While the ability to report players both in-game and post-game is already present in Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard is looking to update that system. Beginning with the next major patch, they're introducing new report categories, as well as a new punishment for frequent offenders. First, here are what the updated report categories will look like, as well as their descriptions of when they should be used:

• Abusive Chat
  • Insults, cruelty, or ongoing harassment directed at one or more players.
  • Hate speech
  • Real life threats

• Intentionally Feeding
  • Player intentionally and repeatedly gets their hero killed in order to anger allies or feed XP to the enemy team.

• AFK/Non-Participation
  • Player is idle or inactive for an extended period of time during a game.
  • Player is present, but has given up or refuses to take part in the game.

• Cheating/Botting/Hacking
  • Suspicious behavior which indicates the player may be using third-party software or hack programs to gain an advantage during a game.

• Inappropriate Name
  • Character names or BattleTags that are offensive, insulting, bypass the mature language filter, or are otherwise considered objectionable.

• Spam
  • Excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure nonsense
  • Blatant or repeated advertising for third party websites

Blizzard has made a point to state that the playstyle of particular Heroes will be considered before handing out punishments. For example, you might not really be AFK when playing Abathur, or intentionally feeding on Murky despite dying often.

On to the new punishment system, called the "silence penalty." Players reported multiple times for spam or abusive chat will be investigated, then punished under this system if found guilty. While silenced, a player cannot chat in game or in any chat channels, and cannot send whispers to users they are not friends with (though they can reply to whispers from non-friends.) The first time a player is silenced, it will be for 24 hours. For each subsequent punishment, that length of time will be doubled, with no maximum. Players will receive a notification each time they log in to let them know the remaining duration of their silence, and an icon will display on their player portrait to publicly shame them let other players know they have been silenced.