hello pcnoobsdc
ill try to explain this using a road analogy, so here goes
ping is the time it takes from you send a request to a server untill you get a reply back.
the packets have to travel from you, reach the server, the server issues a reply, which in turn has to get to you
so, the lower the ping the faster the server reply comes back. lower is better
how long ping time you got will depend on a few factors:
1. where in the world the server is placed.
light in fibers can only travel so fast, so if it is a server half way across the globe things will take the time it takes.
you cannot make it go faster. (unless you can beat the laws of physics, in which case you will be filthy rich ;))
compare it to roads. if you have to drive 10000km and the maximum speed your car can go is 200000km/s (normal speed of light in a fiber give or take some), it will take 50ms to get to the other end, and then 50ms back again. in other words a ping time of 100ms. this is quite a normal ping time when going across continents
2. if any part of the network is congested with other traffic things might be slow
if you are driving on a road in rush hour all the other traffic is slowing things down. typically happens when people come home from work and start surfing 
3. if the server at the other end is very busy.
if the server is busy it might downprioritize ping traffic. this doesnt mean it is slow, it just is prioritizing the important stuff instead of answering to ping requests
4. how your internet provider route traffic.
internet providers exchange traffic with other internet providers and also with third party companies which owns fibers between eg: usa and japan, usa and europe and so forth
say you live in a bay and want to play with your friend who live across the bay. you can see his house.
still you have to drive a long way round to visit him/her. the same thing can happen on the internet.
your isp sends traffic back to the main office in another city. from there it goes on a road to yet another city further away before it heads back to the other side of the bay.
this is also hard to do anything with. it is just how the road structure for your isp is laid out
to troubleshoot problems i would use a tool called traceroute
what this does is check what "cities" your traffic passes by and if there is any are which is congested/busy
here is a typical traceroute done from the pc. it shows where traffic goes from my computer to a game server in dublin
C:\Users\Bruker>tracert 159.153.83.15
Tracing route to 159.153.83.15 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms 10.0.0.138
2 26 ms 25 ms 25 ms ti0028a400-gw.ti.telenor.net [88.91.166.1]
3 49 ms 49 ms 49 ms ti0029c400-ae2-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.101.253]
4 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms ti0050c400-ae0-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.100.173]
5 49 ms 48 ms 49 ms ti0024c400-ae4-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.30]
6 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms ti0005c400-ae7-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.130]
7 50 ms 49 ms 50 ms ti0001c360-ae77-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.197]
8 48 ms 48 ms 48 ms ti0300b400-ae1-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.105.50]
9 * 49 ms 48 ms 62.140.27.9
10 92 ms 92 ms 92 ms ae-1-8.bar1.Dublin1.Level3.net [4.69.153.230]
11 92 ms 92 ms 92 ms ae-1-8.bar1.Dublin1.Level3.net [4.69.153.230]
12 93 ms 94 ms 93 ms 213.242.106.234
13 93 ms 92 ms 93 ms 159.153.72.18
14 92 ms 92 ms 93 ms 159.153.83.15
Trace complete.
number 1 is my home router. if i use wifi and it is congested by neighbors or severe useage from others in my household this number will be high. anything below 5ms is acceptable. if you have a high number here and use wifi you might want to switch to cabled network instead
number 2 is my isp's local equipment response time. this is usually placed in an area near you.
if this has a high number it might mean that there is alot of other traffic from other customers that is connected to the same equipment or it means that it is busy and doesnt bother with replying to your request.
in my case i know there are a lot of other customers on the same equipment so the delay is not unexpected. normally on adsl i would expect around an 8 to 16ms delay due to an error correcting going on in the adsl system called interleaving.
sometimes isps offer something called fastpath where they turn off interleaving. it might lower your ping but at other costs like many errors on the transmissions. this can be even worse than the added delay because packets get lost. that is a big no no in gaming
number 3 is the first node in the main office of my isp. it is 1600km away and 25ms time to get from where i am to there and back is around that time
number 4 to 8 are internal nodes in my isps network. they are transfering traffic to the peer they exchange traffic abroad with
number 9 is the first node in the peering companys network. this company is called level3.
number 10 and 11 is the peering companys exit node in dublin. now if you think a straight line from oslo to dublin you would expect a delay for 1200km, so around 20ms.
then why is it 40ms?
its the bay problem again. traffic doesnt go in a straight line. the fiber might run through sweden, denmark, germany, holland, england, ireland. so 40ms extra time it is
number 12 is the first node in the network of the isp that provide the game server with internet access
number 13 and 14 are the game server companys own equipment
now, let me show an example of problems you can see
1 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms 10.0.0.138
2 200 ms 200 ms 200 ms ti0028a400-gw.ti.telenor.net [88.91.166.1]
3 49 ms 49 ms 49 ms ti0029c400-ae2-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.101.253]
4 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms ti0050c400-ae0-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.100.173]
here number 2 has a high value, but number 3 has a lower value. this usually indicates that number 2 is busy and dont prioritize your ping requests and instead does what it is supposed to do. pass on traffic with minimum delay.
you can see that it does its job because the next hops has a lower value
1 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms 10.0.0.138
2 26 ms 25 ms 25 ms ti0028a400-gw.ti.telenor.net [88.91.166.1]
3 49 ms 49 ms 49 ms ti0029c400-ae2-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.101.253]
4 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms ti0050c400-ae0-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.100.173]
5 49 ms 48 ms 49 ms ti0024c400-ae4-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.30]
6 248 ms 249 ms 248 ms ti0005c400-ae7-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.130]
7 250 ms 249 ms 250 ms ti0001c360-ae77-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.98.197]
8 248 ms 248 ms 248 ms ti0300b400-ae1-0.ti.telenor.net [146.172.105.50]
here you can see that number 6 adds a 200ms delay. this is caused at this exact point because the delays after it are also 200ms higher
this means there is a serious traffic jam at that point.
i would show the traceroute to the isp and complain that it destroys your gaming experience
another one is packetloss where some packets are lost at one point on the road.
to measure this you would need to monitor ping over time. a good tool for that is eg: pingplotter.com
it will give a graphical overview of loss percentage and pingtimes over a given period of time
now, the biggest problem isnt all this. it is if other people use your internet line at the same time you are playing games
if your bro is watching netflix he might be killing the capacity of your internet line, especially if you have adsl
if he is torrenting.. even worse
if you are using wifi and others (neighbors or household members) are also using it
these are also things you can do something about
try other wifi channels to minimize interference. when one person on the wifi is talking others must be silent.
and this goes if your neighbor uses the same channel as your wifi. if the neighbor talks you have to wait
use a cable to remove this problem
about torrenting and netflixing. something can be done about it, but unless you are the boss in the household you might have problems with stopping them doing it
best of luck to you
tfn