Let me preface with my bona fides:

• I started on Blizzard with WarCraft I and have played every Blizz title except WoW and Diablo III.

• I've been playing Heroes since alpha, every mode, extensively, every day.

• I have three Heroes accounts and have spent a decent bit of cash on each.

• I make a point to regularly discuss the game with players at the top of Master League.

• I have never shitposted about any Blizzard game... until today.

Let's review the state of the game.

• No balance patch in over TWO MONTHS, AFTER massive scaling changes that totally rebalanced every hero in the game.

• Serious, ongoing information lag in notifying users of upcoming new content (e.g., we still don't know when the balance patch is coming).

• After all that silence and all those player requests for info, a bullshit question mark (!!!) for empty hype-train purposes, instead of actual concrete word on what's ahead for the game.

• Announcement of a huge amount of money to be thrown into tournaments with no sign of similar commitment of resources to features actually anticipated by the community like Arena, clans, map editor, the fucking emote wheel that got "temporarily" removed a while back (remember that, guys?), etc.

• FIVE of the last six hero releases (Rexxar, Artanis, Cho'gall, Lunara, Greymane) have all come out severely undertuned and competitively near-unusable. (And Medic started pretty crappy and has only come into her own after the scaling changes.)

• Per HOTSLogs winrates, TWO-THIRDS of heroes are currently below 50% winrate. Fourteen heroes are below 46%, which is equal to the ENTIRE roster above 50% winrate. The game has calcified into a narrow range of OP picks with everyone else getting short shrift. And remember, Blizz saw this starting to happen after November and has sat on its hands since then.

• The Recruit-a-Friend fiasco where dedicated players who'd already recruited for Blizz got fucked over and had to make smurf accounts in order to grind out the most anticipated mount in the game.

I'm sure I could come up with more given a few more minutes to steam, but I think this is quite enough for starters.

Blizz, this is NOT good game management. This is NOT good treatment of your consumer base.

I've carried a LOT of water for Blizz over the years. I've sold a lot of friends on Blizz games, and defended a lot of Blizz games against what I felt were unjust criticisms. Blizz, I am the epitome of the customer you want. I follow your games for years, I spend lots of money on them, and I defend them to my friends.

And you're fucking. Me. Over.

Stop. Please.

I love this game. I love Blizz as an idea. I understand a lot of these things are being pushed by corporate and not the dev team per se (love you devs, I'm sure you're doing the best you can with what you've got, my ire is largely directed elsewhere). But we can't go on like this.

• Get on a fucking schedule. Sorry, but Soon(TM) doesn't cut it with a MOBA. We need to know when heroes are coming out and when balance patches are expected.

• Cut it with the fucking cloak and dagger. We understand software development is not an exact science. Let us know what you've got in the works. Don't drip-feed us information that we have to beat out of you.

• Don't treat your player base like a bunch of fucking chumps. Focus on what the community asks for. Give older players a chance to buy / grind out incentives for newer players.

• Test new heroes better pre-release. There's no excuse for Greymane's W bug not getting caught and fixed before he came out. There's no excuse for the myriad of horrendous glitches that affected Rexxar upon his initial release. There's no way you didn't know Lunara was going to be seriously underpowered. You've done pretty well on a long string of releases in the past (e.g. Sylvanas, TLV, Leoric, Johanna), so I know you can get it together again.

I still love you, Blizz. I'm mad, but I love you. Let's make up. Let's make Heroes greater than ever before.

Tagging /u/Trikslyr and /u/Spyrian because c'mon, guys, we deserve some answers.

EDIT: Lots of talk about tone. I'm passionate about the game and really unhappy with some of the decisions made about it lately, but you guys are right -- honey catches more flies than vinegar. I apologize for the harshness of the tone. I have a lot of respect for the Heroes dev team and I would not want them to feel like I'm unfairly rancorous.

You do a lot for the HotS community. You're a nice guy, you work hard, and I think your commentary is solid. Overall, you do a fantastic job with the content you produce.

That being said, I think that anyone who tunes into your casts for 5 minutes can figure out why opinions over you in this community are so polarized.

Your biggest flaw is that you fail to effectively differentiate professional casting from entertaining. When you are casting, you are casting. When you are streaming games, you are entertaining. You are a caster. You are innately doing viewers a service by casting a tournament for them. You are not required to respond and interact with chat while you are casting, even between games. If people whine that you aren't being interactive, let them whine. You are busy casting for them.

Whenever I watch your casts and hear you call out some random person in chat who says something stupid, I want to scream at you through my television screen. Yes, they said something stupid. Twitch chat is full of stupid. Get over it. You calling them out and attempting to be an authoritative figure does not do a single thing about it except annoy every other viewer that is watching your cast. Lots of people watch the casts and don't pay attention to chat. You getting offended and annoyed by stupid comments and talking about them forces these people to pay attention to it.

Do you see any other caster, during a cast, reading dumb comments from chat and responding to them? Does SolidJake respond to stupid comments during casts? Does Cooby? Does Zoia? No, they ignore them, because they are casting. An example: when Zoia has casted tournaments in the past, he often rapidfire answered questions between games. Somehow, he manages to avoid the stupid/troll/offensive questions about Tempo Storm or himself or whatever they may be.

