FFXIV players frustrated by persistent DDoS attacks downing NA servers

DDoS attacks are an inevitable annoyance while playing any popular MMO—but things are really getting out of hand in Final Fantasy XIV. The North American servers have been battered with on-off attacks for just under a full week, and fans aren’t happy about it. 

The attacks first started on Sept. 18, targeting FFXIV’s European and Japanese servers and NA until full recovery on Sept. 20. After one day of respite, the disconnects ramped up again starting on Sept. 22, primarily affecting NA servers. Since then, the devs have been playing whack-a-mole with persistent attacks lasting at least a few hours each day. 

As expected, players are not happy with the state of the game. The official update posts on X (firmly Twitter) have replies full of angry and exasperated players demanding to know when and if the devs will resolve the issue.

The FFXIV subreddit and official forums are faring even worse, with many lamenting the disastrous interruptions to time-sensitive activities and challenges. With some attacks happening right after the weekly reset, many players have been unable to receive weekly rewards from content like Savage raid reclears. 

Some have even asked for the devs to give game time compensation, as they did for the disastrous connectivity issues during the Endwalker launch. However, it’s doubtful that players will be getting any free subscription days from the recent DDoS attacks—game time compensation is only offered when there have been catastrophic issues rendering the game unplayable for days at a time, not intermittent periods of disconnects. 

For better or worse, this past week has been nowhere near as bad as the mass worldwide DDoS that hit the game earlier in 2024. While many players have been unable to stay connected for more than a few minutes during the attacks, others have remained completely unaffected. 

It’s no surprise that players are already fed up at this point. FFXIV has suffered unprecedented DDoS attacks since Dawntrail’s launch, never going a month without at least one region getting hit. Considering the game received only a handful of attacks a year before 2024, this is a very unusual state of affairs starting to rile up the entire community. 

As of the time of writing, there has yet to be any acknowledgment from director Naoki Yoshida or the dev team as the attacks continue, and players are starting to wonder if the issue will ever be resolved. Inevitably, there’s tons of speculation on exactly why FFXIV has been targeted so relentlessly as of late, ranging from developer negligence and/or lack of resources to stop a normal amount of DDoS attempts for a popular MMO, to someone having a grudge against the controversial job changes in Dawntrail. Some suspect the fans who objected to a main story NPC being voiced by a trans actress, while others assume it’s just another DDoS attacker demonstrating their services for sale. 

Unfortunately, the intentions behind specific DDoS attacks are rarely declared or discovered, and players will likely never know who has been ruining their Dawntrail experience. The servers are stable now, and players can only hope today marks the last day of the recent spree.