NA East Coast Servers~Ping

Mr Breezy·Oct 23, 2014·104 votes·15,276 views

So now that we completely understand that the server migration in no way, will stabilize or decrease the ping of East Coast players(Typically in the range of 90-100 ms), how are we to compete at a competitive level?

Its been proven, and pro's themselves have centrally located or moved west, just to take advantage of playing on 10-30 ping.

How can you keep a game competitive, when half the population has a competitive advantage over the other half, BEFORE THE GAME STARTS!?"

The fact I have considered moving to the LAN Server, which boasts a 50 ms ping , and Spanish, I'm disheartened I've even considered moving servers just to feel I'm on a level playing field.

Riot has constantly put off these comments and failed to address our concerns. How long until enough is enough?

Ps. money isnt an issue, reported revenue of US $927 million , this past year.

TLDR; Make the East coast equivalent to the West.

Edit: Can we get a red post with insight into the issue, not a "I'm not on that team but its in development".

123 Comments

Lumus AvatarOct 23, 201420 votes

I don't understand why they have thus far refused to set up servers for the east coast - sticking with just the one server in Cali - when they have several servers throughout China and SE Asia

Mr BreezyOct 23, 201417 votes

I don't understand why they have thus far refused to set up servers for the east coast - sticking with just the one server in Cali - when they have several servers throughout China and SE Asia

Exactly that, they could easily create a project and within a 6 month period introduce a East coast server. At least showing iniative towards the problem would be a excellent first step.

Ku renzOct 23, 20141 votes

I don't understand why they have thus far refused to set up servers for the east coast - sticking with just the one server in Cali - when they have several servers throughout China and SE Asia

Exactly that, they could easily create a project and within a 6 month period introduce a East coast server. At least showing iniative towards the problem would be a excellent first step.

they are changing servers soon for east coast

2WhiteAndNerdyOct 23, 20146 votes

Do you have a source for that info? Would be sick if that's the case.

TheShinxOct 24, 20146 votes

There isn't one. They stated a little while ago that they had plans to do it but not in the foreseeable future. Which I presume means "well, sorry but F you and your needs east coast people" They also said that they are making changes to the servers in Cali to make sure they are the ones they want. Again a Giant F U to east coast players.

Nucleophilic atkOct 23, 20142 votes

I think they are torn between decreasing and dividing the country. I think that at their current point, they believe their only option is to create a different server for east coast players, making east coast only able to play east coast and visa-versa.

Lumus AvatarOct 23, 20144 votes

That's an option. It's at least better than getting constantly stomped by West Coasters simply because we don't have the reaction time they do to see things coming. I've only got a handful of friends on the west coast and that's because they were originally east costers.

Nucleophilic atkOct 23, 20142 votes

I don't recall a situation where I have ever thought, "I would have won that fight if I lived on the west coast." Also, there are plenty of good players on the east coast. I don't think someone is stomping on you just because they live on the west coast. If that were the case, I don't think there would be any high level east coast players.

Lumus AvatarOct 23, 20147 votes

are there any? I recall seeing a thread recently that graphed out the geographic location of members of each tier of the ladder system. I don't remember there being any Master or Challenger tier blips on the East Coast.

Mr BreezyOct 23, 20149 votes

Please please please find that so I can link/post it in the original thread, would greatly improve the argument.

Oh my gosh heOct 23, 20143 votes

[deleted]

Mr BreezyOct 23, 20149 votes

No one said its impossible... Statistics don't lie, the majority of people who have replied to this thread have included the half dozen players on the east coast with high mmr's( Challenger, master etc.)

It's a quality of gameplay, and I also can't play 12 hours a day to constantly get better to the point that I can stream for a source of income.

There shouldnt be a 10% threshold of players rom East coast that make up the 250 players in challenger.

I really dont care what elo the player is, the point of the thread is to address every player, regardless of skill. No one here has yet to say that ping does not impact the gameplay, advantage or disadvantage. So that point has been accepted.

Ping is a problem, Riot does not wish to acknowledge it. I want notice and attention that says, "Hey we care about quality, you make money from me, please improve my customer satisfaction".

ExxemOct 24, 20143 votes

But the statistics are skewed since all LCS players are living on the west coast, because that's where they play their LAN games. They make up quite a large amount of Challenger. I'm not saying this disproves your original point, but a map like you;re talking about wouldn't prove a whole lot either.

Mr BreezyOct 24, 20144 votes

But the statistics are skewed since all LCS players are living on the west coast, because that's where they play their LAN games. They make up quite a large amount of Challenger. I'm not saying this disproves your original point, but a map like you;re talking about wouldn't prove a whole lot either.