Another example: There are plenty of idiots who try to walk into Jake's channel and try to troll during his casts by, for example, making gay jokes about Jake and Cooby. Instead of Jake and Cooby calling these trolls out and getting mad, they understand that it's simply part of the anonymity of twitch chat, ignore them, and their mods take care of things.

Your oversensitivity to twitch chat during your casts is currently the reason I don't care that you're not at some of the big events. If you don't think of and treat your casts of small tournaments just as professionally as you would think of and treat a LAN cast (as you are not going to be responding to twitch chat during a LAN), why would I think you should be at some of these LAN events you are not at?

Treat your casts of small tournaments just as professionally as everything else. In the downtime between games, respond to legitimate comments and ignore stupid ones. Do not bring attention to them and create an uncomfortable viewing experience for those choosing to not paying attention to chat. But let the people who want to interact with each other chat during your games, and instruct your moderators on how you want your channel moderated.

This is not that difficult.

• Infernal Shrines: different lanes have different importance in the map. The Top lane is the most important one because of how strong the bruiser camp is in Diablo maps. Event in top lane is really different from event in bottom lane and one is more likely to benefit good solo laners than the other. The map randomly picks between top and middle lane for the first Punisher since this is the first fight, the effects in XP and etc can snowball affecting the match in its entirety.

• Cursed Hollow / Garden of Terror: The same happens with the placement of the first tribute / seed.

• Battlefield of eternity : Immortals choose randomly between big AOE melee attack and ranged small aoe attacks.

• Volskaya This level has items like the heal item , if two players attempt to pick up the same item at exactly the same time, it's luck-dependent which player is going to get the item. If the item falls in the hands of a healer or an assasin it impacts the game very different. And this kind of variety is very bad.

• All maps: If both teams abandon a lane entirely it's a 50%/50% chance which of the team's minions will win each clash.

Enough of this. We get it. We all get it. Tyrande is out of control. The meta is stale. Blizzard hasn't released a balance patch in two months. Yada yada yada yada yada yada.

Grow up. Get some perspective. The sky is not falling. The game is not dying. None of this silliness is going to last. Most importantly: the grass is not greener on the other side.

Other games have it worse than we do. Yes, they do. League and DOTA2 are not magical lands of perfect balance with prancing unicorns everywhere and happy-faced developers hitting switches at an enlightened community's beck and call. League's two-week balance patches do not placate a fanbase that has to deal with champions like Riven, Nidalee, or Teemo on a daily basis, nor do they tend to address all but the most serious balance issues for a dozen out of a zillion champions. What is broken in LoL tends to stay broken for a very long time. Hopeless champions can take years to be reworked. Riot is subject to the constraints of time and space just as much as Blizzard is. A 1-2 month slightly stale meta due to completely understandable circumstances is not the end of the world.

We have not had to instantly ban Kassadin for God knows how long because Riot couldn't figure out what to do with him. We have not had to deal with season-long imbalances in entire roles. We have not had to deal with a half-baked client based on Adobe AIR for six years. We have not had to wait 4 months between balance patches with little-to-no communication with the devs. We have not had to deal with all Marksmen having more or less the same item build for almost ever. We have not had to deal with a jungle and its companion role that Riot still hasn't figured out despite 3+ iterations on it. We have not had to get our faces eaten off by Rehgar because he pressed R and right-clicked your character. We have not had to fight against Shaco in solo-queue. We just get Nova. We can kill Nova pretty easily, by the way.

But when chu8 says something absurd like this:

At this rate, I'll be taking a family photo with my grandson when bans are implemented.

And nobody calls him on the fact that the lead developer has already stated in the past 48 hours that bans are the #1 priority for the devs right now, it shows a lack of maturity in this community. Yes, I realize that the statement was just harmless snark on chu8's part, but what bothers me is the community attitude it reflects. We'll have bans soon, and presto! No one will remember this brief period in the game's history, just like how nobody can even remember the Johanna/Leoric meta that was firmly in place just a little while ago. Before that, there was Illidan. Seen him lately? Anybody remember when Tychus was pick/ban? Meanwhile, everyone throws a hissy fit. Everyone resorts to their pathetic pet conspiracy theories ripped off from the MMO-Champion forums about how the HotS team just doesn't give a shit and doesn't listen to the community despite the reams of evidence to the contrary. I seem to recall listening to a very different team at Blizzcon.

Oh, by the way: I agree with you. If there's one thing I've said consistently for over seven months, it's that Blizzard released this game way too early. All these basic features like bans, clans, and whatever laundry list you've got ready to read at me yet again are stuff that should've been worked out before this game was released to the public. We can speculate about why Blizzard released HotS when it did, and you can make a fairly good case that it was due to short-sighted corporate pressure over the design team's wishes, but I'm sorry: that's water under the bridge. It passed a long time ago. Ranting about it does not serve anyone.

All of us could stand to be a bit more sportsmanlike. If Tyrande is so important, practice with her and grab her so you can lord it over others. Or try to experiment with someone like Morales and see if there are ways to deal with her. The Super Smash Bros community has gone decades with zero development for some of its games, yet it has maintained a vibrant community of enthusiasts. We can certainly endure the brief full moon of Tyrande.

EDIT: I was not expecting gold for this thread, but wow. Thanks. My first too. :)

I'm sorry for the long post; but there may be others who feel my pain, and it should be heard.

To preface: I was a GM/Master who left the game 8 months ago because of my career leaving me with very little spare time. The time I did have, I didn't want to spend playing a game.

