DDoS attack killed my Palace of the Dead file

[LuciferMink]

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.

@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

[DamianFatale]

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.

[Kuroka]

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 >_<

[prime456]

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.

[xPreciousAngelx]

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.

[Lambdafish]

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.

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.

[LuciferMink]

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.

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

[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.

[Warghoul570]

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

[Lambdafish]

But, our D/C was caused by the DDoS

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