Heroes of the Storm to Introduce Penalties and New Reporting Options to Curb Abusive Behavior

Like every other online game, Heroes of the Storm is not free from the toxic behavior of certain players. Blizzard has announced that they plan to add new reporting options and penalties to curb bad behavior. 

The tools will allow the community to police players who don't play along with everyone else and cut down on unpleasant behavior. 

The game currently offers a reporting tool, which will see several new additions to what you can report players for. Here's what's in store:

Abusive Chat

– Insults, cruelty, or ongoing harassment directed at one or more players.

– Hate speech

– Real life threats

Intentionally Feeding

Player intentionally and repeatedly gets their hero killed in order to anger allies or feed XP to the enemy team.

AFK/Non-Participation

– Player is idle or inactive for an extended period of time during a game.

– Player is present, but has given up or refuses to take part in the game.

Cheating/Botting/Hacking

Suspicious behavior which indicates the player may be using third-party software or hack programs to gain an advantage during a game.

Inappropriate Name

Character names or BattleTags that are offensive, insulting, bypass the mature language filter, or are otherwise considered objectionable.

Spam

– Excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure nonsense

– Blatant or repeated advertising for third party websites

Blizzard laid out the changes in a blog post today, where they stated that these new options will become available to players as soon as the next patch hits. 

The studio will also take into account hero mechanics, so players who play Abathur won't have to worry about being reported for idling. Likewise, Murky players shouldn't have to worry about intentionally feeding. 

Finally, any player reported multiple times for abusive chat will be silenced for a duration of 24 hours. They will not be able to chat with their allies while in-game, chat in certain public channels, or send whispers to players who aren't on their friends list. Repeat offenders will have the duration of their silence doubled, with no limit.