14 DAY TRIAL // With Heroes of the Storm now fully launched, the development team at Blizzard is working to introduce new functionality to the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena title to make it easier for the community to communicate and interact.
In the next major patch, the studio aims to introduce a new way to report those gamers who do not play well with others and a wide range of consequences for those who behave badly.
Blizzard states, "we’d like to remind you that you can report another player for various types of inappropriate behavior by clicking the gear icons found on in-game score screens (TAB), as well as end-of-game score screens, and then selecting “Report Player”. You can also report players outside of a match by right-clicking a player’s name in the chat pane."
The company is changing the categories that will be used by the reporting system, which will now include abusive chat, hate speech, intentionally feeding, AFK/non-participation, cheating/botting/hacking, inappropriate name and spam.
Blizzard says that it is taking various hero playstyles into account when evaluating the reports and that a single report will not be enough to punish an account linked to Heroes of the Storm.
A system to investigate false reports is also being introduced.
Heroes of the Storm is adding a Silence penalty
It will be used for spam and abusive chat reports and will not allow a targeted player to interact with others, initially for a 24-hour period.
The punishment time will double every time it is issued, which means repeat offenders will have a hard time to talk to anyone inside Heroes of the Storm for a long time.
An icon will be used to show a Silence penalty to other players and those who get one while they are in the game will be logged out at the end of the match, although they will get rewards associated with it.
A new major patch for Heroes of the Storm is expected to arrive in the coming weeks and Blizzard says that it will offer more details on the changes that it makes to the game in the period before it launches.