Please remove this “soft region locked”… and give us the ability to manually select regions again… It is already not ideal that some of us have to switch regions, live with higher pings, just to get decent games, now you guys remove it???
7 Likes
And the oposit is true, i rather have a high ping to enjoy the game.
In EU most game are silent. Not because no one talks, because most player don t even join voice chat.
It feels like playing a solo game.
I want to be able to choose NA, even if I get a 200ping.
4 Likes
I’m Not English, I barely speack English, but I understand it, and i can make simple call outs.
I used to play in NA like you.
Now i’m forced to play a solo game…
2 Likes
Please give us options !
Why make a change that takes away our option where to play ??
You guys desperately need tanks to fill (comp)matches, but tank is only fun with a team that understands you or speaks to you !! I play 90% tank on NA instead of EU because theres actual communication on there.
I instantly noticed something was off with the servers today having basically 0 communication on vc.
This literally increased queue time by losing another tank main with this horrible change.
Give us options, hidden away beneath 10 layers of clicking, I dont care, just let us choose I beg you!
Is there any place we can vote on this or leave our feedback ? Id sign a petition to give us our options back.
5 Likes
Hilarious how the only time blizzard actually adds “features” is when the feature is one 5 people asked for, and like 70% of people despise, and in addition, they REMOVE the only ways that some people get fun out of this game. I used to enjoy going over to EU servers with german friends, or having them coming over to US servers, and its kinda funny how many EU people Ive met over here, because surprisingly its LESS toxic in US servers.
Its funny how badly I want this company to go under, but its honestly gonna outlive all of us and boy does that make me sad.
7 Likes
At the risk of blizzard getting mad at me for this, I’m trying to help an EU friend (who is unavailable to be my guinea pig atm) get NA only games again. She’s currently stuck on ams1, but I’ve heard this process might work for other EU/etc. players who only want NA. It involves blocking the specific IP regions that blizzard uses, forcing you to (hopefully) only connect to the NA available servers.
I’m going to borrow someone elses guide for the most part, but make some small changes. Make sure you exit the battle.net application and close Overwatch before proceeding.
The easiest way to load the firewall controls is the following:
- Use Windows-R to bring up the run box of the operating system.
- Type WF.msc and hit the enter key.
Once you have opened the firewall controls
- Click on I̶n̶b̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ Outbound Rules on the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window.
- Select New Rule under Inbound Rules on the right.
- Select Custom rule on the next screen and click on next.
- S̶e̶l̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶"̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶a̶m̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶h̶:̶"̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶n̶a̶v̶i̶g̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶w̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.̶ ̶(̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶n̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶,̶ ̶g̶o̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶>̶ ̶G̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶S̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶>̶ ̶I̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶L̶o̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶.̶)̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶̶̶̶M̶U̶S̶T̶̶̶̶ ̶s̶e̶l̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶̶̶O̶v̶e̶r̶w̶a̶t̶c̶h̶.̶e̶x̶e̶̶̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶N̶O̶T̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶u̶n̶c̶h̶e̶r̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶o̶r̶t̶a̶n̶t̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶/̶O̶v̶e̶r̶w̶a̶t̶c̶h̶/̶_̶r̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶_̶/̶
Select “All Programs” - Leave everything as is on the ports and protocols screen and click next.
- Select “These IP addresses” under “Which remote IP addresses does this rule apply to”, click add, and enter the scope using these values
Add these ranges:
From: 157.175.0.0
To: 157.175.255.255
From: 15.185.0.0
To: 15.185.255.255
From: 5.42.160.0
To: 5.42.175.255
From: 211.234.96.0
To: 211.234.127.255
From: 54.144.0.0
To: 54.221.255.255
From: 15.179.0.0
To: 15.188.255.255
From: 5.42.176.0
To: 5.42.191.255
From: 185.60.114.0
To: 185.60.115.255
From: 185.60.112.0
To: 185.60.113.255
From: 35.192.0.0
To: 35.207.255.255
From: 34.64.0.0
To: 34.127.255.255
- Click ok, the IP range should now be listed under these IP addresses. Click next.
