Weird Ping Spike in VALORANT Causes Bizarre Gameplay
We’ve all had strange encounters while playing games online, but what recently happened in VALORANT takes the cake. One player experienced an otherworldly ping spike that completely scrambled the game.
During a Swiftplay game on Pearl, a player’s ping skyrocketed to 1,960 milliseconds (ms), just shy of 2,000. High ping is the nightmare of any multiplayer shooter player, and VALORANT is no exception.
If you’re unsure about what ping means, it is the time it takes for data or inputs to travel from your device to an online server and back. In VALORANT, it represents the duration for the game server to register your movements or actions and relay them back to you. Most players aim to have a ping between five and 50 milliseconds, which translates to a mere 0.05 seconds even at the higher end.
However, with a ping of 1,960, it took almost two seconds for this player’s inputs to reach the VALORANT game server and return. The abnormally high ping caused the game to struggle with registering their movements, resulting in the player spamming Jett’s movement abilities consecutively. It also led to the disappearance of enemy players in front of them, their surprising reveal by Fade’s Haunt ability even when out of range, and the failure of their Cloudburst smokes to deploy.
As bizarre as this incident was, it seems that it’s not the worst this player has encountered. According to their comment on the post, their ping was only around 2,000 milliseconds, but they recalled having experienced as high as 16,000 milliseconds. This means it took a staggering 16 seconds for information to travel between the server and their computer, making the aforementioned clip feel like playing on LAN in comparison.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, it’s important to reach out to Riot support or at least check your internet connection.
ping spike, VALORANT, online gaming, multiplayer shooter, high ping, gameplay issues