Server Upgrades and/or Security Please!

[Hieral]

The expansion has been out for two weeks now. Heavensward was stabilized within hours of launch.

If the problem is in fact, an attack (which in all actuality it's probably not; it's probably just a large number of people actually wanting to play), can we have our subscription fees go to pay for some security nerds?

If it's actually just really that many people wanting to play, what gives? The NA data center move was supposed to be an upgrade and improve stability. Obviously that didn't work out. Can we see our subscription fees invested in some quality hardware?

Thanks again for the awesome expansion and here's hoping it becomes playable soon!

[Laerune]

The way SE works is that the profit from the games are being funneled to fund for upcomming SE games. I wish that everything that SE made from FFXIV would be used for FFXIV, but sadly this is not how it works. I have read somewhere that whatever SE earns from the Mog Station is kept for FFXIV, but expansion and subscription fees is for all of SE.

[Hieral]

Guess we better spend some paychecks on Mog station then because this is getting ridiculous

[Mmartins]

Sorry if I sound rude or something Hieral, not my intention, but you don't know what a DDoS attack is. There's hardly anything SE (or anyone, really) can do to defend against a DDoS atack. That's why it's such a popular tool to disrupt online services, because it's almost impossible to defend against it. The only real way to fight it is getting more resources so they don't get saturated by the DDoS... but if you do that, the attackers can just get more resources (usually more people) and that's it, you're back to the start and your service is still disrupted.

It's unfortunate that some people can't seem to get a life and do this kind of thing, but no amount of extra "security nerds" will do anything to help here. We have to be patient for the time being. I'm sure SE is trying to figure out something to fight this but in the mean time, patience. It's not like it's SE DDoSing their own game.

[HyoMinPark]

Honestly, the issues are more than just these DDoS attacks every other day. The problems with Early Access had zero to do with DDoS attacks. The issues with instanced housing being inaccessible on Balmung during times had zero to do with DDoS. The issues with Duty Finder instability have zero to do with DDoS. There have been more issues since the NA server upgrade than there ever was before, and not all of these can be blamed on DDoS attacks.

Server instability caused by the everyday traffic of the playerbase has nothing to do with DDoS, but everything to do with hardware and server maintenance, neither of which fall on the shoulders of the client, but of the provider of the services.

[Riusvell]

Honestly, the issues are more than just these DDoS attacks every other day. The problems with Early Access had zero to do with DDoS attacks. The issues with instanced housing being inaccessible on Balmung during times had zero to do with DDoS. The issues with Duty Finder instability have zero to do with DDoS. There have been more issues since the NA server upgrade than there ever was before, and not all of these can be blamed on DDoS attacks.

Server instability caused by the everyday traffic of the playerbase has nothing to do with DDoS, but everything to do with hardware and server maintenance, neither of which fall on the shoulders of the client, but of the provider of the services.

Bolding this here right now, this was the player's faults as the AFKers were hiding in their houses to avoid being reported.

[Hieral]

Sorry if I sound rude or something Hieral, not my intention, but you don\\'t know what a DDoS attack is. There\\'s hardly anything SE (or anyone, really) can do to defend against a DDoS atack. That\\'s why it\\'s such a popular tool to disrupt online services, because it\\'s almost impossible to defend against it. The only real way to fight it is getting more resources so they don\\'t get saturated by the DDoS... but if you do that, the attackers can just get more resources (usually more people) and that\\'s it, you\\'re back to the start and your service is still disrupted.

I don't claim to be a computer nerd by any means. In fact, the last time I used a computer for anything other than making a resume, Windows XP was a thing. That being said, from what research one can do online, it appears there's several methods of defense against this issue. The example you cited being one on a very long list.

Again, I'm no expert, hence the request to hire experts, but can't they just shut down all computer requests for access, single out the IPs spamming the network, firewall them, then restore computer access until the culprit is 100% blocked? Doesn't really seem possible to do on a console.