You're right and I get that. But.... where they all born on the west coast? Did they migrate? I understand moving centrally in order to practice in LAN's regularly is helpful, but again the pro's make up lets say 200-300 players. That definitely does not cover the base of all challenger, master and diamond and platinum tiers ( using high elo because apparently anyone less doesnt deserve an opinion on ping, according to posters). I still think the map would put things in visual perspective.

Lumus AvatarOct 24, 20144 votes

Here is one of the images:

Graph

And here is the Thread I got it from:

Thread.

EDIT:

I found more recent info (same source):

Elophant.

BlazingSalvoOct 23, 20144 votes

Even though they think it's fine to have 3 European servers, and 3 Latin/South American servers.

Yet all of US and Canada are forced to play on the same server - despite the majority of the US population residing on East Coast and almost no Canadian locations getting good ping either.

Drunk Old ManOct 23, 20143 votes

You're missing a big issue here.. that would involve matching people on the east coast almost specifically with people on the east coast. If you wanted the east coast server to communicate with the west coast server, you'd need either a middle-man server or a method for the servers to communicate between themselves, which would just add to the latency and be counter-intuitive. The only way adding a server to the east coast would work is if we either split NA into two servers, or had some god awful way of manipulating matchmaking (which would create a lot of issues in itself.)

The best solution is to move the servers to a centralized location, so everyone has roughly the same latency.

Lumus AvatarOct 24, 20142 votes

I didn't miss the issue. I was down with splitting into East and West US servers. That's why I mentioned only having a handful of a West Coast friends. I just wouldn't be able to play with them anymore.

TheShinxOct 24, 20143 votes

They did it with Europe, EUW and EUNE, so yeah the fact is a spliting of a nation wouldn't be as bad.

Drunk Old ManOct 24, 20141 votes

Europe has more than 3 times the population of America, as well as notoriously bad internet in a lot of places. It was much more necessary then than it is in this case. And, if I remember correctly, EUW and EUNE were separate from the get-go.

Lumus AvatarOct 24, 20143 votes

Most online games that release in the US have US East and US West servers starting during the Beta: Final Fantasy XIV and A Realm Reborn, The Elder Scrolls Online, StarCraft and SCII - all blizzard games, Ragnarok Online 2. I would say a large majority of the online PC Games I've played in my life utilized separate servers for East and West US.

slippykittenOct 23, 201418 votes

how many posts like this are going to be made before people realize that riot is a crap company? Riot will not address this as long as they have your business. They are making money hand over fist, so why spend those profits if people are still playing? Trust me, if half the country stops logging on, the east coast will have servers inside a month.

ZaikyoOct 23, 20144 votes

Not sure why this guy was downvoted, he's completely right (although it'll never happen). I'm curious to see how much of the playerbase is on the west coast vs east coast. It'd be pretty interesting to see how much of the NA playerbase gets the middle finger.

That Skill ShotOct 23, 201412 votes

If only we were in the scope of Rito's vision, the east coast does not exist.

Super Kami KaiOct 23, 20148 votes

rito has never cared about EastCoast.

LegendariOct 23, 201411 votes

Seriously considering moving to LAN for next season... way too many connectivity issues this season and playing with a 120+ ping just isn't fun...

I really don't understand why a game as mainstream as this, which is promoted as a competitive e-sport, doesn't have a more balanced playing field.

Pudii PudiiOct 23, 20149 votes

A hefty investment that will bring them nothing more than customer satisfaction, and maybe a bit of money due to happy customers. The fact that riot won't come out and comment on the issue is embarrassing to say the least. I've never seen a company come off as unprofessional as Riot Games forward their customers.

I've even tried to have conversations with their IT staff thinking that maybe I was missing the big picture (I graduated in August with a bachelors degree in Information System focused in networking) so I thought hey maybe I'll hear it from the horses mouth and try to explain it to my friends who are fed up to the point of quitting. But they won't even hold conversations with anyone about it, so sensitive and secretive about everything I'm really curious how far the hype and ignorant bliss of their customers will carry them before people realize how poor quality of service they are providing us.

I've tried in LAN and I loved every second of it, shame it'll never happen on NA.

Drunk Old ManOct 23, 20147 votes

I live in Sacramento, CA which is fairly close to the servers. I sit around 38ms in game, which is pretty good for the type of game LoL is. I have two servers; one in Dallas and one in New York. I connected to both remotely, and I get 58ms from Dallas and 87ms from New York (around 80ms is the transfer time for cross-country in the USA). Your ping in LoL is much, much more reliant on the quality of your connection than your location in the United States. A good route from the east coast to the west coast will still give you less than 100ms ping times, which is still quite playable.

Now, onto the topic of server location, I do agree that to be absolutely fair to both sides of the country, we should have the servers located in the central region of the country. Of course, some people will still complain about how people in central USA will have the best ping, but both coasts would have around 50ms average, which is completely playable.

