If DDoS mitigation is failing, please implement stronger in-game recovery

Large swaths of NA have been kicked daily since 7.4 dropped. If there are plans to change mitigation tactics in the future, we haven't been informed (and understandably, too much detail will make mitigation useless as attackers will have more info on how to bypass it). I'm not here to talk about that. If network issues are consistent (which they are) and are showing no signs of improvement (they've gotten worse, in fact), it is good practice to implement stronger recovery for user losses.

• 10 minute grace period for deep dungeons is a start, but it clearly isn't enough. If the whole party is DCed, someone is doing a solo run, or the queue takes over 10 minutes, this strategy fails.
• There is no grace period for crafting. Material loss is a consistent complaint, especially post-patch when new recipes are added and players invest a lot of time to obtain them.
• Wipes in dungeons prolong content and lead to frustrated players quitting, which leads to wait times for party refills, which leads to more players quitting, and so on. Similarly, frustration builds when players waiting in long queues must rejoin and wait all over again.
• PvP has repeatedly become imbalanced towards players that survive the attacks and skews results in their favor, devaluing skill in favor of luck and VPN users.
• High-end duties will similarly skew in favor of EU/JP/OC datacenters due to instability on NA.

I don't have an exhaustive list nor do I have perfect solutions. However it is clear to see that in-game recovery is biased towards preventing mechanic abuse in a way that is disproportionately hurting honest players when DDoS issues are so widespread. I don't know what it will take to balance the sides - detecting large player drops, server rollbacks, in-game or server time compensation - but the community is hurting and the response so far has only served as a bandaid solution. Suggestions, details, elaboration is appreciated from you all. (Just for communication's sake, I ask that people avoid DDoS talk in this thread and focus on in-game recovery. We already have many threads dedicated to DDoS and I would like to make a space specifically for in-game solutions to the issue.)

A temporary solution I have been wondering why they haven't done yet is. Why haven't they re-opened the cloud datacenters to allow us to play over there till they are able to implement a more permanent solution. If someone does know the actual answer I would love to hear it.

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Originally Posted by HadesThePyro

A temporary solution I have been wondering why they haven't done yet is. Why haven't they re-opened the cloud datacenters to allow us to play over there till they are able to implement a more permanent solution. If someone does know the actual answer I would love to hear it.

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Definitely a good option, especially since the new savage will be dropping soon (that is, assuming the cloud datacenters were safe during the initial DT attacks - I never experienced it myself). The current wave of DDoS is much more frequent than 7.2-7.3 attacks and seems to warrant it.

I support this as last night aether went down, and I was kicked off into a 600 queue and when I finally re-logged into the game, I found that I'd been kicked out of the party during the Mistwake Dungeon since I had been the tank and we saw 50% of the final boss' HP before I lost connection. So I wasted around 15+ min to replay the entire dungeon since the chest glams only drop from the 1st and 3rd boss which meant I had to redo it all over again for nothing.

So far I've switched to the free Cloudflare WARP, and it's saved me once from being d/c'd other than it lagged hard and my Wol vanished for a few min, then I remained in the game overall now. I'll keep it on for now since I still want avoid the dos'd as the entire USA is in a bad place.

Bumping this again as we need a serious re-evaluation of a crafting fallback. Intentional disconnects when a craft is going badly is obviously what they're trying to avoid but it seems unreasonable to not have some sort of checkpoint to restore. At this point the number of players being booted far exceeds the number of cheaters.

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Originally Posted by HadesThePyro

A temporary solution I have been wondering why they haven't done yet is. Why haven't they re-opened the cloud datacenters to allow us to play over there till they are able to implement a more permanent solution. If someone does know the actual answer I would love to hear it.

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I'm just tin foil hatting here but some potentials:
- They don't actually have the servers they used anymore after that test
- The issue doesn't affect enough people widespread for them to take serious action (i.e. it's only affecting part of NA and not the entire NA region)
- The provider they're using is lying to them about how serious the issue is so SE doesn't feel a need to take action (which would align with how they're saying it's specifically a user problem)
- They're just taking the passive route of waiting it out while developing the mobile game because ultimately their goal is to get us to switch to that considering how upgraded it's getting compared to PC and the statements made in the recent Yoshi-P interview.

If you want tin foil:

The game is going to be completely blown up for 8.0 -- at which point they figure any true server fixes can and will wait for then.

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Originally Posted by Naphtalia

I'm just tin foil hatting here but some potentials:
- They don't actually have the servers they used anymore after that test
- The issue doesn't affect enough people widespread for them to take serious action (i.e. it's only affecting part of NA and not the entire NA region)
- The provider they're using is lying to them about how serious the issue is so SE doesn't feel a need to take action (which would align with how they're saying it's specifically a user problem)
- They're just taking the passive route of waiting it out while developing the mobile game because ultimately their goal is to get us to switch to that considering how upgraded it's getting compared to PC and the statements made in the recent Yoshi-P interview.

