Riot is creating a dedicated network for League of Legends

The first step in a plan to battle lag in League of Legends matches is underway.

Even the highest speed internet connections can introduce unacceptable latency into League of Legends matches. The reason is simple: They’re just not designed for online gaming. 

So League’s developer, Riot Games, is addressing that problem by working with internet service providers to create a direct network between League players and the servers that support online play.

Riot brand strategist Charlie Hauser announced that work on a dedicated network has begun in a post on the League of Legends forums on Jan. 5. Problems with latency for East Coast League players is particularly bad right now. There’s even an “Official East Coast Server Frustration” post on r/leagueoflgends, and Hauser makes reference to those specific problems in his update.

“Currently, ISPs focus primarily on moving large volumes of data in seconds or minutes, which is good for buffered applications like YouTube or Netflix but not so good for real-time games, which need to move very small amounts of data in milliseconds. On top of that, your internet connection might bounce all over the country instead of running directly to where it needs to go, which can impact your network quality and ping whether the game server is across the country or right down the street.”

In October, Riot acknowledged the question of unacceptable ping for North American League of Legends players, blaming the problems on antiquated infrastructure, bad traffic routing, and the physical location of servers. In another forum post, the company announced its intention to address all three issues, via plans for new servers and better connections to those servers. Hauser’s NA Server Roadmap update applies only to the question of bad traffic routing specifically, however, suggesting other changes are coming. 

Riot is asking League of Legends players to provide feedback on how the ongoing NA Server Roadmap plan is either improving match quality or making it worse. You can access the online survey form here.

H/T Venturebeat | Illustration courtesy of League of Legends