Upon logging into League Of Legends today, you may notice that your ping is a lot higher or lower than usual. That's because Riot Games has moved the game's North American servers to Chicago.
Throughout Tuesday, Riot transitioned the the game from its previous home in Portland. The hope was that housing the game's servers in a more central location would even out players' latency across the continent. Traditionally West Coast players have enjoyed far lower pings than players in the East.
Thanks to the server move, East Coast players should now see a much lower ping. West Coast players, meanwhile, will see an upward bump. Here are Riot's estimates for the impact:
- Moderate latency increases (up to ~45 ms) in the Pacific Northwest and outlying regions (Hawaii, other Pacific Islands, Japan, etc)
- Minor latency increases (up to ~30 ms) across the rest of the west coast of North America.
- Generally neutral effects across a broad strip of the Mountain States and Saskatchewan
- Moderate to major latency reductions (up to ~50 ms for much of the East Coast) across the entire eastern half of North America
Here in New York, their estimate was pretty dead-on for me. I normally have pings around 90 but now I'm at around 40. I'm not gonna start busting out Pentakills with Yasuo anytime soon but hey, I'll take it.
Riot says that West Coast players shouldn't be hurt too much by the higher ping. They say that they've made some strides in terms of stability and packet loss. They've been establishing peering agreements with ISPs across the United States and Canada in recent months to improve all players' performance.
If your latency is seriously suffering from the move to Chicago, Riot says you should use their network diagnostic tool to help them collect data. You can also stop by the Chicago Connection Clinic Megathread to give feedback. They have several employees monitoring the thread to find out what ISPs or hardware are having problems. Right now, they're investigating the following ISPs:
- Verizon
- Shaw
- Suddenlink
- CableOne
- Telus
- Windstream
To stress-test the new servers, Riot is hosting another Bonus IP Weekend. From August 28th to August 30th, they're going to let players earn extra IP by forming premade groups and playing PvP matches. The exact bonus varies based on how big your group is. You'll get 100% bonus IP if you team up with one player and 50% more for each additional group member. These bonuses will be doled out whether you win or lose.
Certain North American players have been using other region's servers for better latency. For example, players in Florida would often use the Latin America North servers because they were housed in Miami. Riot is now sending out emails to those players offering free transfers to the North American server.