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First one is a good question and I'd consider a possibility.

Second one is as well. Remember the game is based in Japan, and even though NA is a big portion of the playerbase, I'd expect their focus to be on the Japanese experience.

Third one I doubt. My alternate view of that is SE knows how bad the problem is, but since NTT is a Japanese company, they're reluctant to pull the plug on the contract even though it's detrimental to their customers.

The last one is definitely not. There has been minor talk of finding ways to implement mobile-style things into the PC version, not get people to switch off the PC version. The mobile version only has "upgrades" because it's being made by an entirely different company that doesn't have to write a single line of story, develop a single character, or any of that - all the time the PC company spends making the actual game (plot, characters, etc.), the mobile team can dedicate to designing QoL upgrades instead.

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Originally Posted by TwiceDamned

If you want tin foil:

The game is going to be completely blown up for 8.0 -- at which point they figure any true server fixes can and will wait for then.

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I hope that's not what they think because it is objectively wrong. Every other day i hear about people canceling their sub because the game is unplayable because they can't do any content without the possibility of getting DDoS wrecked again. The longer this goes on, the more players they will lose. The longer this goes on, the more underwhelmed they will be with the player turnout for 8.0.

I have no intention of leaving the game, but a great many already have and others are. I don't want to see it die.

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Originally Posted by HadesThePyro

A temporary solution I have been wondering why they haven't done yet is. Why haven't they re-opened the cloud datacenters to allow us to play over there till they are able to implement a more permanent solution. If someone does know the actual answer I would love to hear it.

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This will be an 8.0 feature, please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

This will be an 8.0 feature, please look forward to it.

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It will be announced for 8.0, but won't actually come out until 8.58.

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Originally Posted by jesseleewelch

I hope that's not what they think because it is objectively wrong. Every other day i hear about people canceling their sub because the game is unplayable because they can't do any content without the possibility of getting DDoS wrecked again. The longer this goes on, the more players they will lose. The longer this goes on, the more underwhelmed they will be with the player turnout for 8.0.

I have no intention of leaving the game, but a great many already have and others are. I don't want to see it die.

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The main underlying issue is that 8.0 should come sooner rather than later. A 3-year wait for that pacing is too much.

Cloud datacenter should be used for instanced content until this is under control. Multiple times daily there is an issue. Square Enix needs to respond better on their end with these sorts of fallbacks when they are providing a paid service.

If this is a NA thing and this is a JP made game, then maybe the users of NA servers should put 2 and 2 together... EA vs SE.... hmmm do you guys need more hints?!?

Agreed. There's basically no point in even attempting a deep dungeon while this is going on.

Frankly, considering this has been the same exact message since September 25, 2021:

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During the time listed below, we were experiencing network technical difficulties due to a DDoS attack. Players may have experienced the following issues as a result. We will continue to monitor the situation and work with ISPs to come up with countermeasures.

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and the last time Yoshi-P even addressed them personally was 10/26/2018 2:43 AM Square should face scrutiny from someone with more legal authority at this point because they know it's an on-going problem that has gotten significantly worse from 2024 onwards and are doing nothing to prevent continued attacks or make right by their paying customers.

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Originally Posted by Zohnax

Frankly, considering this has been the same exact message since September 25, 2021:
and the last time Yoshi-P even addressed them personally was 10/26/2018 2:43 AM Square should face scrutiny from someone with more legal authority at this point because they know it's an on-going problem that has gotten significantly worse from 2024 onwards and are doing nothing to prevent continued attacks or make right by their paying customers.

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Anyone with bona fide "more legal authority" would probably recognize that the ToS you agree to renders anything you desperately want to be a moot point. The disruptions probably don't amount to anything close to a need to "make right" by anyone, and none of us have any clue what SE might actually be doing (though unsuccessfully) behind the scenes. As soon as your "doing nothing" claim gets blown out of the water, you're left with nothing.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Anyone with bona fide "more legal authority" would probably recognize that the ToS you agree to renders anything you desperately want to be a moot point. The disruptions probably don't amount to anything close to a need to "make right" by anyone, and none of us have any clue what SE might actually be doing (though unsuccessfully) behind the scenes. As soon as your "doing nothing" claim gets blown out of the water, you're left with nothing.

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Actually, due to the nature of DDoS'ing, it's pretty much moot to try and go after who's actually doing the attacking. The liability is more likely to fall back on companies not protecting themselves better. If this was a free online service, I'd be inclined to agree that they're not obligated to make right by anyone. But we're paying customers and there's no been level of reimbursement of any kind since these attacks started in 2017. (With 2020-2023 being quiet years.) Like I said, we've been getting the same generic address of recovery 4 years that they're working with their ISP. So either the ISP is incompetent or they're not pushing hard enough to get results.