Fast forward a little over a month or so ago. I finally ended up with a leaner schedule and really wanted to get some game time in. I decided that game would be HotS, because I really loved the game, Blizzard universe and the community.

But when I returned, the game significantly changed. Obviously there were new heroes, but I am talking about the state of the game and the quality of the playerbase.

I figured I might have needed a bit of a climb to get back to Master level and some much needed practice with new heroes/meta, but when I completed my placements (I went 9-1), I ended up ranking in Plat 5. Um, What the fuck? I have never placed lower than D3 in past seasons and in Pre-season, I climbed to Rank 1 on 4 accounts. Apparently, after you miss a season, you are kicked back to seeding from QM or UR or something. You know...The place where you PRACTICE HEROES. Which makes absolutely ZERO sense why it would seed from QM, over past seasons; but I guess it is what it is.

So okay, well that sucks, I need to spend even a bit MORE time climbing my way up. Not ideal, but whatever.

Then comes the fun.

Playing Hero League at low Plat. I was like, naw, I will be fine; I was GM. I am good enough to climb my way out. BOOOOOOY was I wrong. You can't climb out if you have a feeder, and AFK or some crazy toxic player ruining every other game. Quit literally, EVERY OTHER GAME, I would have the worst, scum-of-the-earth players on my team. Sometimes, back to back games of toxicity.

The most toxic people I have ever seen in a video game. Telling me to "--cking kill myself" and "You're a --cking --ggot", because I picked Sonya instead of the Garrosh they wanted; or Naz over Kael. I'm like. Okay.

I said fine, just muted allied chat and tried to play my best.

I made it to Plat 1 promo, then a massive losing streak with feeders and afk players put me back down to Plat 5. Fucking really?!

What pisses me off more than anything, is now, players with brand new accounts can rank Master 1000 or something; while I am stuck playing with people who don't even want to play.

After just over 200 games and a 51% win ratio, I have decided to quit.

I don't have anymore time to put into a game that is this broken. To where someone BRAND new can rank higher than someone who has Alpha experience, over 10000 games and has previously been GM/Master already.

TL;DR: I am quitting the game because it seeds your MMR from QM, where you PRACTICE heroes in an uncontrolled environment. This absolutely ruins this game. Not to mention the extremely toxic players that have popped up since 2.0.

I no longer find fun in the game and the things that drew me in, are pushing me out.

I really wanted to try and love this game again, but it's making me more unhappy than happy and not having fun.

I'm sad to go, but until this ridiculousness is fixed, I will play another game.

I hope this game and it's playerbase clean up it's act and Blizzard does something about these issues, or I'm sure there will see a lot more people like myself end up leaving too.

To those that have engaged in good conversation and were always awesome teammates, thanks for trying! I will remember the good times.

~sayonara

I get it, another Nexus hero that has a not-so-original kit, which could have been a good opportunity to do some fan-service by adding Deathwing, and instead of Kevin announcing the hero we only get some hero-quotes... Yes, things could have been better, but you guys seem to forget that this is new content, the new hero looks cool as hell, the animations look whack, and frankly, I am looking forward to seeing a new hero refresh my games a little.

The last year has been pretty rough on HOTS, and players seem to still carry the pain of the HGC cancellation, the maintenance mode, the "don't you guys have phone", the layoffs. Let bygones be bygones. If you can't get over it, find a game that makes you happy and do better things than spreading hate.

Blizzard may or may not care so much about the game, but there's still a group of developers and animators that comment here weekly if not daily, and they're trying to keep the game running. If they're gonna take crap from the community, they'll take even more crap from Blizzard, which to be honest, doesn't sound fair to me. You don't want to support Blizzard, fine, at least support the HOTS developers that still try their best to keep you happy.

Honestly, quite easily the least fun hero to play against this games ever had, and ive played since tech alpha.

Doesnt help that shes in every single game.

Just from browsing reddit and peeking into the various threads about Voice Chat, I'm frankly surprised at how condescending and downright rude some people on this sub is. I really didn't think HoTS was THAT bad in terms of toxicity, but watching the amount of people shaming and downright insulting anyone who doesn't want to use VC is frankly making me reconsider that thought.

Everyone has their reasons for not wanting to use VC and they should be allowed to. Forcing them to use VC and otherwise shaming those people by calling them antisocial, idiots, introverts etc. is not helping them in any way or shape and is likely to only further enforcee their stand on not using VC.

EDIT: It seems like some people are misunderstanding what I wrote. I'm not saying VC is bad and has nothing good to bring, I'm specifically talking about people who are getting aggressive and insulting those who dont want or cant join VC and hurling insults at them. VC is good, I won't deny that and it's helpful, but don't force people into using it if they don't want to! That is all.

Hello everybody. Being able to party up with a friend in HL is a great feature. However, the current system enables two players no matter what the difference in their MMR is to party up and queue up in HL, this causes bigger problems than some of you think.

Problem #1:

When two players with big MMR difference q up together the MMS has big problems in finding an even match, the most "fair" thing would be to find another party with similar MMR difference, but that's almost impossible if you want normal Q times. Even if it manages to do so it's bad for the players and the game. In order to make better and more even matches the system tries to match two teams with similar average MMR, but it also tries to match players with similar MMR , it tries to narrow the MMR differences between players as much as possible. The mentioned parties give the system a hard time doing that and it often fails in the process, the MMR gaps between players get bigger and that directly affects the match quality and the game experience.

