14 DAY TRIAL // Heroes of the Storm is currently in beta testing, but as any MOBA aficionado can tell you, the highly competitive nature of the games makes them ripe for players to lose their temper and lash out at others.
While some members of Dota 2 or League of Legends' communities are toxic on a daily basis, most people just have a bad day or get irked in a particular match, which means that the developers have to be extra careful when enforcing penalties for bad behavior, in order to encourage people to provide a better experience for everyone involved without making it feel unfair or overly harsh.
Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of Heroes of the Storm, are also working out the best way to go about this, as having a friendly community can greatly enhance the experience for players, and even have teams performing better on the battlefield.
In Hearthstone, Blizzard's collectible card game, the developers have turned off chat, which means that nobody can complain when you get lucky and you can't antagonize your opponents, translating in turn into a smooth experience that lets you play more games focusing on your own actions, without worrying about your opponents.
All multiplayer games need a way to let the community weed out grievers
Heroes of the Storm is a more social game by design, as it pits two teams of five players each against each other, and things are always one bad engagement away from having sparks flying.
Kaeo Milker, lead game producer for HotS, detailed some of the company's plans to tackle toxicity in the upcoming MOBA, a plan that settles on three core pillars: communication, incentivization, and punishment.
The first step the team took toward this was to disable cross-team chat, preventing teams from being toxic to each other.
The first instinct was to disable chat altogether, but them the devs decided to enable positive communication to occur between team members.
In any case, for players who would rather not interact with strangers, the team is going to introduce a big fat "mute all" button that lets them opt out of any communication.
As far as incentivization goes, Blizzard is apparently taking some pointers from Riot Games, the makers or League of Legends, as RPS reports. Riot created a positive feedback system in-game, where you can reward players for displaying sportsmanship, skill, or for being friendly and helpful.
Blizzard also sees a similar system as being better than a strictly punishment-oriented one, as Milker states that they are looking at options to include honor-based systems that encourage players to be good to each other, rewarding them for positive actions.
Milker also mentions that an upcoming Clans and Groups system will be added to Heroes of the Storm, in order to further assist individuals in finding like-minded people online, to interact and play with.
