Blizzard Entertainment, creator of Heroes of the Storm, announced they will be rolling out improvements to their reporting system for abusive chat. They will be changing the way they penalize repeat offenders by increasing the severity of the actions they take against their accounts.

Currently, players in Heroes of the Storm who are regularly reported for abusive chat incur a silence penalty that restricts them from chatting in-game and prevents them from playing Hero League for the penalty’s duration. Additional offenses result in increasingly longer silence penalty durations.

Blizzard feels that, in some cases, “silence penalties alone aren’t enough for repeat offenders to see the error in their ways and correct their behavior.”

As a result, we’re going to greatly reduce the number of silence penalties we apply to repeat offenders’ accounts. Instead, a player who returns to abusive behavior after their initial silences expire will begin incurring account suspensions. These suspensions will quickly ramp-up in duration and prevent them from playing Heroes of the Storm entirely. Players who prove they are incapable of – or unwilling to – improve their behavior after being warned, silenced, and suspended enough times will be permanently banned from the game.

In addition, Blizzard has already started implementing machine learning technology that further enhances their ability to validate and empower accurate player reports. They believe it has proven successful so far, and they plan to continue leveling-up and expanding their report validation process going forward.

Heroes of the Storm, made by Blizzard Entertainment, is now able to silence the accounts of players who use offensive language and harass their teammates. This is being implemented in addition to the weekly suspension and ban waves.

Community Manager Nate Valenta posted the following on a Heroes of the Storm Forum post on April 18, 2018:

Starting today, we’re implementing new technology that enhances our ability to validate the accuracy of reports. This will allow us to increase the rate that we issue account silences and ranked suspensions to players who are frequently and consistently reported for using offensive language. These actions are aimed at those who regularly use offensive language to harass, antagonize, and abuse one or more of their teammates. This type of behavior not only ruins the experience for those who are targeted, but also damages team morale, effectively degrading the fun for everyone in a match.

The post continues by making it clear that the weekly suspension and ban waves for non-participation and intentionally dying will continue. Players who have recently reported another player for going AFK (away from keyboard), refusing to participate, or intentionally dying should keep an eye on their email inbox associated with their account for updates regarding actions taken by Blizzard agains the player they reported.

Heroes of the Storm is a game that requires a team of players to battle against an opposing team of players. It makes absolutely no sense for a player to use offensive language to harass or antagonize teammates. It’s nice to see Blizzard doing something to curtail this type of behavior.