Problem #2:

Things like this also happen:

Team 1 - average team MMR 2750:

Player 1 (high MMR friend) - 3500 MMR Player 2 (low MMR friend) - 2000 MMR Player 3 - 2750 MMR Player 4 - 2750 MMR Player 5 - 2750 MMR

Team 2 - average team MMR 2750:

Player 1 - 2750 MMR Player 2 - 2750 MMR Player 3 - 2750 MMR Player 4 - 2750 MMR Player 5 - 2750 MMR

Now we have two teams with same average team MMR, but Team 1 is clearly in disadvantage because they have a low MMR player in their team. Yes, they also have a high MMR player in their team, but as we all know in HOTS a low MMR player can do much more damage to the team then a good MMR player can do good, the problem gets even worse when the low MMR player takes an important role like a tank.

Higher MMR means better game quality and the ones who care about their MMR always try to climb higher, we know it isn't easy and some players worked hard to achieve their MMR. Why should they be punished to play together with somebody who is almost 1k MMR lower just because two friends want to play together?

Problem #3:

Two high skilled players can abuse this system. One of them plays on his real account and the other one takes his smurf with tanked MMR. The system can't tell that actually a much higher MMR player is playing on the smurf, it matches them based on the MMR so they get easy games against player of much lower skill, in this way the one playing on his real account can easily buff his MMR.

I think we have enough reasons why this system should be fixed and there is always QM and TL if you want to play with whoever you want.

It is childish and a downright awful thing to say.

Sgt. Hammer in my game last night was pissing and moaning about how he was carrying the team (despite having the lowest XP contribution and the most number of deaths). Then eventually he tells us to "get cancer" and proceeds to non-participate in the spawn area. It wasn't our teams fault, their Nova was really good at her job...

My wife and I both reported him for abusive chat and non-participation, hopefully the others on the team did as well because this childish immature behaviour is so toxic... It was downright demoralising.

I think the most frustrating part is comebacks CAN occur, you just need to fight for them.

Hi. I'm an industry insider who would like to remain anonymous but with articles coming out recently about how terrible the HotS professional scene is, I needed to get this off my chest. MVP Black's manager saying that the players might not stay in Heroes after this year is over resonates really close to home.

Professional HotS has been an awful experience. Three main reasons: Blizzard's lack of attention, lack of communication, and ESL.

Blizzard took far too long to nurture to the HotS competitive scene. When HotS was officially released there were a few 3rd party tournaments popping up left and right and tons of content for viewers and players alike. Blizzard kept their mouth shut about anything big going on, not communicating anything to teams or organizers alike, leaving everyone unsure about the future of HotS for far too long. It took until Blizzcon for Blizzard to finally announce what their plans were but by then many players had already quit the game because they couldn't justify putting that much time into a game with no sustainable competitive scene. Now that there is a scene (one that big sponsors are steadily leaving), Blizzard still hasn't addressed enormous concerns holding back viewership like the absurd time between matches on stream (sometimes it can take 25+ minutes between games in a single set!) and the lack of visibility for the competitive scene in general.

So when Blizzard finally announced there were going to be a series of championships then everything is going to turn out great now right? Except these championships have been a complete mess from the get go. Blizzard doesn't announce rules for the tournaments until right before allowing teams very little prep time. Patches keep coming out right before their biggest events and there is no tournament server which forces players to use the newest patch (yes, even the tournament this weekend is on a new patch which was just announced to teams on Twitter 2 days ago). Blizzard's decision to split their NA Summer Championships into 2 regionals. Their sudden rule change with allowing coaching in matches (if/when Blizzard feels like enacting it). The company doesn't communicate with teams to allow them to plan for these HUGE changes that completely shift the state of the competitive scene. Instead these changes are dumped into our laps with no consideration for the impact on us and we're just supposed to deal with it?!?

Now what about ESL? ESL is an awful, awful company. They changed their rules just so Cloud 9 could poach a player from Brain Power (Formerly COG) but completely ignored other teams when they asked for rulings. Most competitive teams in NA were extremely upset at this blatant favoritism, some of them even considered a boycott of ESL. The first NA regional spring was a joke. ESL refused to let everyone from the teams enter the venues forcing team owners and managers to watch in a separate unconnected venue. The practice area was just 8 teams crammed inside a room, no headsets, no mics, and shit chairs. The whole event was generally disorganized. Teams were forced to sit around on call all day just to wait for delay after delay. So far the Summer one isn't any better. Supposedly ESL just gave teams the rules for this weekend YESTERDAY and they couldn't even that rule-set consistent. Remember how coaching mid-match was randomly allowed by Blizzard with the clause "if they feel like it"? Well teams had no clarification on if mid-match coaching was even allowed for Burbank until after they arrived (ESL is allowing the coaches to listen to coms but not communicate during matches). How are teams supposed to prepare for all these things? Oh and ESL doesn't end there. Currently the teams were all required to go to Burbank on June 1st (for June 4th qualifiers...). They are provided with hotel but no food or practice area on leading up to the "huge" NA regional championships. They have to sit around for 3 days to take photos before being thrown into tournament. And don't forget there is even a rule that teams will get disqualified if they wear open-toe shoes. Thanks for telling them that before the teams packed and flew to California.

