Running into trolls and hateful players is almost a guarantee when playing games of the MOBA genre. Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm is no exception to the rule but players are being given more ways to combat this.
In the game’s news blog, an update to the player reporting system was announced. Blizzard hopes this new system can limit and deter “players who project a negative attitude toward others”.
Up until this point in the game’s run, the report-able offenses have been very broad and ineffective with only a “Harassment” category to cover all kinds of problems may face when dealing with other players. The upcoming patch to the report system does away with the Harrassment category and gives players more report categories including Abusive Chat, Intentionally Feeding, AFK/Non-Participation, and Cheating/Botting/Hacking, among others. Guidelines for report in these categories is detailed further on the blog post.
Heroes with special mechanics (Abathur, Murky, etc) are protected against misinterpreted player reports. Players that get into a habit of submitting false reports can be put under investigation as well.
In addition to the new reporting categories Blizzard also introduced a new “Silence Penalty” for repeat offenders. This new penalty essentially mutes players with a history of misconduct for a period of 24 hours for the first offense, with the penalty time being doubled for each additional offense. Players in the silence penalty will be unable to chat with any other player that isn’t a party member or friend. Silenced players will also have an icon on their player portrait indicating their silenced status. Player’s silenced will in-game will be logged out at the end of their session but still receive the appropriate amount of gold and XP earned. In extreme cases a suspension or permanent ban may be issued.
For more information in upcoming weeks regarding the changes to the reporting system players are encouraged to keep up with the news on the official Heroes of the Storm website.