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The East Coast Disadvantage

MtDewWarrior·10/19/2014, 1:11:08 PM·66 votes·7,501 views

The East Coast disadvantage is nothing new to any veteran supporters of Riot, but for those of you who may not know what I'm talking about exactly I will attempt to bring to light the issues we East Coast players face. In any competitive game your ability to react to your opponent is of the highest importance and in many cases the biggest factor to your defeat or victory, but particularly in E-Sports it is the factor that decides games as all players are presumably on the same playing field with no superficial advantage aside from game knowledge, practice, and skill. It is the reason everyone in the world can participate in E-Sports and why I feel it has grown to the lengths it has. League of Legend, one of the biggest competitive E-Sports scenes to date, prides itself on being the next big E-Sports scene that has grown to even offer College Scholarships to the most skilled players. With a million dollars going to the winner of this year's Season 4 world champions, it is clear to see that the competition associated with league is beyond casual at this stage. Even though league is nearing its 5 Year bench mark there is still a clear issue that has gone unmanned in this highly competitive scene. Players from the West Coast closer to the servers can expect to see pings anywhere from 10-50, while players on the East Coast will typically experience pings between 50-150 and in rare cases pings exceeding 150. League of Legends is notorious for how sharp your game play has to be to be competing at the best, seamless spell weaving, perfect animation canceling, quick reactions, are all key parts to what makes a player average to what makes a player a legend. This being said East Coast players are clearly disadvantaged from the start, leaving a not so even playing field in one of the most competitive games in E-sports. Riot recently has attempted to spear head the issue by posting their game plan to solve the East Coast players woe, but many players can draw parallels to the same type of post that was posted years ago in regards to this growing issue with still very little to no real results. Many gaming companies have managed to provide seemingly equal ping to their competitive player base with considerably smaller budgets so there seems to be no excuse why a company fronting the most popular game in the world can't achieve the same results. Negligence, Greed, what exactly is preventing the Riot staff from providing fair ping to everyone, seems to be the heart of the question we East Coast players ask every time we attempt to Insec a player as Lee Sin but fall short due to the incapability of doing such on 100+ Ping.

Relevant Notes: I'm clearly not Master Tier / Challenger and am in no way claiming that ping is why I am not such, but I have recently transferred an account to LAN where I receive 20-40 ping in comparison to my 90-150 on NA I have seen very strict changes to my ability to perform. Changes that only seem to support that there is a clear advantage given to any player on the West Coast and equally a disadvantage to those on the East Coast. I am not satisfied with the attention Riot is giving this issue, and I am hoping that with more community support we will see equal ping going into Season 5 so that we truly all have a fair shake.

Tl;dr: There is a clear difference between West and East cost ping on NA that is leading to a clear disadvantageous conditioning in a highly competitive gaming environment.

http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2josvi/the_east_coast_disadvantage/

I also posted this on reddit in hopes to garner as much attention as possible (And also to save this writing piece since there are rumors that such posts get deleted)

71 Comments

BlazingSalvo10/19/2014, 4:31:58 PM43 votes

Think of it this way.

Average human reaction time is is about 250-260 ms. http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics

A youth in their prime (16-18) can have a reaction time as low as 180 ms, after which it quickly increases to 240~ in the 20s, to up to 300+ in later stages of life. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Reaction_Time.aspx http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2008/01/reaction-time-and-age-of-subject.html

The human eye processes zero information while moving, and the movement can last anywhere from 20-40 ms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_in_reading

And the time it takes your brain to even process information from your eyeballs is 80 ms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTOODPf-iuc

Basically, an East Coaster with 120 ping sees information over two hundred percent later than a West Coaster with 20 ping. Additionally, the difference between the reaction time of an East Coaster 100 ping higher than a West Coaster is like the difference between a human in their prime (16-18) and someone currently retired (50+).

Basically, you age 40 years playing on East Coast ping.

That's not even counting the concept of packet loss and jitter, which also affects players.

Long Dong Wukong10/19/2014, 4:52:35 PM22 votes

They're assholes for it, but the reason they don't either have the servers in the middle or a separate East Coast server is because they don't actually get anything out of it besides mild customer satisfaction, and apparently when companies get pretty big, that doesn't actually matter in the slightest as long as people aren't quitting over the problem.

See : EA, Activision, Blizzard, and now Riot, etc.

Riot's basically content to let the majority of their NA playerbase play at a disadvantage. Again, because they don't actually gain anything for solving the issue. They don't actually give a single fuck about you as proven by their actions. All of their pathetic PR bullshit is just that, bullshit.

dangopee10/19/2014, 11:38:13 PM14 votes

An east coast jungler is pretty much incapable of winning a smite battle against a west coast jungler.

Trytan10/19/2014, 9:58:18 PM9 votes

I think for all the west coast non believers, we should have them make an account on the LAN server, and then get back to us.

