A Guide About Ping!
A Guide About Ping!
After looking over some of my farming experiences and guides, I noticed one important factor to a successful farming run was missing. This factor was the conntection to the server and the amount of lag caused by it. In Pocket Legends, there is a little counter at the bottom left of the screen that shows you something called Ping with a number and a color.
This guide will explain what Ping is, what it represents, how to get a lower and better Ping, and how it ultimately affects your farming runs.
What is Ping?
Ping is a term to define a computer network administration utility that is used to figure out the reachability of a host network by its IP, and to figure the time it takes for information sent by the host network to a destination which is in this case, your iPod/iPad/iPhone/Android, etc.
To reword this, it is basically a number of the average time it takes for a command to be sent from your device to the Spacetime Studios' server and back; the round-trip.
What is Ping measured by?
Ping is counted using ms, which stands for milliseconds.
For a file transfer, milliseconds is the average speed.
A millisecond is the equivalent of 1/1000 of a second.
You will see ping with milliseconds after it such as this example:
45ms
So what does Ping have to do with Pocket Legends?
Whenever you press a command such as Blast Shot or press Open Stash, a command is sent to the Pocket Legends Server and then is sent back. Ping measures this and is recorded at the bottom left of your screen.
When your connection via Internet(Modem and Router) becomes slow, the ping number at the bottom of the screen will increase. As the connection steadies, the ping will decrease. The lower ping you have, the better connection you will maintain.
Also at the bottom of your screen, you will notice a color next to the ping number.
This colored circle will either be green, yellow, or red.
If you don't notice one, that means you have gotten a lag spike and you can disconnect any minute. Which...is very bad. Green means you have a fast and steady connection and ranges from 0 to about 300 ping.
Yellow is moderate and ranges from 300 to about 600-700ish ping.
Red means you are on the verge of lagging bad, and will be 700-2000ish ping.
After that, you will have no colored circle and you will experience insane lag spikes.
Why do lag spikes happen and Ping increase? How do I avoid this?
Ping is always changing and should maintain a constant or similar rate if you have a good connection. Sometimes it will get to be in the thousands, but will return to being steady if there is just a simple lag spike. If you do get disconnected, it is probably because your network got lost or turned off. A way to fix this is to go and restart your modem/router.
While it is impossible to always avoid lag spikes, you can see why Ping can be affected.
-Multiple users on your network will make Ping rise.
-Any storms will make your connection slower.
-You could have other programs/apps running in the background, which may slow down your gameplay.
To test your current ping, get a laptop/PC and go to Ping Test.net and find your ping. Be sure to find the nearest network host to where Spacetime Studios is.
So, why does this little guide matter to me? Why don't I just let ping do what it wants, and just play with it?
And finally, tell me the point of this guide: How does ping affect my farming runs?
Well, you can always go and suffer from ping, there's nothing you can actually do to affect ping massively unless you can change Internet Service Providers or get a faster connection. However it WOULD be good to know what the little number at the bottom left of your screen does. That's a good reason, right?
But to the main point of the guide, at last. How DOES ping affect my gameplay?
Honestly, in my opinion, there IS NO gameplay without a good ping. If you are disconnecting every few minutes, go find a better connection if possible; it's probably not worth the hassle! In farming, you want to be efficient and punctual. You want to do fast runs! To do this, you need to be able to move fast and have your skills hit fast! Bad ping will pause you or make you lag for some seconds. These seconds WILL build up in the large run. Another factor is when you solo a boss. A simple two second lag spike from bad ping could get you killed at Magnetic Golem or Gurgox! ALWAYS make sure your ping is low and steady before challenging a boss, ESPECIALLY if you are soloing! A good ping for farming is around yellow or green colored.
Ping doesn't just affect farming, it has many effects on PvPing and grinding EXP!
A friend once said, "In PvP, every second counts towards the outcome of a match." These are wise words that I respect. Treasure every second, because it matters a lot.
In conclusion, whether ping seems a lot to you or a little to you, the end of your farming runs will have a factor or ping tucked deeply inside.
I hope this guide helps you better understand what Ping is; a complex utility, not the sound a ping-pong ball makes.
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Originally Posted by Darkven
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