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I recently transferred to the oceanic servers and my ping hovered around 20-30.This was great but i noticed that when it got to something like 160 i would start to lag quite heavily.

How come i am more laggy at 150+ ping in Oceanic servers than i am at 220 ping in North American servers?

p.s I live in Australia

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    Ping isn't the only thing that affects connection quality. Packet loss is another big one. If you have high packet loss, things will look laggy even with a very good ping. That being said, I don't think there's any definitive way for us to answer your question for you, since we're not there to troubleshoot your connection.
    – Invader Skoodge
    Jul 2, 2013 at 0:19
  • Without knowing the server infrastructure I imagine there are more US servers with a better connection to them, and as Strix mentioned ping is just the time it takes for a packet to get to a server, the boxes could be slower, there could be less servers, or you could be going over a worse connection to get there.
    – Brian
    Jul 2, 2013 at 0:23
  • ok that makes sense
    – sight ward
    Jul 2, 2013 at 1:11
  • You can always ask support for help diagnosing your connection. They might be able to give a definitive answer.
    – Sadly Not
    Aug 14, 2013 at 4:26

1 Answer 1

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In a nutshell: There's more to lag than just your ping time.

Imagine that as you play LoL, every time you move, a helpful gnome scribbles something on a piece of paper and stuffs it in a manila envelope. The gnome gives the packet to a courier, who hops on a train bound for the Central Server to deliver your command.

There are two routes the courier can take. One of these routes uses an old steam locomotive. It's not very fast (taking a few days to arrive), but the tracks are pretty well maintained. It never breaks down or shows up late.

The other mode of travel is a sleek, modern maglev bullet train. It travels at 400 kph! That's fast for a train. Unfortunately, every second or third train is attacked by zombies, which derail it and eat the poor courier's brains. Also, sometimes the trains explode for no reason at all. Sadly, this is your courier's fate.

A few days later, the Central Server realizes that no couriers have shown up recently and sends a message back to you asking why you haven't sent any updates for the last week. Your helper gnome sighs dejectedly, makes another copy of your command, dispatches another courier, and hopes this packet makes it to the Central Server intact. Despite the fact that one route may be faster than another, packet loss means you can still experience overall lag.

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    imformative and entertaining.Take my upvotes! take it now!
    – sight ward
    Jul 2, 2013 at 1:11
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    +1 for the zombie reference. We all know the apocalypse is coming, it's just a matter of when.
    – Ender
    Jul 2, 2013 at 1:34
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    I think every single answer on the site should be re-written to include gnomes and exploding trains.
    – Alex
    Jul 2, 2013 at 9:09

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