It is not working for me though, I tried multiple times.
Does anyone here know someone on the dev side of OW or Blizzard? Please can anyone let them know about this forum.
A lot of us are just downright frustrated at this server region lock. I chose to play on NA server because I myself mainly communicate in English, and I’ve made friends by joining games on that server.
I live in Japan, but I am not too familiar with the language which makes it hard when i can’t call out an enemy reaper flanking with death blossom behind us because i can’t yell repear flanking in japanese for my teammates. But you get the point, playing this game especially in competitive is a pain when there is absolutely no communication available for you.
The most annoying part of it is people screaming at you in a foreign language and people being angry typing in Korean or Japanese because you didn’t nano a genji blade when you’re too busy healing others.
Come on Blizzard. What is this bs you’re pulling on us loyal players. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it how many times i have to for Blizzard to understand how serious this problem is:
I USED TO PLAY OVERWATCH DAILY, AND IT WAS MY FAVORITE CO-OP GAME. THE CHANGE YOU MADE TO THE SERVER, NOW THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME I ACTUALLY FEEL DISAPPOINTED AND QUIT THE GAME. IT’S WORST THAN WHEN BRIGITTE WAS FIRST INTRODUCED TO THE SUPPORT ROLE AND EVERYONE WAS FURIOUS.
Stop the region lock server change please.
5 Likes
To conclude, the big issue is that most players prefer to play on a different server even with high pings because they all want one thing which is important in a team based game: Communication.
Most players such as myself prefer playing on the NA server because we NEED to be able to communicate in English with our team.
The issue here is language.
Is it possible for the developers to create an option for players which enables them to get grouped into teams by language? I don’t mind the pings, at least my experience before this change was enjoyable. Now, everytime i play a match, i always leave with a sour taste because i can’t communicate in Korean, Chinese or Japanese.
3 Likes
Nobody wanted this. Why hasn’t Blizzard fixed this already? I want to select the server I’m playing in, I know what I want, Blizzard doesn’t. Give people the choice back! Luckily VPN does work, but that’s an extra step user shouldn’t be required to take. User experience took a heavy hit with this nonsense.
3 Likes
Blizzard says there are no regions as we are used to, so the old solution to choose in launcher doesn’t work. Fair enough.
However!
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Using the firewall option to block server ip’s so only the ones we want to play on respond to pings work, so the region servers are still as before.
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Using a vpn so the first servers to respond to ping are mostly the ones we want to play on work as well.
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In custom games you can choose preferred data center.
So, just add the code to let us set preferred data center that works with the new global blizzard.
Either have it ping your chosen regions servers and only ping other regions IF your selected region for some reason does not respond within a long time.
Or maybe have it give your chosen region a bonus, sorta like -200ms.
So choose Server2 as preferred region. Then the game pings Server1 and Server2 and gets 50ms (Server1) and 220ms (Server2). But due to bonus the game treats it like Server1 50ms and Server2 20ms (220 minus bonus 200), and choses Server2.
There are lots of ways to do it. And other games that have crossplay still lets you choose data centers, so THE only limit is Blizzard not wanting us to be able to choose.
With Blizzard having “you think you do, but you don’t” and “don’t you guys have phones?” looming over them I do hope that this won’t be another thing in the section of ignoring what their customers actually want.
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Well it’s been 3 weeks and we didn’t get a response lol
1 Like
and here I am getting more penalties for leaving match early lol
More than 500 replies in less than a month, and as far as I can tell, not a single user has defended this change, regardless of whether it delivered on the promised improvements or not.
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I for one am glad to see I’m not the only person who doesn’t like this change. I specifically choose NA servers as there is less toxicity, and actual communication (as others have pointed out). I can’t see a single reason for why this change has been forced on us at all.
This should go back to allowing people to select where they want to play, makes no sense to make your player base unhappy.
7 Likes
Damn. It’s sad I stopped playing all Blizzard games just because of this. They clearly don’t care.
