Your post is well-written, thoughtful, and professional. Therefore, instead of taking a couple of minutes to explain generally why I disagree, I will address your argument point by point, and put time and thought into my reply. I still disagree with you, but please do not take this as an attack on you personally.
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I live in west coast Canada and the server move caused my ping to shift from the 30s to the 90s. My ping was literally tripled and it's incredibly frustrating to play on.
The server move has, in general, reduced ping times. Chicago is a more centralized location, so in general ping times are lower. Before the move, 90 ping was a good day for the east coast. The west coast will now experience some of that, but frankly, 90 ping is still quite playable. I am afraid that the east coast will have little sympathy for you, as our ping was routinely in the 90-120 range.
For whoever might be reading this and responding, I don't mean to make any of this sound personal, because it's not, it's mostly just directed towards Riot Games as a company, so, I apologize in advance.
Good to see you being polite. That doesn't happen often on the internet.
I've been playing since 2009, back when Riot Games was more tightly knit with the community, the ToS was 90 pages smaller, the "summoner's code" didn't exist, etc. Riot seemed more like people back then, every year I feel like Riot is downgrading it's customer service in favor of becoming a more faceless organization like Blizzard (Starcraft being a game I played for roughly 13 years before quitting to become a League player, since the company was much better)
I personally haven't played for nearly that long, closer to 1 year. However, to me, Riot feels very engaged with the community despite their increasing size. Just look at how Repertoir dealt with the reworks, or how you can frequently find other Rioters on the Gameplay and Balance boards.
Five or six years ago, you guys wouldn't get away with pulling shit like this, the community would be completely outraged. We used to get IP/RP/Boosts/Skins etc for service downtime back in the day, compensation for a small community having to deal with the problems of a company producing a game.
There was no downtime during the move, as far as I recall. In addition, more than half the community actually saw ping improve.
I feel now that League of Legends has become more popular, Riot Games is becoming just like every other company out there.
As I stated before, I disagree. Riot is much better than other companies.
Honestly, I don't mean to seem rude to whoever might be reading this and responding, because you're not necessarily the target of my anger, but what kind of a PR message does this send:
"Hey, we're moving the west coast server over to the east coast and tripling everyone on the west coasts ping. Sorry." ? The east coast players signed up with 100 ping and decided to play anyways. I did not.
I take offense at the entitlement of west coast players. You act like your better ping is simply the natural state. We didn't sign up to have lower connection speeds. Nothing in the Terms of Use specifies that west coast players get better ping. We simply liked the game and kept playing with the ping we had. If 100 ping is unacceptable, as you say, then we shouldn't have had to deal with it either.
All of Riot's reasoning for not having two NA servers is, frankly, bullshit. Excuse my language. Literally every other competitive game has a west and east server. DotA2, Starcraft 2, CS:GO, Even the original battle.net from 1998 has had two dedicated region servers. One for the west, one for the east.
Queue times would approximately double. Playing at off-peak hours would take longer, and playing Dominion/TT would be extremely difficult. 90 ping isn't even that bad, and I speak from experience.
Honestly, I've supported this game for so long, spent money on RP to support the company, etc, and I'm just honestly floored by the server move decision.
How much money you personally spent just isn't relevant. People on the east coast spend money too.
Service downgrades are unacceptable. If you want your game to stay competitive, act like it. Even though I may not be an LCS player (I've won NESL tournaments, placed high in solo queue, etc) I'm still entitled to my opinion. Even your LCS players are outraged by this shit, some of them even retiring.
A few LCS players were annoyed. I could find no connection between the server move and any retirements, however. There were a few retirements in late April, but that was long before the move was announced.
Also, your ELO has all the relevance of your wallet. Which, as I stated previously, is none.
While I know this is a good thing for east coast players, and I'm not saying it's not, and I sympathize for them having to deal with lag for years and years, their problem should of been handled differently, not passing it to the west coast.
They are working on other ways to directly improve the connection speeds across the board, and Chicago's infrastructure makes a better base to start from. Until then, you get to see what east coast ping was like. I agree that reducing ping entirely is ideal. But frankly, you can deal with it for a while until they finish their other projects.
As far as the east coast players and the west coast players arguing at each other, it's very childish.
Yes.
I have nothing against east coast players. East coast players are angry at the west coast because they had to deal with lag for 6 years (you should be angry at Riot), now that the lag is ours it's akin to someone who's father just died - and someone who's never had a father saying "So what? get used to it."
East coast players are angry because the west coast is making such a big deal out of having the same ping we did on a good day. You call 90 ping unacceptable. Okay. So when that was our minimum for 6 years, did you think that was unacceptable? You're all being hypocritical. You only care because it's your problem now instead of ours. I'm sorry for not being able to say that more politely, but there it is. And frankly, ping in the 90-100 range is quite playable.
Your analogy is also rather exaggerated. It's more akin to the mailman changing his route and someone complaining that now he gets his mail later in the day, and someone else saying "I got my mail later before the route was changed. You can deal with it."
Service upgrades and service downgrades are two completely different things.
It is no surprise to anyone that opposites are opposite. However, this was in general an upgrade. Average connection speeds are higher, and Riot is working to fix the ones that aren't.
While it does reduce lag for the majority of North America, it does drastically increase lag for others. Riot's job should of been to offer a better service and a better game for everyone, not settling for mediocrity.
I agree wholeheartedly that this is not a perfect solution. However, it is illogical to assume that a good solution should not be implemented simply because a better one is theoretically possible. This is actually an example of the Perfect Solution Fallacy, AKA the Nirvana Fallacy. The failure lies in assuming that the best solution is the only practicable one. The old situation had flaws. The new one has less. The continued existence of some flaws should not stop what is, in general, an improvement. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and so on. Riot is also not settling for mediocrity. They are still trying to improve their game.
Thank you for being polite and professional. Like you, I apologize for anything seeming like a personal attack, as like you, that was not my intention. I hope you will consider my position as I have considered yours.
