Riot Games Engineering: LoL vs. real-time internet

Riot·Nov 5, 2015·0 votes·24,372 views

Riot’s engineering blog offers an inside look at some of the tech powering League of Legends and its systems. In this post (the first in a new series), tech director Peyton Maynard-Koran explores some of the challenges Riot faces in maintaining a real-time online game with the internet’s current architecture, which wasn’t exactly built with games like League in mind. In a world where buffering simply isn’t an option and data bounces haphazardly from city to city, how do we go about giving players the best possible experience?

Check out the post here: Fixing the Internet for Real Time Applications: Part 1

82 Comments

George W AmbushNov 10, 201531 votes

It sounds like you should have servers pretty local, then. Like one on the west coast and one on the east coast.

Kayana KoeNov 10, 20155 votes

This. Like we've been asking for since the dawn of time.

Muted SummonerNov 10, 20157 votes

I'll believe it when I see it. League is a business in which Tencent owns the majority of the shares in. League is already extremely popular and while spending money on more servers would give Multiple regions of NA a better connection the cost would need to be taken care of by increasing its amount of players so that those players do spend money to help the cost of the servers and/or the current players will need to spend more RP. That last bit just isn't happening.

This isn't a stab at Riot. Its a business and its goal is to make a much money as possible without spending more money than it needs to.

Adding in more servers may increase its player count but it wouldn't exponentially increase the rate in which players buy things. League already has a huge amount of players. People tend to want free shit.

Its true Tencent doesn't exactly control Riot but they can just as easily do so and will do if they can save money or if they begin to lose money.

League of Legends is a game you don't have to spend a dime on. All Riot can do is put out content so that players can help support the game and pay for it, for the players that don't want to or can't spend money on League of Legends.

I'm not saying Riot won't ever add more servers but honestly, I don't blame them for not adding them. The amount of players that play league that barely pay anything is a huge amount compared to those that do.

league needs to also imo add in more cheap and affordable skins. Being able to buy 1 color swap instead of huge bundle of 3 would be nice. To this day I haven't bought a chroma skin bundle because I normally only like 1 of the color swaps in each bundle. I refuse to pay for extra color swaps I don't want to get the one I do want.

I've already spent over $1800 on this game. Im starting to get to the point I need to refrain from making needless purchases for content I won't ever use. I bought Arcade Riven for some reason and can't recall if I have ever played as the champion ever, other than maybe 1 aram game.

Piikachu BotNov 11, 20152 votes

[deleted]

Muted SummonerNov 12, 20154 votes

{quoted}

its ok, shitty plat players like you will never be good, and for sure will never get better with that attitude. have fun getting placed in bronze again and it will take you up to over 1k games to barely make it to plat again LOL. have fun in elo hell cause you'll never be as good as us real plats+

Never been in Bronze.

I think the attitude problem is yours. Your just in plat, only 1 division higher than me also.

CrisconNov 12, 20153 votes

{quoted}

its ok, shitty plat players like you will never be good, and for sure will never get better with that attitude. have fun getting placed in bronze again and it will take you up to over 1k games to barely make it to plat again LOL. have fun in elo hell cause you'll never be as good as us real plats+

Damn dude why are you so mad. He never even insulted you.

DarkwindwalkerNov 10, 201511 votes

This would be dumb. Your queues would be really long (less players) and you wouldn't be able to play with people on the opposite coast. On top of that Riot would have to start paying for two installations which they wouldn't want to do just so you get 20 less ping.

DivineBladeNov 10, 20153 votes

well one server is definitly shit. i have no problem missing out on playing with the people on the other coast in order to get 20 ping. i mean who tf cares about people you dont know. only ping you use.

Lintu PuckNov 10, 201510 votes

some of us have friends spread around both coasts and would like to play together with both at the same time.

DivineBladeNov 10, 20154 votes

ok? so heres a bright idea. create several servers and allow the user to switch servers whenever you want. the only problem with that is transfering all of you data to the other server and it could take a while. riot is a large smart company this shouldve been a problem fixed a long time ago.

Lintu PuckNov 10, 201519 votes

I...think you over estimating how big and powerful Riot is and underestimate what you are asking for actually entails. -.-

George W AmbushNov 19, 20151 votes

I'd rather be able to react to a gank than play with people on the opposite coast. I think it would be cool to be able to play with some people from Europe as well, but I'd rather have a local server. Just my thoughts, though. Even playing field? > Playing with different people

DoISmellToastNov 12, 20151 votes

It seems your problem isn't just with Riot's servers...I live in PA and the ping here is perfectly fine (around 20-40) I suggest you buy better internet or disconnect some devices before jumping to conclusions and blaming Rito.

George W AmbushNov 19, 20152 votes

I get 25 MB/s Not Mb/s My internet is fine, I run an Ethernet cable into my modem in fact. My latency used to be around 28-34 now it's chilling around 75 Not the biggest issue in the world, but until fiber optic internet becomes standard the issues mentioned in this post will remain.

GrimspeakeNov 10, 20152 votes

i bet u live on the west coast.

SloogbooxNov 10, 20153 votes

I like it the way it is. For once the forgotten Midwest players can finally achieve 30 ping.

EsoteroticaNov 11, 20153 votes

Forgotten?

You have the server, you're the opposite of forgotten.