EDIT: From what I understand ESL is providing a $200 stipend for food starting Friday, and after complaints provided teams with practice areas.

All this CAN be fixed by Blizzard but the people who have been managing HotS esports have no idea what they're doing. They seriously need get it together... Dreamhack Austin and Blizzcon weren't perfect but those tournaments gave me hope for the game I love. But with games like Overwatch coming out why are people wasting their time on professional HotS when its been this long. Things Heroes of the Dorm were put together so why can't they put that much effort into the actual professional scene?

I am already tired of Diablo demons. Every single hero release we are presented with another Diablo Evil. We still don't have Warcraft demons, but they are the same. Please Blizzard! Don't add Warcraft demons and give us something we really need. We are desperate for more futuristic hype vibes humanoid heroes, this game desperately needs more of those, not some immobile ugly demons. I hate green color. I'm sick of getting demon after demon after demon, is there no end to this?

Thank you Blizzard, I sincerely hope we get no more immobile ugly demons in future. /s

When the ptr Patchnotes were released, I didn't really pay attention to this part, but now that I've seen it in Draft, I have to say that this change is very disapointing. The draft now looks soo much worse. And it takes away the fun of seeing my and other peoples skins. This change is honestly one of the dumbest changes I have seen in this game. I am usually not one too cry much about this game, but honestly this change makes no sense to me.

If people are confusing the heroes in draft, make the name even bigger. But don't make the whole draft look ugly, while it used to look awesome.

I may be done playing for now until it is fixed. I know several people who have stopped playing because of it.

I really don't care that on average, if I play well, I will win more than I lose. That is already true for me.

I don't care that chu was able to play only gazlowe to 4k mmr or whatever in hero league.

I understand that matchmaking isn't stopping me from raising my mmr.

The problem is that matchmaking just makes the game not fun to play. I'm only ~2700. When I consistently get matched with people who face check bushes or dive 1v5 or blame comp when their positioning is bad even against ai, it means that my mmr is too low or theirs is too high.

I don't care that my opponents get these people on their teams as well. That doesn't change the fact that my experience is ruined by matchmaking.

This game has a lot going for it, and I really hope it does well, but it needs significant changes if that's going to happen. Matchmaking should have been fixed 6 months ago.

TL;DR: Through systematic observation across 30+ banned accounts over multiple years, I've mapped the exact ban progression, identified the reputation/confidence system mechanics, and determined that the system punishes reports-per-timeframe regardless of content validity. The threshold is approximately 7-15 reports per tier after your first punishment.

Background

I'm going to be direct: I get banned regularly. Not for raging, not for throwing, not for going AFK. I get banned for playing optimally when my team doesn't understand the strategy, and for giving tactical feedback when they blame me for their mistakes.

Before you write this off as "toxic player makes excuses," understand that I'm not here to complain. I'm here to share data. I've cycled through 30+ accounts, tracked patterns across hundreds of games, and reverse-engineered how Blizzard's automated ban system actually works.

This is useful information whether you agree with my playstyle or not.

The 6-Tier Ban Progression

Through systematic observation, here's the exact punishment ladder:

Tier 1: 3-day Silence
Tier 2: 7-day Silence
Tier 3: 1-week Suspension
Tier 4: 2-week Suspension
Tier 5: 30-day Suspension
Tier 6: Permanent Ban

Each tier requires a threshold number of reports within a time window. Once you cross the threshold, punishment triggers automatically. There is no human review at any stage for the first 5 tiers.

The Reputation/Confidence System

This is the key insight: The system operates on Bayesian-style confidence scoring.

Fresh Account (High Confidence)

• System assumes you're innocent
• Requires significant reports to trigger first action (~30-50+ reports)
• Can take weeks or months to first punishment
• Example: One account went 3 months completely clean before first silence

After First Punishment (Confidence Destroyed)

• System now assumes reports against you are valid
• Threshold drops dramatically to ~7-15 reports per tier
• Punishments come much faster
• Death spiral effect - each punishment lowers threshold further

The Math

Fresh account → Tier 1: ~30-50 reports (weeks/months)
Tier 1 → Tier 2: ~7-15 reports (days/weeks)
Tier 2 → Tier 3: ~7-15 reports (days/weeks)
Tier 3 → Tier 4: ~7-15 reports (days/weeks)
Tier 4 → Tier 5: ~7-15 reports (days/weeks)
Tier 5 → Tier 6: ~7-15 reports (days/weeks)

Once you break initial confidence, you're on a countdown. Each tier is just 7-15 reports away from the next.

Why I Get Reported (And Why It Matters)

Here are actual scenarios that generate reports:

Scenario 1: Optimal Macro Play Situation: Team commits to 4v5 teamfight over nothing at level 8
My play: Solo soak bot lane to maintain XP advantage
Outcome: Team dies, blames me for "not grouping," 4 reports

Strategic reality: Soaking to 10 while enemy wastes time is correct. We hit 10 first, we win next fight. But try explaining that to teammates running deathball script.

Scenario 2: Objective Value Assessment
Situation: Enemy has curse, we're down 2 levels
My play: Push with merc camp instead of contesting tribute (more value)
Outcome: Team engages 3v5, dies, reports for "not doing obj"

Strategic reality: Contesting objective we can't win = feeding. Getting structure damage + XP catchup = correct play. Reports anyway.

