Riot Games Explains Artificial Ping System Issues at League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational
Riot Games has revealed in detail how the artificial ping system at this year’s League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational works. In a recent tech-focused blog post, Riot acknowledged that the system did not function as intended during the first three days of the tournament.
Due to pandemic-related travel constraints, the Chinese representative team, Royal Never Give Up (RNG), is participating remotely in the tournament. To ensure a level playing field, Riot implemented a software called the “latency service tool.” This tool aims to place all players at the tournament with a ping of approximately 35 milliseconds, regardless of their location.
However, on May 13, Riot discovered a discrepancy in latency between the players in China and those in Busan, South Korea, where the tournament is being held. Players in China had a 35 ms ping, while the players in Busan experienced higher latency. This issue was caused by a code bug that miscalculated the latency, resulting in incorrect values in the logs, making it difficult to detect the problem earlier.
Artificial Ping Implementation and Challenges
Prior to the event, Riot explored different scenarios for managing latency, including allowing each team to play with their natural latency or placing the tournament servers directly between China and Korea. Eventually, they decided to introduce artificial ping, with a maximum latency of 40 milliseconds.
After the first day of games, players reported that their in-game latency felt higher than 35 milliseconds. Riot’s esports tech team investigated the issue, conducting experiments and analyzing their logs to understand the problem. They found that the latency service tool successfully provided a stable 35 milliseconds environment for players in China, but players in Busan experienced latency between approximately 50 and 55 milliseconds.
RNG’s Games Replay and Apology
As a result of this discovery, Riot made the decision to replay RNG’s first three games of the tournament. RNG expressed their concerns over the tournament’s management, the timing of Riot’s decision, and what they perceived as unfair treatment. Despite the replay, RNG finished the group stage of MSI with an undefeated record.
In their blog post, Riot’s tech team apologized for the disruption and frustration caused during the tournament, emphasizing their commitment to ensuring a level playing field for all teams. They are running further tests to ensure the remaining stages of MSI run smoothly.
MSI will continue on Friday, May 20, with the rumble stage.
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