Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

lolesports.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 160 posts

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#121

Post by samatman »

axg11 wrote: post #24
jedberg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complex on one end to reduce complexity on the other -- the trading companies wouldn't have to worry about millisecond optimizations if they trading batches were 200ms windows. So the wire lengths wouldn't matter but also not mattering is the processor, memory, software, etc. for the trading companies. Seems like a good tradeoff. And honestly the wire thing probably isn't real. Light moves 30cm in a nanosecond.…

I used to work in HFT. I promise you that companies would still try to exploit randomized batches. There is an advantage to being the very last entrant into a batch (most up to date information). Truly random batches are not trivial to implement and any statistical pattern in the batching could be exploited.

A robust solution is, wait for it, proof of work.

Wait, come back, I'm serious! Finding an arbitrary hash of adjustable complexity is a scalable solution to batching transactions across multiple servers with a consistent throughput.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#122

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

squaresmile wrote: post #119
colinmhayes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> increasing the ping doesn't make it more fair for the other teams because they actually traveled to the event Can't agree. Those teams had an advantage when playing RNG. Taking away that advantage does actually make the event more fair for them, even though they are being disadvantaged.

RNG already have an advantage when they are allowed to play remotely from the comfort of their home. Yes it's not the team's fault they can't travel but it is what it is. There's another tournament in 6 months. There's a reason this Frankenstein ping is unheard of in bigger esports.

> RNG already have an advantage when they are allowed to play remotely from the comfort of their home

Can you provide any clear evidence that indicates this is an advantage?

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#123

Post by robocat »

someweirdperson wrote: post #51

Artificial or natural delays, I am somewhat confused that one end measuring/calculating ping can end up with a wrong value. Transmit at local time x, receive at local time y, subtract. It only needs a working local clock. Second surprising thing is artifical latency added on the client. Anything on the client I would avoid, if possible. Third, this all looks like magically connecting two ends. But it is packets flowi…

The article doesn’t seem to discuss transmit versus receive latency asymmetry, nor did I see it mention jitter (although I admit I skimmed article).

With two cities, a dedicated common connection with measurements for latency in both directions, and real-time tit-for-tat latency adjustment would be appropriate (if remote city A gets latency X, ensure local city B approximately gets latency X on next game tick)

Without that:

0. latency fluctuations could penalise the remote team even though average latency was kept consistent over longer periods,

1. local players could advantage themselves by injecting delays or jitter into remote players during critical periods of play (DoS like network traffic between local and remote cities),

2a. local players could get server updates 10s of milliseconds before remote players (if all latency adjustment added on transmit from player to server), or

2b. local players could get their events updated to the server 10s of milliseconds before remote players (if all latency adjustment added on transmit from server to player).

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#124

Post by jumpytrading »

dematz wrote: post #8

As context this was a big international fiasco. Nobody was acting maliciously but fans of RNG and other teams felt wronged. RNG didn't want to attend due to covid restrictions on travel but Riot really wants Chinese viewers in international tournaments, hence all this online latency work. Pros on other teams were lied to by the false latency information which must be almost paranoia inducing to be told it's only 35ms…

Source on RNG didn’t want to attend?

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#125

Post by Nition »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #10
Misdicorl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps apocryphal/silly, but amusing nonetheless. Story goes that this means you want to be in the computer furthest from the interconnect because light travels slightly faster in straight fiber than in coiled fiber.

Not apocryphal; IEX has 38 miles of wire in their building. Tom Scott did a video a few years ago about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8BcCLLX4N4

I think Misdicorl meant that their story of wanting to be the furthest away is perhaps untrue, not the cables.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#126

Post by zorgmonkey »

mleonhard wrote: post #117
spmurrayzzz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`tc` would give you non-deterministic microbursts that would be hard to quantify as to whether they impacted competitive integrity. This is an incredibly complex problem if they actually care about millisecond level precision in small duty cycles.

Are you saying that Linux's packet delay function is imprecise? Can you link to more information about this?

The problem is that you can't just add a fixed amount of latency to hit a goal of 35ms, you need some sort of algorithm that adaptively changes the amount of added latency to account for occasional spikes in network latency (this is a game that takes >30min so those spikes are guaranteed to happen over the course of a game)

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#127

Post by DantesKite »

bee_rider wrote: post #108
DantesKite wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the tournament would have been worse without them. What I'm saying is that does not somehow justify penalizing the other teams and the tournament writ large to "even" the playing field if you value competitive integrity. As the article states, increasing the ping doesn't make it more fair for the other teams because they actually traveled to the event. They're physically there. It only makes it more fair for RNG…

Fairness isn't a perk applied to a team, it is a property of the game. Unless "ability to travel during a pandemic" is considered a skill for this game, it should not be factored into the competition. So, if teams who can't travel to be game are going to be included, then the host must find a way to provide a fair game. This means that remote and local players should have the same latency.

> Fairness isn't a perk applied to a team, it is a property of the game.

Could you clarify what this means? I’m not entirely sure I understand what you mean. I think I just need a little more context.

> if teams who can't travel to be game are going to be included, then the host must find a way to provide a fair game.

I agree with the logic but disagree with the premise: teams who can’t travel to play the game shouldn’t be included in the tournament in the first place, because it places an undue burden on the other teams and lowers the quality of play.

> Unless "ability to travel during a pandemic" is considered a skill for this game

I don’t think it’s a skill; it’s a basic obligation individuals and teams must fulfill.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#128

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #11
gareth_untether wrote: post #2

Reminds me of the cable lengths for black boxes connected to the network in Wall Street. Each cable is the same length regardless of which computer is closer to the access point.

I never understood why they didn't use randomized length micro batches to solve this. Instead of processing orders instantly, wait between 200ms and 500ms and then process all orders that came in that window in random order. Then being 5ms closer to the server wouldn't matter.

[deleted]

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #88
w-m wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I get how that solves the issue: you would have set a fixed cutoff time, where you switch from one window/batch to the next. It doesn't matter when you arrive within the window. But statistically, even for random window lengths, if you have a smaller latency, you will make the cutoff for the earlier window more often.

But because of the random ordering within the windows, it won't matter. In most cases you wouldn't hit the cutoff.

[deleted]

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#130

Post by [deleted] »

foota wrote: post #78
w-m wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I get how that solves the issue: you would have set a fixed cutoff time, where you switch from one window/batch to the next. It doesn't matter when you arrive within the window. But statistically, even for random window lengths, if you have a smaller latency, you will make the cutoff for the earlier window more often.

If the window is as large as 500ms then anyone can hit that most of the time, provided they have a good enough clock and decent network.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN