What Does The Option Use Movement Prediction Do?

League of Legends is a game you can play with friends that are literally spread across the globe. You could be sitting in India and have team members spreading from Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan and play against a team with players sitting in different countries of the European Union.

A stable internet connection is, of course, a must for this to happen. However, the fact of the matter is that not everyone in the world has the same quality internet services available. 

Some of your friends might have a latency of 60 ms or less ping. Some might even have 20 ms or less. But at the same time, some teammates, as well as enemy team members, may have over 100 ms, possibly more than 200 ms. How do the servers at League of Legends ensure smooth, uninterrupted gameplay when the internet connection available for all players in the match may have vastly different speeds resulting in varying latency rates?

Enter the concept of client-side prediction.

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What is Client-Side prediction?

It is a technique whereby the effects of high latency connections are concealed by making the client of the game more responsive to the player’s commands in-game while the server takes its time to calibrate itself accordingly.

In plain English, when there’s a chance you might lag a bit in the game because the internet connection with the server is not performing optimally or that there are hardware issues or for any other reason, the client of League of Legends will ensure you feel the least amount of latency by making your champion do what you intend to do before the server kicks in and ensures the action is taken in real game time. 

Sounds easy enough, right?

What is the Movement Prediction Option in League of Legends?

This option in League of Legends basically adopts the client-side prediction technique explained above. When you are experiencing high latency, chances are your teammates and players on the opposing team have lower latency as compared with you. In other words, the League client and the League servers are not 100% in sync with each other. To ensure smooth gameplay, the Movement Prediction option trades moment-to-moment accuracy for responsiveness in League of Legends.

This way, players experience more or less the same level of responsiveness while playing the game, regardless of differing latency levels. To sum it up, the Movement Prediction option is more of a display option than anything else. It makes sure the game display seems responsive, even though you might slightly lose accuracy.

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When is Use Movement Prediction Option Useful?

If your latency is low i.e. below 60 ms or even 80 ms, you can probably do without this option. Low latency means there is almost no discrepancy between the desktop client and the server of League of Legends. On the other hand, if you have high latency, say over 100 ms, chances are the desktop client, and the League server are not in sync. If it wasn’t for the Movement Prediction option, you might be out of ‘sync’ with players playing the game at lower latency levels. In such a scenario, turning this option can prove to be useful.

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When is Movement Prediction Option not Useful?

There are two scenarios where this option is not the most optimum to use. One of them is obviously when the latency rate is high. The other scenario is when you play the game at the skill level of someone like Faker. At that level, you can’t tolerate minor inaccuracies that result from using the Movement Prediction Option. As mentioned earlier, you trade in your moment-to-moment accuracy for responsiveness using the Movement Prediction option.

But when the stakes are high, and the game is fast-paced, losing a moment-to-moment accuracy can prove to be deadly. The Movement Prediction option in that scenario will cause more harm than good.

Verdict

You can use the Movement Prediction option if you feel the effects of high latency rates. This option will conceal those effects but will not address the root causes of those effects. It’s also not a good idea to use this option if you are Faker.