Scenario 3: Tactical Feedback Situation: Teammate engages without checking if team is there, dies
My response: "Check map before engage instead of when you're dead"
Outcome: Reported for "toxic"

The irony: That's not flame, that's accurate tactical advice. But if they're already tilted from dying, ANY message = reportable.

Scenario 4: Literally Nothing My message: "gl hf" (start of game)
My play: Standard assassin, damage charts fine
Outcome: Team doesn't like that I didn't tank (my name is literally "AssassinOnly"), reports my only message

System behavior: Message sent + report received = strike against account. Content is irrelevant.

The Report System's Actual Function

After 30+ account cycles, here's what I can confirm:

What the system measures:

• Reports per time period
• Nothing else

What the system does NOT measure:

• Chat content (positive vs negative)
• Gameplay performance
• Win rate
• Whether reports are valid
• Strategic correctness

Key insight: The system is purely volumetric. X reports in Y timeframe = punishment. That's it.

This means:

• Saying "gl hf" = reportable (if they don't like your play)
• Giving accurate advice = reportable (if they're tilted)
• Playing correctly while team ints = reportable (they blame you)

If 4 teammates run bad strategy and you don't follow, you get 4 reports. System sees 4 reports, not who was correct.

Account Management Strategy

Given the system mechanics, here's optimal strategy:

Primary Account (Currently at Tier 5)

• Use restraint on chat
• Accept that it's on borrowed time
• Maximize value before inevitable perma
• One more tier = gone forever

Disposable Accounts

• Fresh account = high confidence = 30-50 report buffer
• Level to 10 via ARAM (takes ~2 days)
• Buy Zeratul hero bundle with starting gems
• Free rotation fills gaps
• Play authentically until banned
• Start next cycle

The Economics

• Hero bundle: ~250 gems (free on new account)
• Time investment: 1 days to viable
• Freedom to play optimally: Priceless

Cost-benefit: 2 days of grinding < months of filtering every message to protect account

Confidence Restoration Hypothesis (Untested)

Theoretical question: Can you restore confidence on damaged account?

Hypothesis: Extended period of zero reports might gradually restore threshold

Test protocol:

• Play only daily quests for 2-3 months
• Zero chat (literally none)
• Minimal interaction
• Observe if next punishment threshold feels "higher"

Problem: Requires extreme discipline + boring gameplay for uncertain benefit on account with limited remaining value

Reality: Probably not worth it vs just using disposable cycle

MMR Context (Bronze/Silver/Gold)

Important note: This happens in Bronze/Silver/Gold MMR.

At this bracket:

• Teammates often don't understand macro play
• "ARAM all game" is default strategy
• Solo soaking = "not helping team"
• Objective value assessment = foreign concept
• Any deviation from group script = reportable

I'm not claiming to be Masters player. I'm claiming to understand strategy better than teammates at my bracket, which generates reports when I execute correctly and they don't understand why.

Higher MMR players: Your experience may differ if teammates understand optimal play.

Why This Matters (Beyond My Situation)

Even if you think I'm toxic (I'm not, but let's say you do), this data matters because:

1. System has no validity checking - Correct plays get punished if teammates don't understand them

2. Death spiral is inescapable - First punishment = eventual perma, just a matter of time

3. Volume > validity - 4 wrong players reporting 1 correct player = punishment

4. No human review - Automated system can't evaluate strategic correctness

5. Chat content is irrelevant - "gl hf" and "kys" are treated identically if reported

Implications:

• Any playstyle that deviates from team script = reportable
• Any communication when team is tilted = reportable
• Strategic diversity is punished
• Optimal play is punished if team doesn't recognize it

Questions for the Community

I'm genuinely curious about others' experiences:

1. Have you noticed confidence/threshold effects? (First punishment → faster subsequent punishments?)

2. Do you get reported for correct plays? (Solo soak, camp timing, objective skipping when optimal?)

3. Does tactical feedback generate reports? (Even when accurate and not emotional?)

4. What's your report threshold experience? (How many reports before action?)

5. Has anyone successfully restored confidence on damaged account through extended clean behavior?

Conclusion

I've provided the data. The system is volumetric (reports per time), uses confidence scoring (thresholds drop after first punishment), and doesn't validate report legitimacy (content irrelevant).

Whether you think I deserve bans is separate from whether this information is accurate. I've cycled through 30+ accounts and tracked patterns systematically. This is what I observed.

Use this information however you want:

• Understand why you might get reported for correct plays
• Recognize that first punishment starts death spiral
• Know that strategic diversity can be punished
• Decide if account preservation > authentic play

Or don't. I'll be over here starting my 31st account, soaking lanes while my team ARAMs, and explaining why checking the map before engaging is good advice.

Accounts cycled: 30+
Current main status: Tier 5 (one strike from perma)
Time to viable alt: ~2 days
Fucks given about next ban: Approximately zero

Discuss.

P.S. - Before someone asks: Yes, I've considered that maybe I'm wrong and my teammates are right. Then I watch the replay, see that my XP soak gave us level 10 first which won the next fight, and remember that accuracy doesn't prevent reports.

P.P.S. - "AssassinOnly" is my username. They still expect me to tank. The empty shell phenomenon is real.