LimidNov 11, 20151 votes

easiest way to fix it rioto summoner 4

ßANKSYNov 11, 201510 votes

Hey Riot, just a friendly suggestion: maybe add a function on the client itself to check your ping before entering a match. I'd say just call it Ping Checker or something. I know that I've had terrible experiences with my bad ping that was unknown until I got into the loading screen, consequently making for giant disappointments and team losses. In my group I am notorious for bad ping because it always strikes at random for me item 3070 but I think it'd be awesome to be able to check it before entering a game so that I know it's safe for me to play.

Supa SqueeksNov 11, 20152 votes

How much has your ping been in the past few days? Mine has been up to 2537 with frequent disconnect/reconnect during game play. This feature would be EPIC

ßANKSYNov 11, 20151 votes

It hasn't just been recently and I think it could have to do with my internet provider, but it still is pretty random. It will even spike when I'm the only one using the internet at the time. My ping has been as high as 12k before and I'm not proud of it.

2LCbYOMFnYNov 11, 20151 votes

they are adding this on the new client im pretty sure

DoISmellToastNov 12, 20152 votes

For now, you could enter into a custom game by yourself and find out your ping that way. It might seem like a waste of time, but its worth it, so you don't end up disconnecting in a pvp game.

ßANKSYNov 13, 20152 votes

See I did think of that, but I was thinking about going past that and making it a little more time efficient.

DoISmellToastNov 13, 20152 votes

I have actually found another way that's reasonably accurate and takes little to no time (I often have this problem when trying to play league on a hotel's internet):

Create a custom game and press add bot.
If your internet/ping is bad there will be a message that says connecting to server while they add a bot to your game. Depending on how long that takes is usually an accurate test of how good your ping is.
If that doesn't work, you can enter the custom game champ select and click on a few champions and see how long it take to switch (lag in between selections etc.)

But how can you trust this theory? To test it out, I went to a nearby McDonalds (they usually have pretty crappy internet), and tried the above^^ It took a few seconds to add a bot (rather than instantly like on my home internet), and it also took a second or so for the champion to switch after I clicked on their portrait. I entered the custom game, and lo and behold there was over 500 ping...

VibeCheck FNov 10, 20155 votes

rito wth Call of Duty Black Opps III makes a tentacle map and now you make a tentacle champ you need to think of your own ideas

Dark ExpoNov 10, 201515 votes

Call Of Duty Black Ops III has tentacles. Oh no octopus has tentacles, CoD needs to think of your own ideas

Flames99FuseNov 10, 20157 votes

Damn those octopus copiers!

spool32Nov 10, 20154 votes

Or "Octopiers" as we call them in the biz.

ÇhrîsNov 10, 20155 votes

so COD just released with a Tentacle map and the first think you think is Rito saw it and produced all that in acouple days GTFO nothing COD does is original

CaptainAsia999Nov 10, 20153 votes

COD used to be original.

ZappyTheUnicornNov 10, 20153 votes

Not a problem Ekko

ChocoMooCowNov 11, 20153 votes

That explains why I play with canadians...

EZ4040Nov 10, 20152 votes

fourth

emanon dupitsNov 11, 20152 votes

Um... I know this is a long shot but why doesn't riot take over the internet, you know like wiring up all your customers and making lol have priority over all other traffic.

HKG BambinoNov 11, 20152 votes

I think that when you're playing ranked and there is an early dc and a quick reconnect, the game should start over.. Talking 1:45 in or something.

TomasuKushNov 11, 20152 votes

It's not a good business model to move your servers which gave us on the west coast a jump in lag that we weren't already experiencing, just so on the east coast players would have better bandwidth speeds. Make TWO servers! Quit being cheap skates, your the runner of possibly the biggest E-sports game, no more excuses, just get it done!

LoL SilentEchoNov 11, 20151 votes

Internet of things fun lol

Unintelligence Nov 11, 20151 votes

East and west coast servers would be nice

AzureBaronNov 11, 20151 votes

I know that this probably wouldn't happen, but Riot (Not to mention other big gaming companies like Blizzard) could fun Google Fibre's spread across the country. That way, people could get a much better internet connection, and data will also be sent and received faster than the cable/DSL connections that people currently have.

SwizzieTacticsNov 11, 20151 votes

Why do they have billions of dollars yet the server sucks? Riddle me that.

SocodemonNov 11, 20151 votes

So what about ping-biased matchmaking?

bongolo007Nov 11, 20151 votes

when I play league I always lag :( So please fix the internet please RIOT.

GrimYaelNov 11, 20151 votes

Riot should make this into a skin XD

xXHashiramaXxNov 11, 20151 votes

well verison/Fios is a good answer i guess xD

Prince KollinNov 11, 20151 votes

I was just cursing rito for all the mini dcs. It's like you read my mind .

7 ºC Nov 11, 20151 votes

Ashe

fatherofjesusGODNov 11, 20151 votes

This discussion isn't bout power struggle of who owns the most shares makes the decisions, this is about the network architecture design.

Save your political crap elsewhere.

Back on topic, if this is what they have currently available and all in the West Coast than they really need to expand. Can't complain though, planning something this big needs to have statistics to show improvement and floor space to expand in the future.

KSO CougarNov 14, 20151 votes

Seems to me the real problem here is that people complain about ping issues to Riot instead of their ISP, who can actually do something about it. If the ISPs had enough people complaining about their infrastructure they would be forced to change it to stay competitive in the market.