- Select block the connection on the next screen. This blocks those IP addresses so that connections cannot be established anymore.
- Leave everything as is on the next screen and click next.
- Name the new rule and add a description to it if you want.
- The new rule appears in the outbound rules list now.
This should block the majority of servers that aren’t US. I’m sure there’s some sneaky data center somewhere, but we can figure that out in the next step.
Now go ahead and launch the bnet app again, and load up Overwatch. Join a QP or vs. AI game, and once inside press CTRL+SHIFT+N and you’ll get a screen full of data. Check the upper left corner, and see what server you’re connected to. If you see ord1 or lax1, congrats. You’re in NA. If not, you’re still connected to the wrong server.
If any non NA players are willing to give this a shot, I’d love to hear your results. The solution used to be to apply this to all programs, not just the overwatch.exe, but apparently somewhere along the line blizz made a firewall exception when using the launcher, and this is supposedly the bypass.
EDIT & UPDATE - I’ve made some changes after fiddling around with this and reading some other comments. All we need is an outbound rule that applies to all programs. I’ve also updated the IP list as well, however please note that I might have missed some. Verified it worked on my system by blocking myself from the above IPs along with NA’s IP range, then removing one of the blocks (ex. from KR servers) and was only able to connect to the unblocked region’s games.
8 Likes
Enthusiastically tried, but alas failed. I’m stuck on ams1 still and willing to consider giving up on the game still, because EU servers are simply not for me. I appreciate you trying to help though! <3
1 Like
I think I did everything right, as you wrote, but I still did not connect to Americas.
1 Like
You made both an inbound and outbound rule, right? For the correct exe? Also make sure you don’t have a secondary firewall from an antivirus or anything that might try and override the windows firewall.
Everything as forementioned, unforunately no mistakes on my side 
1 Like
Darn, okay. There’s one last thing I can think of, and that’s to copy the rule (so you don’t have to enter everything twice again, right click the rule > properties > programs and services) on the inbound/outbound but change the exe from overwatch.exe to battle.net.exe (not the launcher, there are two.) and see if that’ll fix it.
Otherwise, do you know the IP that showed up in the upper left when using ctrl shift N? If it’s within the blocked ranges, something is definitely bypassing the firewall rule. And if we can figure out what, then the fix should work again.
1 Like
Alright, soooo. I copied the rules and change the exed to “battle.net” (not the launcher). Restarted my computer (to be safe) and have just been stuck on ams1 again. The IP of it is: 5.42.172.206:26504 (the first try) or 5.42.169.205:26532 (second try).
In theory it should block them but it doesn’t for some reason.
1 Like
“Otherwise, do you know the IP that showed up in the upper left when using ctrl shift N?”
It is: 5.42.173.195:26514
I gave up trying to play this game without a vpn, the experience is just broken, multi hour queue times to be forced in to 160 ms SEA matches. I only play in South Korea with vpn now. 130 ms, 4 minute queues will always beat 90 minute queues at 160 ms.
3 Likes
hey will this effect my other programs and games? or just Overwatch
also one important question: can blizzard punish you for doing this?
Yeah, I think I’m done with Overwatch. Didn’t want to play with/against console players, and didn’t want to play in servers on the other side of the planet. Goodluck to all that stay.
1 Like
Should be just OW but it might affect other Blizz games? Not sure tbh
Yeah. It’s possible you already have an overwatch rule that’s somehow overriding the range block we have in place. But afaik, block rules in windows should always take precedence over allow rules…
This trick has been around for over a year, as seen here - Choosing Which Server You Want To Play Tutorial - Technical Support - Overwatch Forums and no one has been in trouble for using it before.
1 Like
Thank you very much bby ilysm
also one last thing if I want to remove the blocked ips what would I do? just so I have a backout option if they ever allow us to pick regions
1 Like
Just go in to the firewall and delete the rules you made.
1 Like