- Mexican players will have to play on a different LAN build that will come with latency issues
- This will make the game’s “peeker’s advantage” even more strongly expressed
- The Mexican players are not happy about this decision
Competitive integrity comes under question as teams playing at the R6 Major Charlotte from Mexico City will have to play with some serious connection issues.
Players from Mexico Will Play with a Large Latency
The Rainbow Six: Siege Major in Charlotte, USA, is the first international R6 event to have a live audience. However, several qualified Mexican teams, namely w7m, Team oNe, and FURIA, will not be able to travel to the States due to visa issues. They would instead be competing from the Ubisoft Broadcast Studio in Mexico City.
However, Ubisoft recently reverted its decision to allow the three teams to connect to the South Central U.S. online servers. “All games from this point forward, regardless of where the teams are located, are going to be played on the LAN build,” said caster Blu in a Twitch broadcast explaining the problem. “The decision was made in the interest of competitive integrity.”
This is a big problem for the three teams as now they will have to play on a build that will give them approximately 80 milliseconds of latency. For comparison, the participants in Charlotte will keep their connections with values close to one millisecond of latency. This means that they will have virtually no latency issues, while their counterparts from Mexico will have a serious disadvantage.
The Latency Will Exacerbate the Peeker’s Advantage Problem
Ubisoft’s previous decision involved the Charlotte competitors playing on the online servers, essentially negating any unfair advantage they might have, as they would have had roughly the same latency as the Mexican teams.
However, problems arise when there is a high latency disparity between two sides, namely in the so-called “peeker’s advantage”. This is a technical phenomenon that essentially manifests in a player going around a corner (a.k.a. the “peeker”) and seeing the enemy before the enemy sees him. In other words, the enemy is “drawn” on the screen of the peeker faster, than he is on the screen of the enemy.
This problem is caused by multiple factors, including game server, frame rate, ping, and movement input, and is present in many other shooters. However, the peeker’s advantage manifests its effects particularly strongly in Rainbow Six: Siege due to the game’s tight corners and the need to peek from them very often. The phenomenon can give just a few dozen milliseconds of advantage to the peeker, but very often that’s enough to land a headshot.
Naturally, Mexican players are not happy with Ubisoft’s latest decision. Gustavo “Herdsz” Herdina from w7m said in a Brazilian broadcast that the conditions of games at the international championship are unacceptable for the Mexican teams.
The Six Major Charlotte’s first closed to the public stage is being currently played. The event’s Grand Final will be held on May 22, where the champion will earn $200,000 and 375 qualifying points for the 2023 Six Invitational. You can learn more information about participating teams, schedules, and broadcasting at the event’s official page.
