The highly anticipated release of Final Fantasy XIV Patch 7.2, Seekers of Eternity, was unfortunately met with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks shortly after the game's servers returned from maintenance.  These attacks primarily targeted North American and European data centers, leading to widespread connectivity problems for players.

The Seekers of Eternity update represents a significant step forward in the Dawntrail expansion's storyline.  This substantial patch, requiring a 10GB download on PC, introduces new main story quests, the next tier of the Arcadion raid series, and significant job updates.  Notable changes include adjustments to the Black Mage and Pictomancer jobs, along with tweaks to the area-of-effect (AoE) abilities of Paladins, Machinists, Dancers, and Warriors.

The DDoS attacks began shortly after the conclusion of an all-day maintenance period for Patch 7.2.  Square Enix acknowledged the attacks in a Lodestone post, confirming that North American and European data centers experienced lag and intermittent disconnections.  DDoS attacks overwhelm servers with illegitimate traffic, disrupting normal service and causing performance issues for players.

While there is no foolproof method to completely prevent DDoS attacks, server technicians can implement mitigation strategies to lessen their impact.  Final Fantasy XIV is not the only online game recently targeted by such attacks; World of Warcraft's Classic Hardcore servers also experienced similar disruptions in March, leading to character rollbacks for some affected players.

Square Enix is actively working to address the situation, but further updates on the status of the DDoS attacks and mitigation efforts are pending.