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While gaming online, you might hear "why didn't my shot go through?" or "That blow should have finished it." Someone else might reply, "Maybe check your ping?" That means they might have experienced a delay that prevented their big, clever play from happening. Essentially, their quick reflexes were just a few milliseconds off. In some cases, where no other network destabilization/human errors have happened, the natural network delay is at fault.

As such, numerically, the ping can either prove or disprove it. In this context, ping refers to the round-trip delay in communication between your location and the game server. Every input has a delay; whether you notice it depends on distance. That's why gaming routers that promise lower ping are often a hoax. Even if a gaming router improves your local connection, it cannot change where you are relative to a game's virtual servers.…