Blizzard to address MOBA hostility through Heroes of the Storm game design

Heroes of the Storm is the latest MOBA on the horizon, and Blizzard has plans in place to tackle the inevitable hostility which is inherent in games of this genre.

Blizzard has never been one to skirt issues regarding hostility within its gaming community, and the case will be the same with Heroes of the Storm, according to game director Dustin Browder.

"We're not shy about this problem," he told Eurogamer. "I've joked with the team about removing team chat altogether - that was a less than popular idea! But we will keep attacking this problem until it's gone, or as gone as we can get it.

"I don't entirely agree that you can't address this through game design. We've already made several stabs. So for example, there's no way I can last-hit and take the kill away from you and deprive you of your gold and experience, which could be a very frustrating moment for everyone involved: 'I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to kill that person, you're angry with me that I killed the wrong person, I'm just trying to kill people!' We've smoothed that out - the team leveling also smooths out a lot of that."

One of the ways to address possible issues between players is to toss all earned team experience into a pool which can be accessed by all members of a player's team. This way, the team can level up together rather than individually.

"If you do the obvious thing, everything works out and you don't have to worry about hurting your allies," Browder explained. "We're doing everything we can to remove the ability for players to hurt their allies.

"With a lot of the team leveling it's even difficult to feed aggressively - if you've got someone in there who's really terrible, you can support them with the team leveling system. I think encouraging you to play with your friends is the most important way to attack this problem.

"If you play with your friends, you're not going to rage, if you play in a pick-up group you are. We think absolutely the best way to play is with friends, the right way to play is with friends."

You can read the entire interview through the link, and if you havn't already, you should check out Dave's two-part preview of the MOBA.