Over the weekend, we saw the impact of the ping advantage, contributing to the numerous marine wins. Forcing marine rounds to have the advantage in intercontinental play is the wrong approach and needs to be discussed. In my opinion, playing with over 150 latency is unplayable as you begin warping through enemy players, attacks do not register, and you can be killed before the other player is visible on your screen.

The best solution I have come up with is to play the match on the server providing the lowest average ping difference. This avoids playing rounds on two different servers (decreasing the time required for matches to be played as well), and preventing one team from having a larger advantage than the other.

Ex.
A team comprised of mostly US West players is scheduled to play against a European team, mostly located in Germany. Under the current ruleset, the first round would be played on a US East server resulting in ~80-100 pings for the US team and ~130 for the German team, an average difference of 40. The second round would be played on a UK server with ~40-60 pings for the German team and ~180-200 for the US West team, a difference of 140. Clearly there is an imbalance here.

With my solution, both rounds would be played on the US East server since the ping difference is lowest. I believe this would result in the most even gameplay.

Discuss.

I don't doubt that ping can be a large factor in the outcome of intercontinental matches, but I don't think it had a big influence on the outcome of the Invitational tourny (see here: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2088082/#Comment_2088082)

That being said, I feel trying for a 'minimum total ping' situation is the desired ideal. However, achieving that in practice can be a very difficult issue and be extremely disruptive and delaying if it requires multiple server switches. It's also not as simple a problem of just picking the server in the correct country or region because
- Teams are frequently international or interregional, such that a server switch that decreases the ping for some players may increase it for other players on the same team
- Ping is also a functional of the type of connection (e.g. servers hosted on residential connections typically give a higher ping than ones in a datacenter/commercial connection in the same location)
- We typically only have access to servers in a limited number of locations (e.g. US-Central/Chicago, US-East/Virginia, London, Frankfurt, etc)

At best, the only thing I think we can do is to make a ping-threshold rule that worked something like this:
- If one team has 4 or more players with a >100ms ping, they can request a server change
- That server change is only valid if it does not lead to the other teams having 4 or more players with a >100ms ping
- Only two such server changes can be requested to prevent excessive delays from server shopping

Cross-continental play is quite a big issue. If you've heard of HoN or Dota, it's actually a regular unsolved issue.

We have discussed it quite a big before season 1. The outcome is that we will try to hold contests with the minimum amount of cross-continental play possible. This is one of the reasons why the L in NSL can be interpreted as "Leagues" (plural).

It's a good thing to talk about it now that the first problems have been encountered. If I remember correctly, the whole "Marines play at home" comes from the serious imbalanced state the game has been in favour of Aliens for a few months up until recently. Now that this *may* have been fixed, it is possible another implementation will be chosen so as to minimize the advantage of randoming the better side (and I agree, by default Aliens should get the lower ping)

What i saw to play as aliens was a real pain in the A*S, the rubberbanding,dying behind a wall was quite frustrating. Thank god i didnt have to play as a lerk!

But the tournament was a real success imho, even with the ping it was still playable from both sides?

ScardyBob

I don't doubt that ping can be a large factor in the outcome of intercontinental matches, but I don't think it had a big influence on the outcome of the Invitational tourny (see here: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2088082/#Comment_2088082)

That being said, I feel trying for a 'minimum total ping' situation is the desired ideal. However, achieving that in practice can be a very difficult issue and be extremely disruptive and delaying if it requires multiple server switches. It's also not as simple a problem of just picking the server in the correct country or region because
- Teams are frequently international or interregional, such that a server switch that decreases the ping for some players may increase it for other players on the same team
- Ping is also a functional of the type of connection (e.g. servers hosted on residential connections typically give a higher ping than ones in a datacenter/commercial connection in the same location)
- We typically only have access to servers in a limited number of locations (e.g. US-Central/Chicago, US-East/Virginia, London, Frankfurt, etc)

At best, the only thing I think we can do is to make a ping-threshold rule that worked something like this:
- If one team has 4 or more players with a >100ms ping, they can request a server change
- That server change is only valid if it does not lead to the other teams having 4 or more players with a >100ms ping
- Only two such server changes can be requested to prevent excessive delays from server shopping

Determination of best server location can be determined days, even weeks in advance.

This ping-threshold rule may be viable for transcontinental play, but in intercontinental play one team will nearly always have >100ms latency. This is the case that I am trying to find a solution for.

This thread has been linked from my crosspost on the NS2 forums.

The fairest way to do cross-continental play is as follows:

(1) Teams play either two maps or four maps.
(2) Each team picks one or two home maps, depending on the format chosen in (1).
(3) Teams play their home map on their home server. Every effort should be made to pick each server so as to minimize the ping difference, however.
(4) If the teams are tied after the selected maps have been played, a tie breaker round should be played, with the winner of a cointoss deciding EITHER the server OR the map and side. The loser of the cointoss decides the remaining option.

I made rules in NS1 ENSL regarding using the most optimal ping calculation. Basically the idea is relative ping difference.

Each team picks a server. But consider that if team B has on its server like 5ms ping and the opponent has 100ms ping the situation is much better if its 105ms vs 200ms even though the difference is same.

So what you calculate is how high pings does team A have on team B's server. After all, what team B has on its server is their own problem, they have every incentive to have lowest ping.

Thus to make a fair rule, the difference between team A's ping on team B's server relative to team B's ping on team A server is what counts. If team A has 100ms on team B's server and team B has 110ms on team A's server, you should play on both server but if its 100ms vs 200ms then both rounds should be played on the first server. Admins need to decide the threshold, maybe something like 50ms is fine.

I think this was roundabout what I came up with ages ago.

But best idea is to avoid most intercontinental FPS play.

jiriki

Thus to make a fair rule, the difference between team A's ping on team B's server relative to team B's ping on team A server is what counts. If team A has 100ms on team B's server and team B has 110ms on team A's server, you should play on both server but if its 100ms vs 200ms then both rounds should be played on the first server. Admins need to decide the threshold, maybe something like 50ms is fine.

From a pure maths perspective, this might be the most fair solution, but in a competition it really isn't. Any solution that gives team A an advantage in every round is not fair or acceptable in competitive gaming, period.

jiriki

But best idea is to avoid most intercontinental FPS play.

Yup.