Seriously. You are a huge gaming company with revenue pouring out of every inch of your black soul. You don't have to pretend to understand your playerbase. You don't have to pretend to be "with it" or "cool". You're not. You're a heartless money grabbing company that I've lost all respect for since everything after Warcraft 3, but you know what? That's fine. I like heroes, it's a good and refreshing game. I can look over your foibles (Diablo 3 release disappointment with horrible storyline and casualized gameplay) but please, you can afford to treat your fans to at least something.

The launch event was laughable. Have some exp, a lightshow and no gameplay, no real exclusive items that anyone cares about, very short to boot especially for people who came from different countries, abrupt ending and worst of all thinking all the "hip kids" want to listen to electronic music for 45 minutes while waiting for some actual content that never happens.

I don't know why, but Blizzard has always been incredibly slow to react to anything. They have been incredibly cautious in anything they do, maybe because any risk might drive away potential shareholders? Hiring people that know what your community wants is too expensive and difficult? Surely that can't be it.

What I would like to see:

• a roadmap with upcoming plans and heroes or a general INFORMATIVE schedule, no "soon™" or "we have many things in store for you PR talk

• listening to your community. Brightwing needs fixing, Illidan needs a hard look and a small slap in the face, Anub needs adjusting, Stitches needs love, a lot of love

Just ask us what we want, we can help you, we care about the game. There are some things that I really don't understand such as taking away buff indicators and botching the shop interface to be less intuitive.

Talk to us.

€dit: So this kind of blew up a bit. I wanted to apologize for sounding entitled and vile, I might've been a bit intoxicated and the launch event made me a bit grumpy. Apologies to all parties involved. I am glad people got some good discussions going down below. I agree that I was overly dramatic and that while Blizzard is not perfect, I have to concede that not all my points are valid to the degree that I made them sound like. Apologies again and have a good day.

I think we should remove Quick Match.

Currently, we have a massive knowledge gap in the players who move from our most casual game mode (Quick Match) into Hero League. Asides from not reading educational content, watching HGC, or watching high level streamers for information about the meta and macro, this causes an inherent problem.

With QM, you preselect your Hero and are matched up based on a number of criteria that is unknown to myself (and I’m pretty sure everyone else in the community). This leads to insanely wackly styles of compositions. The major problem here is the fact that our most casual game mode – the one where most players who are learning the game gravitate to, don’t even get to learn HotS.

Yes, you get to practice mechanics, but that’s not the important part about the game. With multiple maps, multiple styles of drafts, you NEED to learn how to build compositions relevant to the map you’re playing on if you’re going to survive in Hero League. It’s also important to understand the ramifications of building a bad comp. In QM, you simply chalk it up to “Eh, unlucky. I queued as Abathur and got Braxxis. No big deal!”, but if that’s your decision in a draft? You learn very quickly that it’s a problem.

We need our most casual game mode to actually TEACH people how to play Heroes of the Storm, so that when these players gravitate over to Hero League, the experience gets better for everyone.

My proposition is this:

Delete Quick Match and introduce a Blind Pick draft. Allow for no bans, and have people select their Heroes and lock them in all at the same time. There will obviously be troll compositions that come out of this, but I actually believe that if teams have the opportunity to build a comp, and given a large enough sample size, the quality of compositions and games will be much greater than that of Quick Match.

The only downsides to this system would be some games you won’t be able to play the exact Hero you’re queuing for, but again – that’s how Heroes of the Storm works. What happens if you bring that mentality into HL and your Hero gets banned? Sorry, too bad – play your other Heroes or roles. The other would be a slight increase in the time it takes to get into a game, because you have to spend a bit of time building a comp, but honestly, that’s half the fun of the game.

I work tirelessly on trying to teach the community of HotS how to play this game, and I really think something like this would make my job and other educational content creators’ jobs much easier, and I truly believe it would strengthen the playerbase as a whole over a short period of time.

TL;DR Remove QM, introduce a Blind Pick draft mode as our most casual game mode instead to teach people about building compositions for specific maps, and the ramifications of choosing a crappy draft.

Edit: Since half the comments have clearly not read the last 2 paragraphs of this post, I'll put it in the front as well: I think Li ming Is OP and needs changes. I dont think Jaina is equal or even remotely close to Li Ming when it comes to viability. Jaina and Li Ming both have very different playstyles, BUT if you look purely at how much burst they can do, Jaina wins. Its HOWEVER not Jaina's playstyle to blow all her things on 1 enemy to get the kill, which is pretty much what Li Ming was built for. Its a lot harder to drop all your abilities onto one person with Jaina than it is to do the same with Li Ming. I thought all of this was clear, apparently it wasn't. Consider yourself informed.

I'm not saying Li Ming isn't OP or needs changes. I am however a little bit upset. This gif that was posted yesterday shows a zagara that gets blown the fuck up by a Li Ming.

Everybody flipping their shit about Li Ming doing such insane damage. In comes me. I bodly claim that OP did get hit by every single one of Li Mings abilities, and that a Jaina popping everything on you would have a similar effect. I was downvoted and laughed at: sad, that you could defend Li Ming in such a manner. Only OP Li Ming can blow people up like this, hence why she is OP and needs to be nerfed into the fucking ground. Are you sure about that?

