As the Heroes of the Storm playerbase grows, so does the potential for some users to act like jerks. Riot has spent the last two years actively combatting the more toxic elements in the League of Legends community, so it makes sense that Blizzard would do the same for Heroes of the Storm – MOBAs are among the most stressfully competitive games, after all.
To these ends, Blizzard is introducing new reporting tools, covering a range of potential toxic behaviour. In a blogpost, Blizzard outlines a range of new categories of abuse, which can be reported on score screens both in and after matches. They're listed below:
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
The blogpost adds that the playstyle of certain heroes has been taken into account when receiving these reports. "We know that avid Abathur players may worry about being reported for Non-Participation, and Murky lovers may be concerned about receiving Intentional Feeding reports. However, we’ve taken heroes with unique mechanics into account, and will take action accordingly."
More details over on the Heroes of the Storm site. There's no official date for the patch as yet.