Well, on to better things.
3 Likes
lets all go on other games. Blizzard don’t seem to care about the players’ opinion on this, seeing that they are ignoring this issue.
Apex legends, and Valorant don’t seem bad of options here. Been enjoying my time playing them more than overwatch. Overwatch is just disappointing to me at this point. Trust me, I love Overwatch. I used to play it everyday, and I want it to be a good game for everyone, but Blizzard making this decision was a huge mistake. Upsetting and just plainly making us loyal players frustrated. UNDO THE SERVER REGION SOFT LOCK PLEASE!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I will keep posting on this forum until Blizzard can no longer ignore this problem.
5 Likes
Also, somebody said Blizzard is more likely to read up on posts made in Reddit. So that might be worth the shot to try and post there too.
I will try to look for the reddit discussion regarding this server region lock problem.
If I find anything, I’ll put up the link here.
I just can’t believe I’ve spent a lot of time, energy and money on this game, just for Blizzard to make this disappointing change. I don’t want to say i regretted spending my time and money on Overwatch, because I liked playing it. It was enjoyable. Now, I’m just rethinking and am close to say that I wish I can have back all my spent money and time on this game. I mainly play Apex and Genshin Impact now.
Blizzard continues to ignore that this change created bad game experience for us, then I’m gonna continue ignoring Overwatch and enjoy other better games too.It’s just sad I can’t have back my money from this game.
2 Likes
Yup, people are upset on reddit too. I really don’t want this server region lock to be a thing in Overwatch 2 though.
Most poeple are upset because some prefer to play on NA servers as most players communicate in English there. Which makes the game worth playing especially in competitive where team-work and communication is highly important.
Instead, what i think Blizzard can do for players is enable an option for people to get matched according to spoken language, and let them choose whether or not to be grouped according to server region.
Just don’t lock the server region entirely please.
4 Likes
BROKEN GAME!!!
Thats nonsense
I’d give it a 3/10
I leave most match these days feeling quite frustrated and disappointed. New server region lock forced me to match with people from Asian servers, even though I’ve chosen to play on NA server.
All these words/sentences in a language I can’t understand and being unable to communicate in English with my teammates have made the game a new low for me. I used to play Overwatch daily, but now, I won’t even consider trying to look at the game icon, because all I can expect is just more frustration.
2 Likes
More than 3 weeks and no official anwser …
They litteraly spit on the community.
Lot of indie games give more feedback and listen to the community. Or at least explain the choise they are making.
I miss the old blizzard, games made by gamers for gamers.
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I’m living in the Far East of Russia. My closest server is Asia (~80 ms ping) but I’ve been always playing at Europe (~160 ms ping). BUT I DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PING I JUST WANT TO PLAY WITH PEOPLE THAT I CAN U N D E R S T A N D!!! I chose EU to play with people that speak ENGLISH! I can’t play speechless in GM! I don’t understand Korean, Chinese or any other similar languages. I chose EU - I want to play on EU! I want to play with EU community I have known for 5 years but not with random asian guys that I don’t understand!
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The fact that this thread is still active a month later is very telling, Blizzard.
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I live in Taiwan (currently studying here), but I’m american and I don’t speak mandarin AT ALL. I used to play in NA to be able to communicate despite of the ping, but now due to this update, I keep getting matched to Southeast Asia servers where I am consistently playing with people from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Korea AT THE SAME TIME.
Tell me, how am I supposed to play and communicate when there are no English speakers in my lobby because of something I cannot control??? You all tell us to play with friends or use VPNs but due to timezones I literally am unable to play with my friends in NA, and VPNs don’t actually work reliably to justify the money investment.
In what world is it a smart idea to take away the choice from the player?? If we are changing our regions, it’s because we understand that some aspects will be less than ideal but it’s still better than having the choice stripped away from us and being forced in a worse scenario because this game isn’t a single player game!
**PLEASE REVERT THE REGION CHANGES. **
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