Abroad Unicorn10/20/2014, 12:26:32 AM8 votes

I am boycotting purchasing RP until RIOT adds an east coast server. The difference in ping between east coast and west coast players is enormous. West coast players are capable of flashing away from a Katarina as soon as she Shunpos onto them, while the best any east coast player can hope for is to flash after they are hit by katarina's E-W combo. The latency on the east coast means there isn't enough time to react to the shunpo alone, because by the time your Client registers the shunpo Katarina has already used her W. The servers don't need to be divded up, as I understand the argument of not wanting to favor one region over another, or wanting to split the community into two. However, things cannot stay the way they are either. Create an East coast server and have matches be hosted on both the east and west coast servers at random. This would mean that every player in North America would have to deal with the same disadvantage at various times, and even out of the playing field. Somebody posted a infographic in another thread that showed the average ping of players in each Ranked Tier. As players got into gold and higher, the average latency got lower and lower. Platinum players have an average latency of 50-80, while diamond and above are all below 60.

mikeylee242410/20/2014, 2:18:27 AM5 votes

+1, make some dam east coast servers

pro crastinat0r10/20/2014, 11:36:49 AM5 votes

it is my personal opinion that riot closed GD to end the 1074 page thread asking for east coast severs (http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2277789&page=1075) where they repeatedly promised to do something about the issue and then would go silent for months at a time.

DaCush10/20/2014, 6:12:45 PM5 votes

I vote for a centralized NA server. Rather not have an east coast and a west coast one to split the playerbase and have team builder wait times of 40+min for a support.

URackDisciprine10/20/2014, 1:54:20 AM5 votes

I have noticed that this may not be an issue with Riot nearly as much as it is with the fact that they are utilizing Amazon infrastructure.

Traceroutes consistently time out once they hit amazon IP addresses.

hOrnn10/19/2014, 7:35:27 PM4 votes

theres no question, look at challenger, look at the pros.

Pudii Pudii10/20/2014, 8:13:47 PM3 votes

You know it took me a year and a half to realize why I couldn't play champions like Vayne, Riven, or Any skill shot based champion for that matter. I live in Maryland and play with around 85-120 ping and I learned pretty quick that I was horrible at ranged champions, even now I can't cs properly or hit skill shots.

I'm platinum 4/5 (don't know if I decayed yet or not due to work) and I play champions like Lux/Xerath at an unranked or bronze level. I've gotten to platinum playing strictly melee champions with simple mechanics like Fizz/Akali/Fiora/Pantheon because I can't keep up with the other players with lower ping.

Over the summer I actually had the chance to visit a few friends in California and was able to play a few games with them. The difference was like night and day, mind you that I play on an older laptop that gets around 25 FPS. The game felt smooth and unsluggish, I could land and dodge skills shots much easier and I felt like I had full control over my champion. I remember telling them that if had this 45 ping. All the time that I would easily reach plat 1 or even diamond in a matter of days/weeks.

I doubt east coast servers ever really come but if you ever get the chance to play on low ping even if it's just a tourney or something I would go for it. I seriously think my overall gaming experience was unbelievably better with lower ping. To actually be able to enjoy the game for what it is, and not worry about the delay.

MtDewWarrior10/21/2014, 7:32:44 PM3 votes

I really wish I knew what riot had been up to for 2 years after their last PR bs on the whole centralized servers thing. I really hate how gamers are always taken advantage of by companies after we make them big. Had I of known in S1 that this game was going to be this big and still not provide a decent service I probably wouldn't have been so supportive and just went to a different game.

MtDewWarrior10/20/2014, 3:43:53 PM3 votes

I love the attention this is getting, 186 votes in favor of this being a serious problem out of 213. That is quite a damning statement.

Zarxis10/20/2014, 6:49:34 PM3 votes

Bumping for justice. Riot has had what, four years to deal with this issue? They're obviously aware of it. This is inexcusable.

Cruxious10/19/2014, 11:54:29 PM2 votes

I as a East coaster think it is a big concern, however looking at what Riot has done(nothing) I voted no in Riots standpoint because we will be lucky if we see ping improvements by season 9 let alone 5.

NeroUS10/20/2014, 3:25:40 PM2 votes

Let's get another 1000 pages.

CommanderSheperd10/19/2014, 10:02:03 PM2 votes

While I'm not dismissing the validity of your concern, I would just like to add that I live on the West Coast and routinely experience ping of around 110-210.

Ðoubleamp11/29/2014, 2:42:25 AM1 votes

bump

Sparkfun10/21/2014, 7:26:17 PM1 votes

Welcome to the league of Draven LIES brought to you by rito an oregon company

Long Dong Wukong10/24/2014, 2:38:18 PM1 votes

El Bumpo even though it doesn't really work on these new shit boards

Hetchy11/26/2014, 5:00:18 PM1 votes

Quasi-bump.

Mahnigguh11/26/2014, 5:02:02 PM1 votes

i have played fro years and never noticed the "east coast " thing

DaejinTye10/19/2014, 1:17:38 PM1 votes

Riot doesn't have it as a priority. Period.

That being said, I dunno what you think it's like playing on the west coast, but the advantage isn't as big as you guys make it out to be...

When I'm lagging, I can dodge skillshots all damn day. However, when the ping is a solid 44 and there is no delay... I will see the game play as if it was beta... Skillshots snapping to enemies a good 2-3 inches away, going through some targets not showing up until AFTER being hit, etc.

Playing on the west coast with no lagg is a disadvantage in itself (not as bad as east coast, but still a disadvantage) since my ability to read and react is 100% negated by the fact I don't see what is actually happening.

It's more about how the game is coded right now... Which is why I would like a multi-server platform that can localize the lagg for all players and put us on an even playing field. I can handle small delays, but having clearly missed skillshots hit more often than not is too much.