Rock RockburghOct 24, 20141 votes

I have to agree with this, actually. I'm east coast myself (NJ) and haven't had any real issues. I usually ping around 80ms on a hardwired connection. Would I like to have a lower ping? Certainly. Do I need a lower ping? Eh, not really.

DrogmyreOct 25, 20141 votes

Unfortunately, you're an exception in this case.

I live in Florida, and my ping is 120+ at best on the NA servers.

Unfortunately, it's not a stable 120. If it was stable, I wouldn't complain about lag. But at least 3 times a game, often more (up to and including total disconnects) i get massive lag spikes that completely fuck up my gameplay. I miss abilities that under the normal ping (120) i would have landed, I miss opportunities to cast and land mulitple spells, etc.

I learned to live with 120 ping when I started playing LoL. You don't need low ping to play well, you need CONSISTENT ping, which is apparently uncommon on the east coast.

I really want to find a way to transfer this account to LAN, because NA does not give me a desirable internet connection.

Just to note: My computer is good (i usually load first into the game) and my internet is perfectly fine for all other online games. Just not LoL, because the servers are on the other side of the goddamn continent.

minidudeOct 25, 20141 votes

The Issue you are describing is on caused by poor routing on your ISP's side of things. I too live in Florida and while I cant not boast a 80 ping connection on my current ISP my connection is usually around 100 ping. The fact of the matter is the best ISPs will have lower ping and the reason you see it in league is because they show it to you very obviously. There is literally nothing riot can do at this point in time to make your connection better.

Also if your using a wireless connection try hard wiring your self to your router, you will probably see a 10-20 ping improvement.

Penguin EclipseOct 25, 20142 votes

The Issue you are describing is on caused by poor routing on your ISP's side of things. I too live in Florida and while I cant not boast a 80 ping connection on my current ISP my connection is usually around 100 ping. The fact of the matter is the best ISPs will have lower ping and the reason you see it in league is because they show it to you very obviously. There is literally nothing riot can do at this point in time to make your connection better.

Also if your using a wireless connection try hard wiring your self to your router, you will probably see a 10-20 ping improvement.

It's not really a matter of having the best ISPs. While fiber will have lowest last-mile latency (basically from your ISP to your house) compared to cable and DSL, it's the backbone route to Riot that makes the real difference. That doesn't have much to do with the quality of your individual ISP. Verizon FiOS is one of the best consumer ISPs in the country, but many of their users on the East Coast have a high latency to Riot's servers because of the backbone route. Level3 is consistently rated among the best backbone providers in world, but from the traceroutes I have seen they have a higher-latency cross continental route to Riot's servers than Cogent who is typically among the bottom. Cross continental latency is a crapshoot.

Bottomline is that Riot didn't pick a good server location.

Seth the BumOct 23, 20146 votes

I'd certainly appreciate an East Coast server. I mean, even far less successful free-to-play MMORPG companies have the sense to include at least one server per side of the U.S..

On a side note, I really think we need a new abbreviation for the Latin America North server, because I always find myself rolling my eyes whenever I see someone say they're so fed up with the North America server's ping that they're going to move to a Local Area Network.

Mr BreezyOct 23, 20142 votes

On a side note, I really think we need a new abbreviation for the Latin America North server, because I always find myself rolling my eyes whenever I see someone say they're so fed up with the North America server's ping that they're going to move to a Local Area Network.

What if we go with LA, and hope the California crowd doesn't claim it back.

OnegarionOct 23, 20142 votes

I can see it now. People will start to complain about how Los Angles gets its own server, but the east coast doesn't. lol

Penguin EclipseOct 23, 20142 votes

I can see it now. People will start to complain about how Los Angles gets its own server, but the east coast doesn't. lol

The servers are not even located anywhere near LA. Go troll somewhere else.

BlazingSalvoOct 23, 20141 votes

NA game servers are and always have been located in Los Angeles. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=282554 http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Servers

Penguin EclipseOct 23, 20142 votes

NA game servers are and always have been located in Los Angeles. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=282554 http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Servers

No, they are not. sonicdeathmonk confirmed the servers were moved to Portland Oregon some time ago.

Mr BreezyOct 23, 20144 votes

Portland, Oregon is the current server location.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=45503129#45503129

KetuBann7Oct 23, 20145 votes

I wish I could have a 40 ping.

ZarxisOct 24, 20144 votes

Bump for Red visibility.

ZaikyoOct 23, 20143 votes

What I don't understand is how some days I sit at 85-95ms, and other days I sit at 130-140ms. For days at a time...but all of my other games have a static ping that I can expect. There also doesn't seem to be a middle ground...it's just one or the other.

Like, can I just get one shitty ping to get accustomed to playing with? Since the high ping itself will never actually be solved?

