset to relieve stress or do a short maintenance at night so things at least work again. If they are waiting until next Tuesday for the next restart... we are in for a rough a** time.

This is normally a statement form an entirely different space but it really does seem like SE is banking on our level of permanent state of tolerable unhappiness being high enough to carry them to 8.0.

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Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

I am genuinely baffled they have not done a full server restart. After the relentless issues yesterday during one of the crashes something must have broken in the background serverside. The evening was mostly crash free but the ping...

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They aren't server crashes. If the servers were crashing, then S ranks respawn times would reset. I have spawned an S rank, got disconnected, then logged back in to see it still up. So it's technically just a DDoS cutting our connections to the server, and not directly affecting the server itself.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They aren't server crashes. If the servers were crashing, then S ranks respawn times would reset. I have spawned an S rank, got disconnected, then logged back in to see it still up. So it's technically just a DDoS cutting our connections to the server, and not directly affecting the server itself.

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It is affecting latency drastically, not just for me. I was hearing it from everyone who spoke up during the allied's and frontlines I did. Whether the servers actually goes down or just freezes up so bad it stops sending data back to the client is in the end for the person playing of little difference. Sorry for the terminology not being correct but that the felt effect. The servers are messed up badly and I fear tonight will be even worse if they continue pressuring the game. It is just a matter of time until they fold.
Then again... maybe that will finally be enough to get SE off their a**es. In a way I do hope the DDOS takes all servers down completely for an extended period to force their hand in a way no crying on our end can. I can live with days of not being able to play at all if it means going forward we will have a stable game.

Another DDOS has happened today, Nov 12. 9:38 CST

Again 2330 pst Wed Nov 12.