Yes I do! At least this used to be a problem back in the day, when abusive report was possible EVEN if you didnt chat!
Back in the day, you could get silenced for NOT USING THE CHAT AT ALL! A user had that issue, and got appealed 9 successful times, until blizzard decided to respond to him the 9th time - “This is the last time we are investigating this, as it is very suspicious for your common suspensions”. Not the exact words, but close. You can probably still find it somewhere in google. I wont be posting the link to it, as this will get me instantly banned on the blizzard forums.
I did release my rage on 1 particular game once. The response of the support on the silence appeal was obvious - “You flamed someone in this particular game”. I made a second appeal - “This is ridiculous! Am I going to get banned only for 1 game? Can you please check for more chat issues on other games?”. The response - “You violated our EULA with that particular game! Further investigation is not required. Case permanently closed!”. Not the same words, but close enough in meaning! This happened years ago when I used to be very active and passioned in this moba.
I think it was in the end of 2018 where they realized their mistake of allowing abusive report being given left and right freely by the community. Thats where they finally made the change of requirement of chat logs received before you can report that particular person.
Hopefully this example answers why “might be too effective”.
The whole system is build on “trust in community”. Back in the day, we used to investigate this ourselves very actively. The system is completely automated! Some times even the appeal responses. I cant comment how they manage appeals this days with only 2-3 employees, as I dont play the game this often any more.
Basically the reporting is based on amount of reports, which is reduced by time passing. There is certain cap in the system which has to be reached. If you reach this cap even once, you are marked as a “criminal” by system - reducing your report amount cap needed greatly. If you manage to appeal successfully, then that cap doesnt get damaged.
If you call someone the N-word or use a WHOLE lot of other abusive language in CHAT - they may do something about it.
However trolling in the game, griefing, intentionally feeding, or simply quitting or going AFK - doesn’t seem that Blizzard care at all or cared at any moment in time.
I haven’t heard about a single instance when a person was banned or even warned for any such behavior.
It is believed by many - and I support this opinion - that only “Abusive chat” report option gets any kind of attention because it can be checked semi-aautomatically for trigger words in chat history.
Everything else is going into a trash bin, and those options exist merely to give you an outlet for your frustration and create an illusion that you can do something about your bad experiences and that Blizzard are listening.
Maybe cheating is another thing that can be effective, but that’s it.
Also, it seems that blizzard has a “reputation” system implemented in hots, just like on forums. This means that any report you make that is not considered “valid” and doesn’t result in any action from administration - lowers your internal reputation stat. And any subsequent report are pushed farther and farther back in the report stack that admins see. Basically, the system marks you as unreliable.
And because 90% of reports are never processed - you would be unreliable by default if you report people for AFK.
The reality of the matter is that Blizzard has completely given up on HOTS at this point, and so whatever support staff it has - has to be pretty bare-bones. They simply would not have a capacity to go and verify your report. And they are too consumer-loving to ban people for AFK or disconnects.
As a very experienced player with the report system I’ll share all I know for a FACT here. First things first: I have been temporarily banned 4 different times due to reports. 3 of them for abusive and 1 time for AFK/Nonparticipation. The last one was the AFK thing. I know why I got the first 2 (calling some people who infuriated me dumb and so on) but the 3rd abusive ban was the real surprise as I naturally stopped using ANY mean words after the first 2 bans. So I appealed the 3rd suspension but the GM said “my behaviour was toxic as I was fingerpointing individuals”. So basically if you even FINGERPOINT someone for your loss it is considered abusive chat =) The last AFK ban was a TOTAL surprise for me as I never ever AFK during a game or throw games intentionally. I appealed that one too and that appeal revealed something not quite common knowledge. The GM said, “their system” flagged me for “Game Sabotage”. Probably in a game where I did some weird strategy or something and their automated system (which I never knew about) flagged me as a game saboteur. I know for a fact that I’ve been reported for inting or AFKing by griefing people hundreds of times over thousands of games just because they dont like my game style or they got angry because i missed my skillshot. I have been playing non-stop since beta. But as you can see the ONLY time I was banned for AFK was because their system flagged me for sabotaging the game. So basically the reporting system does not work at all.
Why are you posting on an 11 month old thread? Also you probably deserved the AFK one. If you are actively getting flagged for AFK, you should know you are doing SOMETHING extremely wrong. I’m on like account #5 at this point, all banned for life because I dare speak my mind and tell noobs exactly how bad they are.
In real life, you would just get yourself beat-up by me, but I can’t smack you through the net for being dumb. So I call you exactly what you are : garbage, why does that offend you so much that you need to report me? I even back up my calling you garbage with stats and that maeks you even more mad… wonder why… could it be… that people don’t like having finger pointed at them, SPECIALLY when it’s TRUE!?? Hmmmm…
Nope the system is number of reports from different accounts. 1 account can report for 5 different things but the system will only take the first one. Once so many different accounts has reported the same player X amount of times. The automated system will tally the reports and whatever has been reported the most shall be what you get punished for.
Also when you contact them to appeal it, you will get the exact same automated response from blizzard and have the ticket closed instantly every time with 0 appeal. Its probably the worst system ive ever seen.
As long as this game has shared experience and a hyper focus on relying on teammates (more than any other MOBA, period) there will be extreme stress on people who care about winning and being rewarded with good plays and in turn an extreme response to those that do anything else.
Even if I happen to be carrying I still feel nothing but contempt for the dead weight teammates that ignore text and ping communication outright.
It is fully automated, volume counts. You can always report and type gibberish in the info tab.
Lowest threshold reports are abusive chat and voice. They are almost always the best bet if you want the player to get a tag.
Pretty sure cheating etc, are low priority and do nothing.
Works much better if you play a 4 man and everyone reports, he is almost certainly going to get a tag and im not sure how many it needs to have him automatically banned from rank and silenced.
yea i got reported once and it worked and i hate hots reporting system because it works i want to be able to call novas stupid using foul language without repercussions
When the report system was revamped in 2018, the Devs said if your account had chat disabled, any reports issued would no longer count. If your ban happened recently I would encourage you to appeal it if you had your chat disabled, you can simply defend yourself by sending replays as evidence, please open a ticket with CS.
Oh and yes, the report system works, but to quote and give my answer to the oft asked in game question “How effective is the reporting system in Heroes of the Storm?”
Thank you, I hate it.
The report system “works” as well as you would expect a mostly automated system would. It’s a blunt instrument that catches some guilty players, allows many players who say the very worst, vile stuff in chat and/or grief games to go unpunished because they only play a small volume of matches. The bans seem to create a negative loop, and encourage players to make “revenge” accounts with the sole motive to troll matches. It also doesn’t punish false reports.
I understand that it would be too expensive to have a fully human review of the report system, but even kept automated, it should be far better than we have now. User generated reports shouldn’t be needed for AFK/Intentionally Dying, as an algorithm should be able to automatically detect such behaviour without the need for reports.
Banning accounts seems to exacerbate the behaviour it tries to curb. I think they should have kept the old system of increasing silences. An old friend (no longer) who was basically permanently silenced, never created alt accounts, so the system worked in keeping their abusive chat muted (they really did deserve their silences) without potentially creating a worse monster due to receiving an account ban.
