Traceroute doesn't use ping requests except with the old Windows binary. Usually it uses "Time-to-live (TTL) exceeded in transit" messages.
Beyond that technicality, your guess is often right... Routers will frequently prioritize forwarding packets over sending the TTL exceeded packets tools like MTR use to measure response times.
Beyond that technicality, your guess is often right... Routers will frequently prioritize forwarding packets over sending the TTL exceeded packets tools like MTR use to measure response times.