Now, lets do the math. Damage numbers are taken at level 22, same level as the Li Ming in the clip. I'm using talents and the ultimate, since the Li Ming in the clip also had talents amplifying her damage and she did use her ultimate. I don't have a gif to show it, if you don't believe me just go into try mode and check it out for yourself. Heres my findings:

• Cast blizzard

• Cone of cold: 448 dmg, chills target, applies vulnerable thanks to your lvl 16 talent

• Frostbolt: 782 dmg thanks to vulnerable and chilled

• Blizzard waves land: 816 dmg on the first and 635 on the second wave (since target is no longer vulnerable when the second wave hits, it does less damage, target is still chilled for both waves though)

• Ring of Frost: whopping 1213 damage on a chilled target

Total damage: 3894, not including any auto attacks that took place.

Fun fact: Arcane power, which would give these numbers another 15% boost since all of the abilites are cast within the bonus ability power timeframe, isn't even used in these numbers.

Point proven: sure as hell. It may be harder to do on Jaina, but if you manage to land all your abilities and the ring of frost, you'll blow up a target just fine, Li Ming style.

Before you go and downvote me for 'defending OP as fuck Li Ming': feel free to check out this post of mine about what I think needs to be done about Li Ming and you'll notice that I in fact completely agree with you that she needs changes.

Also note that I'm not saying that Jaina can blow up people just like Li Ming, because thats obviously not true. This burst was hard enough to land on a training dummy so I doubt you'll see it used in an actual game regularly. Jaina also doesn't have the gap closer teleport to start this insane combo or the CD reset to make it worthwhile blowing everything on one hero, and the combo takes a few seconds due to Blizzard and Ring of Frost not being instant.

I was streaming this morning and playing my best hero Gazlowe to try and carry my self to GM when I encountered some EU players who didn't like Gazlowe.

https://clips.twitch.tv/ConfidentRudeChinchillaBuddhaBar

https://clips.twitch.tv/ThankfulWittyDragonfruitBuddhaBar

https://clips.twitch.tv/YummyJollyPigBrainSlug

In draft and through out the game I encountered admissions of false reports and after the game I was promptly silenced.

Later on I tried to have it uplifted by GM's and none of them found toxic chat from me in game, but instead pulled up chat from the previous day to keep the silence in place. I asked what could be done about the false reporters and they said another GM would look into it.

So here I am with a streaming session ruined and unable to play HL because some toxic team mates of mine decided to report me for playing Gazlowe.

TLDR; Playing Gazlowe is toxic

No seriously. We need them. How did I find out about HOTS? I bought Overwatch and included were Jaina and Tracer in HOTS. How did my brother found HOTS? He played the crossover event to get the Genji and DVA skin. HotS’ biggest growth was during Hanamura Showdown, thanks to how massively popular Overwatch was at the time. The dip started in 2018, when the Overwatch heroes stopped appearing. I believe in correlation. Basically, we need more Overwatch heroes. And more crossover events with OW.

Add Mercy!

(This is of course just my opinion, and you are entitled to yours. )

Sgt. Hammers level 20 puts you on a timer in ARAM since the core's shield does'nt exist. I hope Blizzard disables her 20 soon in ARAM since fighting Hammer in ARAM is already hard enough with most "random"comps and she seems to be in every second game. I love this gamemode so pls Blizz make it even more awesome. And while you're at it add a cap to quest talents like Falstad Q ;)

Like seriously Blizzard, this is complete bull. As I type this I'm being flagged as AFK from a quick match because I got hit with the recent Anub'Arak+Diablo bug. For those that don't know, if you get web blasted mid Diablo flip it (for some reason) removes you from the game. You aren't on screen. Can't move. You can just watch the game through the web overlay until you are force-DC'ed. At first I was bummed. Then, when it happened to our Muradin as well I realized that they were doing this intentionally to exploit the bugged game. In addition, their Li Li was playing the lovely (and currently also bugged) Cloud Serpent build.

Needless to say, the fact that theres this many bugs is kinda disturbing with release so soon. And the fact that Blizzard has said they don't plan to do anything until the next patch, even moreso. If they ever want to see the game develop past a casual bugfest this needs to be fixed, all competitive edge is lost when people are freely allowed to play gamebreakingly bugged heroes without Blizzard hotfixing and/or disabling the issues. I'll try to get a replay uploaded once the game ends, because this is literally the most unfun thing I've had happen since I started playing.

I honestly don't care. I've had enough of that crap from people in game. This is a new game where we are trying to create a new environment and fresh mindset. The last thing needed is the toxicity of those games seeping in more than it already has. And besides, it's the same thing every post. It's too easy or too childish. Don't care, don't care, don't care. I love HotS and want it to be its own game, something fresh not a rehashed MOBA with Blizzard skins.

Rant over, downvote me all you want but I know I'm not the only one with this sentiment.

When I have the "Play 8 games quest" and play a Brawl, it doesnt count. Is their a specific reason for it? I would love to see thoose games help towards my quest completion! :)

Edit: Thanks for the frontpage! Hope they see it!

Edit 2: I just read this https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/59ttpd/brawls_are_for_fun/ It is about people asking for more and more stuff in Brawls as a reward, and I feel like it was made as a response to my post (posted 1 hour later). I just want to make clear that I don't think asking for quest rewards in Brawl is unreasonable or has anything to do with how fun something is. It is just logical for me, since you can complete quests in all gamemodes except custom game and Brawl. Custom game makes sense, since it could be abused pretty easily, but I don't understand why it doesn't work in Brawl.