I've wondered whether this is the case as I am not entirely sure myself. I have been looking around but I haven't found a solid answer yet. Personally, I think it is cheating although I am not sure.
32 Answers
Latency wise, if you are connecting from EU to a US server then you can expect some lag although not a heck ton (varies from server to server). The players connecting to the same server from the US will have a minor edge although not a whole lot, to the contrary; If you were, for example, connecting to a US server from Australia you could expect some hefty latency (Most of the time).
It's not at all 'cheating' in any way as far as I know. If you'd prefer to avoid these latency issues just try connect to a server in the EU (If you are there; otherwise connect to a server in the same region).
yes, it DOES give you an advantage if you are playing out of your region. the reason behind this is lag compensation which the above responders did not account for.
because you are so far away from the server the game actually tries to account for that by slowing down the local players connection. ie: on my screen(USA) i turned a corner and fired 22 rounds into your character while you only fired 2 rounds(on my screen). the netcode, happening behind the scenes, takes the amount of time/your lag into consideration and gives you a slight boost so as to make it a "fair trade" firefight.
so even though i saw myself dump almost an entire clip into you and you only fired 2 rounds the outcome is that i died and MAYBE you died also. that was "kill trading" which was supposedly patched but now the win goes to the slower/out of region player.
there are many videos on youtube that go into greater detail on this subject.
a DICE developer also admitted that players with slower/further connections from the server DO in fact gain an advantage. source:
