Let’s talk about Joe for a minute. Joe has been playing quite some Hero League the past couple of days trying to hit grandmaster. Some games didn’t go well, some games did, sometimes he made mistakes, sometimes he carried - just like HL is supposed to work.
And as it does happen on a way to grandmaster, caring about your points, Joe tries to give advice to your fellow teammates in some games. This may be in draft or in the actual game, with the current variety of skill within one game this seems justified.
And that’s enough to get Joe reported for Abusive Chat. Simply because someone doesn’t like his nose or the fact he followed a different call, he will get reported. During his grind from gold upwards a few seasons back, Joe didn’t notice this - because to be muted the first time, one must accumulate quite an amount of reports.
But after suffering a multi-week ban (perhaps justified, perhaps not), It just takes 50 HL games in which Joe doesn’t pick fights, doesn’t insult, but merely focuses on the game and talks only about the game in a constructive way, to get banned again.
We’re talking about a system where people get rewarded for pressing a button out of mere hate or frustration. It has been mentioned many times and in some way or other it needs to change.
Please help out Joe. He really wants to play HL again.
Some solutions might be…
Allowing a report only after a word has been used caught by the chat filter
Only counting reports if two or more players hit the button during/after the same game
Entirely automating the report system through chat filter
Make it harder to report people (captcha, website, etc.)
Make ban appeals easier (who scans his ID for HotS?)
Allow for the purchase of unbans at the restriction of disabled chat
Completely remove bans and replace them with silences to reduce smurfing
I’m sure you guys can think of more solutions to make the game more fun for everyone without paving the way for toxicity! Joe needs you!
I’ve been silenced numerous times and can quite honestly state it is a result of the hero/heroes I most often play and level of play I’m playing at. Should you play a hero that requires a lot of teamfights to quest as opposed to a spec that solo’s, you are unlikely to get reported. Play a spec, and you’ll get reported all the time.
I’ve also almost never used crude language or been ‘abusive’, but of course asking a player to join a teamfight or healer to heal is asking to be reported. If such a player is in a group, expect numerous votes.
What I find interesting is when an ally flatout refuses to play the game or is AFK and then you are still expected to blindly die at objectives… else you also get reported for non-participation.
The system is simply a failure. Considering Blizzard has spent $$$ on creating an AI starcraft system, I am surprised they still haven’t managed to do so (successfully) with a reporting system.
Same here… Especially if you are playing Team League Solo, you are making a grat mistake like me because they can always report you as 3-4 player just because you had a conflict or disgussion about game plan without harrasing them. This report system is definitely the worst report system in any online multiplayer game and just eleminate the players who play the game solo most. Shame it is the only game i have fun most and cant even able to play or use game chat during game without afraiding of get reported by a party of players and get banned so easily. They can harras you they can abuse you as 4 player and your little single report can do anything to them but as long as they report you together without any reason you get banned, this is how blizzard rewards his fellow alone players…
first of all, prohibit reporting until the final score screen
muting players in game is fine, some can be dumb or annoying but most people will just resort to the report cogwheel instead
reduce the number of categories to offensive communication, sabotage (both feed and afk) and possibly report BOTTING (vs AI players will understand)
toxic players usually won’t get banned ever for ruining games on purpose, but those that play regularly and often are always the target of fake reports, simply because of how involved and passionate about the game they are
hand holding other players, commentating their decisions, venting frustrations in a civilized way is often (if now always) mistaken for toxicity and most players will get suspended on the count of report volume alone sooner or later, especially in team league where premade teams will report you for whatever reason
negativity is bound to occur in any competitive environment and without criticism people will never improve, if your skin isn’t thick enough to handle this, disable the chat or stop playing the game, you taking offense without proper insult being given is doing everyone a disservice
edit:
forum isn’t any better either, word S-T-U-P-I-D is blocked by default, please stop policing the kindergarten and punish the people who ruin the games for everyone on purpose, words aren’t offensive by themselves, it is the context in which they are used
Just get rid of the silence system completely and encourage blocking.
If you want to have some bans for people saying racist keywords - N*****, Fa****, that kinda stuff - that’s okay - but people getting silenced for saying stuff like “ugh your greymane is useless” is driving away far more players than it retains.
Would love to see an “avoid as teammate” feature as well.
Implement “Avoid as Teammate” feature. This feature is exceptionally useful on smaller servers where it’s likely to see the same people again.
For reports, don’t allow us to report more than once. Because we can currently report infinitely, honestly I’m not sure when enough reports are enough. I see streamers spam report 20 times, and I don’t feel satisfied after a single report. So I repeat, after I’ve reported, don’t allow me to report the same person again, like how LoL and other games do it.
Inform me when action is taken against a player I’ve reported. Convince me you guys actually even get these things. Let me know my reports are working and being listened to.
Don’t allow people to report until after the game. Being able to report mid-game is nonsensical in most cases.
This isn’t everything, but hopefully this helps a bit.
I was very passionate about playing HotS HL. I play a ton of games. I got a work accident and had a lot of free time so i just played HotS everyday for around 2 weeks and ofc i would get banned.
The report system punishes people that like the game. If you play 5 games a week, you never getting banned or silenced no matter what you do.
I sometimes play like 10 games a day go to sleep and wake up to play again.
Well until i got permabanned recently. I dont use racist insults or insults of any kind but i am arrogant and use sarcams. Just like Alarak whos announcers says “Combat begins shortly. Your failure will likely follow.” I wonder why is not getting perma banned like i am.
Im a paying customer and buy heroes on release when i like them. Maiev, Whitemane, Hanzo, Mephisto are just a few heroes i buys on release with real money.
I wanted to buy Orphea too sadly i got suspended so i didnt get to buy the release bundle.
Well now im permanently banned and the Battle net is uninstalled. So Blizzard just lost around 60€ a year from its loyal customer because of their horrible report system.
Well thats all im not going to say the puninshments are undeserved. Sure sometimes even i get tilted in games.
But im getting punished for playing too many games not for actually breaking rules.
Well just my two cents i dont plan on making a new account or investing any more money into this game.
The funny thing i didnt even get an email about my permaban.
All the people claiming you get banned for being active in the game are people I have serious doubts about.
I chat often, give tips, confront people that do something really questionable, try convincing others nearly every game.
For at least 3 seasons I did marathons until I reached a rank goal. Those took 1-3 weeks and between 90-160 games.
I’m playing actively since alpha with 15000+ matches behind me and not silenced or banned once. I refuse to accept that I’m just lucky and everyone else is getting banned for nothing.
Maybe, just maybe the way you phrase things annoys people - enough to make them want to report you. That’s all it takes after all.
e. x. calling someone useless instead of telling what not to do in the future or give an idea how to handle it better.
You can always try to sound reasonable, only give dry info and no personal comments. I guess that’s too hard to do for most people.
I swear the people that keep claiming they’re angels, are simply unaware they caused issues in the past and forgot.
A wide variety of people out there, with varying levels of tolerance.
No problems at game start, then maybe someone makes a “mistake” and i try to give tip, or just generally exclaim “play safe”.
Some people seem to take offence to this, and start being a “smartass”, which gets on my nerves, while i was actually trying to help. Then usually this escalates (aka, people keep on chatting with stuff to provoke me or whatever) untill the point where i just get angry.
I have also been in situations where i try to be helpful, and people start yelling to “report me”. (that said, i don’t claim i am always nice or never use abusive language).
I just want to point out that people seem to report for everything and nothing, and hope something can be done about this.
I really hope my last option is turning off chat or whatever, because no communication in this game whatsoever i might as well just stop playing.
implement a “role preference” for solo hero league.
as it is now, i constantly get queued with 4 players who play 90% assassin (in low masters, that is, but I imagine it’s the same everywhere). This leads to people not wanting to play certain roles, and if you do that there will always be that feeling of “i took 1 for the team, so this better works out” on people who pick support or tank while they didn’t actually want to do that. Leads to lot of frustration -> toxicity. This might also lead to less toxicity when people play a certain assassin/specialist over and over again, as it’s less likely that 2-3 of those players find themselves in the same team.
give feedback on the effectiveness of reports. Like a “a player you have reported recently has been silenced”, so ppl actually notice that those buttons have an effect
i think this is in effect already, but reports from players who report too often and falsely should count less somehow, like “if Player reports 2 people every game, his report should only have an effect if another player/2 other players also reported that guy” (generally, the 2 or more ppl report s.o. rule seems good to me)
is it possible to ignore all the “abusive text chat” reports for people who have muted chat anyway? bcs that’s a false report for sure; just not sure if the game knows whether chat was enabled after a match.
No Report system anymore.
Just a Mute option and a Blacklist feature, so if someone is annoying/insulting, just Mute him and if you don’t want to be teamed with him again, Blacklist him.
But, if you are the problem and you find everyone is [insert any adjective to explain why you loose the game] players, you will actually Blacklist everyone and end to be alone and unable to play anymore, eventually…
So you will have to use your brain before blacklisting someone
Giving tips or questioning an odd call is instant ‘abuse’ and opens you up for a world of reporting and abuse. Not saying a world and picking a spec or soaking a lane when down 8-10 opens you up to a world of abuse.
If you happen to have a personality where you don’t care if an ally makes the same mistake and costs you the game, then cool, good for you. When you repeatedly ask an ally to heal you or stop running behind you or leaving team-fights when at 80% HP and they continue to do so, what are your option?
Don’t say anything, you will get reported for abuse
Quit trying and go kill some camps/minions instead. - Reported abuse
Pointlessly continue trying knowing full well you’re simply wasting your own time and everyone else’s time because an ally does not care.
The core problem and reason for abuse is that the reporting system does not work An ally that trolls, goes AFK, or simply does not even try (e.g. healer that takes camps/solos a lane) deserves to get called out An ally that repeatedly ignores team orders (or team captain’s orders) is killing the game.
