‘Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood’ Server Issues: Congestion And Login Problems Caused By DDOS Attacks
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood went live on June 16, giving early access to players who pre-ordered the game. If one thing is certain, however, it’s that MMO releases are hardly ever as smooth as one would hope.
With thousands of players finished with Square Enix’s Heavensward expansion, Stormblood is a new look into Final Fantasy XIV and the vision that director Naoki Yoshida foresaw for the game. We’ve been introduced to many quality of life changes, and classes have been reworked to better allow its users to tank, deal damage, and heal. Getting into the game was a bumpy road.
According to a report by Polygon, the Stormblood early access period was filled with long queues and server congestion. Upon updating the game and attempting to login, players were met with a queue on some of the bigger worlds. This means that depending on the number of players logging on, users were placed in “line” to get into the game. Naturally, this could mean that you’d be waiting anywhere from five minutes to more than an hour to see Stormblood and its story quests.
The game’s servers are broken up into data centers. European, North American, and Japanese servers have had issues, though North America’s older servers, Balmung and Gilgamesh, are known to have had the most problems. In an attempt to relieve this, Square Enix offered incentives for performing a transfer and moving to a less congested world. While this alleviated some of the pressure, Final Fantasy XIV also came under attack from outside sources.
https://twitter.com/TV_Movies_News/status/877633113463021568
According to a report by PlayStation Lifestyle, Final Fantasy XIV servers came under attack by way of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. Such an attack is designed to overload servers into malfunction, preventing use of its services. Square Enix had this to say regarding the attack.
“We have confirmed that since June 16, we have been experiencing DDoS attacks from an anonymous third-party targeting the Final Fantasy XIV game servers on the NA data center,” Square began. “Our technical staff is taking every possible measure to address this issue but the attack is still continuing to take place by changing their methods at every moment. We will continue to monitor and work on recovery from every possible angle.”
How to unlock the Red Mage and Samurai jobs in Final Fantasy XIV's Stormblood expansion. https://t.co/dj46WSji9J pic.twitter.com/t8xIJTrv74
— Kotaku (@Kotaku) June 19, 2017
Servers have since seen some improvement, though worlds like Balmung and Gilgamesh are plagued by lengthy login wait times. This isn’t to say that the game is unplayable, however. While queues are long and quests are bugged, it’s safe to say that Square Enix will continue to improve performance until its players can transition smoothly from gameplay to login.
How was your experience with Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
[Featured Image by Square Enix]
