Just because you or your server is affected, doesn't mean everyone or every server is affected. Taking the game down for others wouldn't make it better.

They had really bad DDoS attacks a few expansions ago - like Heavensward or Stormblood. They figured out a way to defend against them and became pretty good at making them ineffective and have done really well for the better part of the 10 years of the game.

I suppose that either they just upped their game, or SE (or a nearby ISP) changed something that resulted in an unfortunate vulnerability.
Quote Originally Posted by Kaurhz View Post
if I had to make a bet in part-in-play to do with the payment system changes they've made.
That makes little sense to me. People who love the game and want to play it wouldn't try to make it unplayable and potentially risk getting banned so that they can never resume their character ever. It's also not likely to result in it being fixed without them at least making a statement to say they did the DDoS and why.

But it's generally not "1 person" that usually does something like this since lots of IPs/machines are involved.