Hello all,
I know the way Blizzard has been reporting on latency is a really old topic, but recently I’ve been hearing conflicting information from people on what the numbers mean. I did some of my own research and read some blue posts… But unfortunately it only made me more confused.
My understanding is “Home” Latency is a player’s connection to the server and that “World” latency is player’s connection to the game itself. With that logic, the only number that matters in terms of gameplay is World latency. It also means that the World latency is the total latency overall. However, I have also heard people say that Home latency affects different services like chat and whatnot while World affects gameplay (and therefor means all we care about is World Latency once again). In both cases, a populated city may raise the World latency.
Others have also said that Home latency is the player’s connection to the game, and that the World latency is essentially is the server communicating back to the player… Suggesting I have to add the 2 values to get my true latency.
So what do I do with these numbers? If I have 35ms Home Latency but 55ms World Latency, do I add them up to have a total of 90ms? Or is only the World latency the only number that matters because that latency to game actions itself whereas Home latency is just the connection to the server itself? (suggesting the 2 numbers aren’t technically directly related to eachother)
I imagine it would be the latter and my latency would be 55ms, because 90ms seems a little on the high end if I am on the proper server, at least when compared to other games (E.G. being on an Eastern server when you live on the East Coast).
Thanks in advance!
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None of the wow servers are located on the east coast. They are chicago and and the west coast. Home is the connection to your home server. World is the world server. No you do only not add them together the home connection has the least amount of data being sent. World has the most data being sent.
That’s interesting… I must be reading old news. Either way, I get a much better latency across the board on Nazjatar than I do Suramar (I have friends on each realm so I have toons on each realm). I imagine it is because Nazjatar is at the Chicago Data Center and Suramar is at the West Coast Data Center.
The rest of what you mentioned doesn’t really clear anything up… Sorry. What is the “World” server and what is the “Home” server in this case? Could you specify please?
So these 2 connections have little if not nothing to do with eachother, if I understand that correctly?
They are two separate connections going at the same time, and they each deal with different aspects of the game. Home sends/receives data about your chat, guild info, item tooltips, auction house. World sends/receives data about your spells, abilities, character/NPC movement, combat mechanics.
Both of the connections together make up WoW as you know it, and in terms of latency it is possible for one connect to be going to one data center and another to be going to a different data center. It is also possible to experience an issue with one connection and still remain connected to the other. This is why we sometimes see reports of players not being able to cast or see other players move but still being able to chat. Their home connection remains intact while their world connection has dropped or is lagging.
Nazjatar is a Central realm while Suramar is a Western realm, so you are correct there. If you are connecting from the Eastern part of the United States you would likely see lower latency on Central realms, due to decreased distance and better routing to that data center. However that is not always the case as routing can change or the router may become congested, as we have seen previously with some ISPs.
Hope that info helps!
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That is actually extremely helpful; I will share this with some friends who had the same questions. Thanks!
Hi Jambrix, so I noticed my world ping go down to 50ms and my home ping stayed around the usual 180ms. My world ping gradually increased back to the standard 180ms.
I live in Australia but I play on an american server. Based on what you said, my world connection may have routed to australia and slowly made it’s way back to america.
Is there any chance that I can ALWAYS have my world connection go through australia?
I don’t mind the chats and tooltips, but I would love the gameplay to stay around or below 100ms.
Please do not re open old threads.
If you are experiencing an issue, first check for any recently active threads describing your issue and if none exists create a new one.
As for getting 50ms while playing from Australia to a US servers The best connections would see around 160ms … This is a distance limitation not a connection limitation. Average connection is going to be around 180ms to 200ms. https://wondernetwork.com/pings/Los%20Angeles/Sydney
Those are ideal conditions with a direct connection.
Seeing the latency number for world drop to 50ms for a connection from Australia to the US is likely either a display issue or a product of instability in the connection confusing the metrics.
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