High Variance, regardless of latency is what causes the more frustrating wtf moments. Low ping with high variance has the same negative effect on the server as does high ping with high variance.
A 7ms player that constantly spikes to 45, 50, 60ms is no better than a 200ms player that spikes to 250-380ms. The instability of both connections are the problem and the causes of server wide wtf’s.
A player with 10Mbps fiber connection pulling a 7ms ping to the server, but also having 3 family members downloading videos, surfing the net, 5 phones pinging etc will result in more issues server-side than a 200ms player with low variance.
Couple these garbage connections with sporadic packet loss and everything goes to @#$%.
Higher variance will result in higher packet loss. Packet resends result in player warps (interpolating), bundle damage (1 hit kills), getting stuck on objects (false physics collisions) etc.
A perfect setup would be as stated previously (all players on the server):
- Latency: between 0 - 99.96ms
- Lat Variation: 0-0.5%
- Packet loss: 0-3%