Blizzard cracks down on abusive chat in Heroes of the Storm

Blizzard looks after its Heroes of the Storm community and tries to surprise players with special events this summer. Significant changes were made to the hero brawler in 2018, but the game producers are now focusing their attention on a different aspect of the game.

They are particularly concerned about the fact that some members of the community often resort to abusive behavior. They offend fellow players in team chat, so Blizzard found it worthwhile to revamp the entire reporting system.

Harsher penalties for repeat offenders

Ideally, players should behave friendly even in the absence of sanctions. However, a small part of the community doesn’t seem to understand this, so penalties are in order. Even before the game developers decided to increase the severity of punitive actions, there were plenty of sanctions in place. Apparently, they were unable to deter the bad actors from mistreating fellow players. Restrictions from chatting in game didn’t prove effective enough, so from now on changes will be more severe.

MOBA games have the particularity of pitting players who don’t know each other again similar teams. Often enough it happens that players from the same team argue and resort to offensive language. Blizzard determined that silence penalties alone won’t do the trick, so they got creative.

While the number of silence penalties is reduced, account suspensions will be handed to repeat offenders. Instead of simply preventing them from chatting, these sanctions will deny them access to the game itself.

Sanctions begin with common warnings, before players are silenced and ultimately suspended. The worst-case scenario is to be permanently banned from Heroes of the Storm. This is a solution of last resort, so only those who are unwilling to change their behavior are subject to such punishment.

Most players agree that tougher sanctions are needed, but some voice their concerns regarding abusive spam or chat reports. Blizzard went to great lengths to reassure players that they have a system in place to prevent suspensions based on false reports. Players who were reported despite not using the chat system won’t be subject to punishment. The same goes for reports issued by players from the enemy team. As these changes roll out gradually, players are invited to give their feedback and share their opinion on this matter.

The XP Bonus Event continues in HoTS

Well behaving players have nothing to worry about, quite the opposite. They will continue to accumulate bonus XP points when they assemble a team and fight in the Alterac Pass. The XP Bonus event kicked off last week and will continue until July 9. Those who join their friends and complete matches during the event will collect 50% more experience points.

Versus A.I., Quick Match, Unranked, Heroes Brawl, and Team League are the qualifying game modes. It makes no difference if players choose to fight for the Horde or the Alliance, they’ll enjoy the same perks. Winners will obviously receive more points, but all participants benefit from this ongoing campaign.