In what sport (IRL) do you get players like this? You don’t. They get thrown out the team, verbally ‘abused’ (by today’s snowflake standards) and learn to fit in very quickly. This type of standard is set at a young age and 9 year old kids learn how it works. When you completely remove the ability of your teammates to communicate with you (for fear of being banned), you create a bad environment.
Ofcourse in no sport it is acceptable to hurl racial abuse or any other types of abuse that suggests a human rights violation. Blizzard literally have all the tools at their disposal for sorting out the system, they just need to stop the snowflake overreactions to every single thing said that might cause offense.
Proven numerous times:
Every single person whining about the report system was proven by the blues who investigated that they well deserved far worse than silence.
Go for anger control therapy or stop using voice/text chat entirely.
You don’t even deserve to be playing a game when you are toxic enough to actually get silenced.
Hey man, it’s cool that you have an opinion you want to weigh in, but perhaps consider that the tone in which you put this post would make you eligible for reports of all kinds (;
Here’s the problem, no matter how many times people give their experience, which is the same as mine . . . trying to help, which leads to silences and bans . . . you’ll have some abusive person get on and say “you deserved it”.
Any reasonable person knows that the reporting system is heavily abused. Also, there is no way “blues” are really looking into reports like they should. The most likely out come is just silence or ban anyone the automated system flags. It’s easy, it’s no risk.
So me, yes, I had an account banned. Did I abuse anyone, no. Did I try often to help others yes. Did people just flame me and report me, yep.
So, what did I do. Made another account. Won’t spend a dime on any Blizzard title ever again. I’ve likel spent thousands on Blizzard titles over almost two decades, from near WOW launch, but never agian, never ever ever.
All this system is doing is making people create new accounts. Anyone who would have supported blizzards doesn’t anymore. It’s a horrible business practice.
I agree, people should learn to use the mute button. Why Blizzard turned over policing the community to reactive teenagers, is beyond me. It will further kill a great game.
The rules and reasons for which u get banned are really casual tho.
Anger control therapy cuz blizz can’t make a game? Nah…
I bet my left testicle that the majority of times people are cursing is when they run into trolls or bad players or stubborn noobs, etc .
I never cursed or been cursed at in winning games. If blizz matchmaking is so flawed, ofc you gonna get mad and curse.
U just had 2 games in which the team DID EVERYTHING THEY NEEDED TO DO, without u spamming chat or pings or etc. Third game, what do you know, u get a noob team. U telling me you don’t get frustrated in this situation? Then you aren’t competitive and maybe u should stick to QM and brawls.
Either blizz accepts some people are more competitive than others and more skilled and adjust the way they match the games or this will go on forever.
Can’t wait for the next silence so I can uninstall the game as well. I’m just waiting for it.
Until then, Imma spam the forums letting people know how bad the management of this game is, so they avoid sinking as much time as I did.
EDIT: You have a limited list of people u can ignore/mute. The system disregards if you have muted or reported a player so it can still match you with him/her. Moreover the system ignores the list as well, so the “mute” button doesn’t help, especially when u get matched with 3 noobs who can spam report afterwards.
I am positive there is no investigation done on blizz side - like really watching the games where one gets reported and judging from their game sense who should get punished. It’s just reading chats selected by bots.
Nailed it. I can’t think of a single game where someone just came in abusing people for no reason . . .
Now, we’ve all played with that truly abusive bad, who is ranting on about people not doing something that is actualy a bad idea. He tilts in 2 min, and throws the game. . . yes, this person exists.
BUT mostly, people get mad because other players are just afk, or feeding, or never doing the obj, stuff that is super obvious. Their response, idk, it’s qm. The consequence of them ruining games is ZERO, but you’ll be banned if you get angry.
I have a friend that only uses pings. He is extremely good at this game and I am being honest when I say he can carry a whole game.
The only problem being that in order to carry every team fight, he has to rely on others being able to do simple things like take camps or general waveclear but 70% of the times people type horrendous things to him in chat because they want to go take a fight 4v5 and he is desperately trying to get the xp needed to keep them in the game.
He will often get a “report for spam pings” (this being the least offensive attack I have seen him receive) to rather severe verbal abuse and for what? because a very large number of the player base don’t know simple game mechanics such as xp soaking…
This is something that truly upsets me because there are people that are genuinely good at this game and are trying to be helpful and then there are complete morons (usually in groups of 3 or 4) that report the “do-gooders” because they can’t comprehend the fact that the pings or “don’t fight” isn’t an avoidance of duties but merely a way to try stay in the game or get an advantage.
I report people but only if they are genuinely toxic or deliberately trying to throw the game in any way.
the only thing I can advise, if you really do get tilted at peoples stup*dity, is to mute the in game chat so that you can’t see abuse being thrown at you and so that you can’t say something and have it taken in a way that could get you banned.