Unless it's being suggested that people can access the servers outside of the game client itself, which wouldn't make sense unless it was someone in SE doing it. If that's how it's happening, easily fixed I would think: shut down all requests coming from outside the client, add authorized IP addresses to permitted users, and firewall the rest.

Like I said, no expert but I understand the basics. I'm sure there's experts out there for hire who can isolate and fix it. Just a matter of SE being willing to hire them

[Kaedan]

I don't claim to be a computer nerd by any means. In fact, the last time I used a computer for anything other than making a resume, Windows XP was a thing. That being said, from what research one can do online, it appears there's several methods of defense against this issue. The example you cited being one on a very long list.

Again, I'm no expert, hence the request to hire experts, but can't they just shut down all computer requests for access, single out the IPs spamming the network, firewall them, then restore computer access until the culprit is 100% blocked? Doesn't really seem possible to do on a console.

Unless it's being suggested that people can access the servers outside of the game client itself, which wouldn't make sense unless it was someone in SE doing it. If that's how it's happening, easily fixed I would think: shut down all requests coming from outside the client, add authorized IP addresses to permitted users, and firewall the rest.

Like I said, no expert but I understand the basics. I'm sure there's experts out there for hire who can isolate and fix it. Just a matter of SE being willing to hire them

No, they cannot. As you admit, you're not an expert, and it's really easy for people who only understand something partially to think they have a solution.

IPs change constantly and DDoS attacks rely on literally hundreds and thousands of computers to attack the target... many of which might even be legit players who have contracted malware and are being used in the DDoS network.

To suggest they don't already have "experts" working on the problem is pretty insulting and defies common sense. They are doing what they can... throwing money at a problem doesn't magically fix it.

[Mmartins]

I don't claim to be a computer nerd by any means. In fact, the last time I used a computer for anything other than making a resume, Windows XP was a thing. That being said, from what research one can do online, it appears there's several methods of defense against this issue. The example you cited being one on a very long list.

Again, I'm no expert, hence the request to hire experts, but can't they just shut down all computer requests for access, single out the IPs spamming the network, firewall them, then restore computer access until the culprit is 100% blocked? Doesn't really seem possible to do on a console.

Unless it's being suggested that people can access the servers outside of the game client itself, which wouldn't make sense unless it was someone in SE doing it. If that's how it's happening, easily fixed I would think: shut down all requests coming from outside the client, add authorized IP addresses to permitted users, and firewall the rest.

Like I said, no expert but I understand the basics. I'm sure there's experts out there for hire who can isolate and fix it. Just a matter of SE being willing to hire them

As it happens, I'm not entirely an expert but I am a software engineer so I do know several things about DDoS attacks (having also studied them on my own from an engineer's perspective). As was commented by Kaedan and Paladinleeds, it's not as simple as you think. A DDoS is basically throwing requests at a server to saturate it's capacity to answer requests. You could see it as intentionally causing a bottleneck in a highway by getting a lot of cars to go to a certain point at the same time. If you make the highway bigger (get more resources to handle more requests), they just bring more cars. If you take their cars away, they just get different cars (IP addresses). If you put a checkpoint at any point before the congested one (your firewall block), they just gather before the checkpoint and now the checkpoint is the one saturated, which accomplishes the exact same thing.

It's a really tricky problem to solve and just googling it or throwing money away won't solve it. If it were that simple, it wouldn't be so widespread as a way to shut down services.

[Paladinleeds]

Aye. The problem is the source of the DDoS attacks come from a rolling rotation of IP addresses. They are forever changing (sometimes changing as frequently as every 5 seconds, that is possible). Also, a lot of legitimate players (myself included) have dynamic IP addresses, meaning they change too. IP blocking will mean legit players get blocked. That and malware is constantly getting more and more sophisticated. Even legit websites get attacked and malware thrown on them so when a user visits a legit site, they get the malware, and then their PC becomes part of a botnet too. It's a very difficult problem to solve due to the ease of accessing and executing such an attack.