GnãrlyOct 23, 20143 votes

Play strife.. 33 ping on east coast server at the moment. Let riot know there is some real competition out there.

Best Lolicon NAOct 24, 20143 votes

The day I can play league with under 100 ping will be a glorious day.

Penguin EclipseOct 24, 20143 votes

For what is it worth Elophant has a chart for average ping by tier.

http://www.elophant.com/league-of-legends/charts/tier?region=na&period=week

Not sure how accurate it is or how they get their statistics. I can't see Riot handing that information over. Challenger is notoriously inaccurate due to the small sample size.

That Skill ShotOct 24, 20143 votes

Bump for Reds

RîsinîumOct 25, 20143 votes

It isn't necessarily the high ping that is the problem, it is the packet loss and ping spikes that is the problem. I would be fine playing with playing on a steady 90-100 ping. However randomly jumping to 150-240 or getting disconnected is unacceptable, for a company that is as successful as riot.

David HallerOct 23, 20141 votes

I don't understand why everyone's going ballistic over ping in a MOBA. Why's everyone treating League like it's CS:GO?

"I got 60 ping, not 10 ping! RAGE!" As if that was really going to turn the game around for you in a fucking MOBA.

I live in rural Arkansas with a 4MB connection. I generally get 'meh' pings at best to any game I play and I've never once felt a ping-related issue when it came to competition on League.

Server stability on the other hand would be something to rage about. "Attempting to reconnect" issues would be something to rage about.

But this just seems like you're hunting down excuses for not playing well.

People have already offered examples of east coast players that played and/or are playing competitively before you ever made a thread about how shitty your connection was.

That's PROOF that your entire point for complaining about this is moot.

KythersOct 23, 201411 votes

I don't understand why everyone's going ballistic over ping in a MOBA. Why's everyone treating League like it's CS:GO?

"I got 60 ping, not 10 ping! RAGE!" As if that was really going to turn the game around for you in a fucking MOBA.

I live in rural Arkansas with a 4MB connection. I generally get 'meh' pings at best to any game I play and I've never once felt a ping-related issue when it came to competition on League.

Server stability on the other hand would be something to rage about. "Attempting to reconnect" issues would be something to rage about.

But this just seems like you're hunting down excuses for not playing well.

People have already offered examples of east coast players that played and/or are playing competitively before you ever made a thread about how shitty your connection was.

That's PROOF that your entire point for complaining about this is moot.

Really?

Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds

Having 100 ping increase that by ~40%

If you think a ~40% slower reaction time doesn't make a difference in a competitive real time video game, you have no idea what you're talking about. And it's not just reaction time. There are things that just aren't doable with high ping, for instance quick casting Janna tornadoes because it requires two clicks and the second one can't happen until the first one does, which means your ping is the very minimum amount of time before it casts.

In fact if I want to stop a Leona Zenith blade let's say with Janna, I have to first react to it, cast the tornado (90s ping), then recast it (90s ping). I lost about 0.2 seconds just to ping, which means Leona is usually on top of me already, unless I guessed she was going to e.

And yes it's possible to get in diamond (I did), or even challenger on the east coast. Of course low ping isn't the only thing you need to be good at the game, but you can not argue that it makes no difference.

That Skill ShotOct 27, 20144 votes

I don't understand why everyone's going ballistic over ping in a MOBA. Why's everyone treating League like it's CS:GO?

"I got 60 ping, not 10 ping! RAGE!" As if that was really going to turn the game around for you in a fucking MOBA.

I live in rural Arkansas with a 4MB connection. I generally get 'meh' pings at best to any game I play and I've never once felt a ping-related issue when it came to competition on League.

Server stability on the other hand would be something to rage about. "Attempting to reconnect" issues would be something to rage about.

But this just seems like you're hunting down excuses for not playing well.

People have already offered examples of east coast players that played and/or are playing competitively before you ever made a thread about how shitty your connection was.

That's PROOF that your entire point for complaining about this is moot.

Really?

Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds

Having 100 ping increase that by ~40%

If you think a ~40% slower reaction time doesn't make a difference in a competitive real time video game, you have no idea what you're talking about. And it's not just reaction time. There are things that just aren't doable with high ping, for instance quick casting Janna tornadoes because it requires two clicks and the second one can't happen until the first one does, which means your ping is the very minimum amount of time before it casts.

In fact if I want to stop a Leona Zenith blade let's say with Janna, I have to first react to it, cast the tornado (90s ping), then recast it (90s ping). I lost about 0.2 seconds just to ping, which means Leona is usually on top of me already, unless I guessed she was going to e.

And yes it's possible to get in diamond (I did), or even challenger on the east coast. Of course low ping isn't the only thing you need to be good at the game, but you can not argue that it makes no difference.