That's come up and I think it could be helpful.

It's worth noting that our CS team has already been taking action against players who are found to be spamming reports.

Yep.

Yep! Heroes will be set to whatever level they should be in the new system based on the XP they have earned to date. Level 10 in the old system, for example, is about level 15 in the new one so when you log in after the 2.0 update, your level 10 heroes will be level 15.

I’m always amazed at how creative players can get when they want to be toxic. ;)

We have been considering adding some macros to the end game screens that allow you to congratulate the team in a more controlled fashion, though.

Glad you’re enjoying the update!

The new items would be a great place to showcase the HGC and let players stunt for their favorite teams. No promises, but it’s something we’re excited about exploring.

We’re not currently looking to add a map veto system, but we are likely going to get a map rotation going relatively soon.

We’re also looking to get more aggressive with updating battlegrounds, similar to what we already do for heroes.

The matchmaking system takes into account hero level as part of its calculations as we’ve found that, up to a point, increasing hero levels affects win rate. Since the hero level XP curve is changing, we’ve also updated those formulas.

Number of games played is a lesser consideration and not a great indicator of skill overall. There are players with thousands of games played that aren’t all that skilled and others, particularly ones experienced in the genre, who are very skilled with only a few hundred games under their belt.

That said, for unranked modes, new players are already in their own matchmaking pools. That’s mostly to protect their experience while they’re learning the game.

We’d love to make all the fantastic information on the HGC website available through the game client. It’s on our to-do list, though there’s a ton of things on that list and we don't have a time frame to share for when we'll be able to get this done.

Combating toxic behavior is an ongoing battle. But it’s also a balancing act between actioning players who are obviously doing something wrong and avoiding accidentally taking action against players who are just playing poorly. Toxic chat can be pretty obvious, but something like intentional feeding can be more difficult to pick out relative to someone having a bad game.

We’ve been working on a bunch of tools to help with this and our CS department has been putting them to use and taking action against toxic players. As always, you can help out by reporting the behavior since it helps zero in on the issue.

Taking action against players who are being toxic is only half the answer, though. By the time the action is taken, the damage is already done. So, we’re also working on implementing some form of loss forgiveness to help the players who were affected by the event.

The requirements to play ranked with 2.0 aren’t changing. It’s still 14 heroes of at least level 5. But, getting to level 5 takes slightly more experience than before, so players in ranked will need to be a bit more experienced with their heroes.

To piggyback on what Cuevas said. We get any assets and references that would be helpful in the construction of the Heroes model. Often times for Overwatch this is the full High polygon asset. We then rebuild a lot of that high poly mesh to fit the heroes style. Specifically with Genji, it took a lot of removing smaller details and adding some more bulk to places like his shoulders and forearms. Then creating a low poly mesh from the reconstructed high poly is another challenge as the polygon count for Overwatch's models can be 3 times more than a base hero in Heroes. Simplifying something of that caliber takes a lot of effort even though it may look "copy paste." We want to stay true to the flavor Overwatch established.

Question from Grayfader in Russia

In Heroes of the Storm 2.0. the account level will be unlimited. Will it influence somehow current Matchmaking? To be precise: will new players face those who have thousands of games?

Question from AssassinWolf in Russia

Do you have any plans to add PvE maps when you have a mission and different tasks to achieve the final goal?

Question from Iliar in Russia

I think that killing enemies with Genji's ability «Deflect» is one of the key mechanics for this hero. What do you think about making it similar to Greymane's «Go for the throat»?

Question from Marjam in Russia

Do you plan to increase gem prices on event items?

Question from 갈색눈, 블랭망토, Zardforever

Do you have any plans to open up an official website where players can check their detailed statistics of in-game performance (e.g. wins/losses, KDAs, map/hero statistics)? If not, could you let us know when you are planning to release API for the community developers?

Question from 원자력장판, Whereno, 블리스타

While Heroes of the Storm 2.0 has brought many impactful changes to outside of the game, but it seems there aren’t many changes to in-game aspects; for instance, matchmaking and Hero Swap feature in Hero League still have rooms to improve. Do you have any plans to further address these areas, and could you share if there’s any in-game changes players can expect with Heroes 2.0?

Question from Zeraniss in Korea

Regarding the idea of bringing Overwatch’s Victory Poses for MVP screen, I think there was affirmative response from the previous Q&A session; in addition to this, how do you feel about adding more Hearthstone, Taunt, and Dance animations for each Hero and making those obtainable via Loot Chests or Shard-crafting, so that each Hero have more variety of choices on those animations?

Question from 슈퍼보드, Idiom, 밀렵쿤, 은하검, 엘라닉스, 낵츠

Considering that there will be an influx of players to the Nexus with Heroes 2.0, do you have any plans to implement a new account suspension system or to strengthen the current suspension system for negative players who commit verbal abuse, regularly go AFK, refuse to participate, or intentionally dying, in order to create more clean environment?

Question from Wai Kit Shiu in Taiwan

Hi development team, have you considered overhauling the lore of Heroes of the Storm?

Question from Yen-Chung Lin in Taiwan

Have you considered adding the Play of the Game system from Overwatch into Heroes?

Question from He-Shin Chang in Taiwan

Have you considered implementing the consumable power-ups from Hanamura into other current battlegrounds?

Question from Tian-Chen Chen in Taiwan

Regarding Samuro’s Mirror Image, what’s the mechanism on deciding the position of Samuro himself and the rest of mirror images. Can we add a new talent (active skill) that enable him to choose where to deploy himself and mirror images?

Question from Tian-Chen Chen in Taiwan

Uther’s rebalance is well-made; however, this severely affected Lt. Morales’s position and value. Have you considered reworking Lt. Morales as well?

Question from CoSSETT in LatAm

Why does Genji’s dash "E" go through walls if in Overwatch he can’t? Besides, that’s what he has his “D” for.

Question from MagoEspanto in LatAm

What will be the requirements to play Ranked in 2.0? Because currently, you need to have 14 heroes, but now you’re giving away 20 heroes with megabundles from the start, which means many novice players will be able to play Ranked Play without sufficient knowledge and experience.

Question from DobleFilo in LatAm

I would ask if you could increase by 1 more life point the core in Hanamura, since matches seem to end quick, you don’t get to hit level 20 (the level 20 talent helps turn things around when you’re losing). It would be good because the matches I’ve played and seen my friends play they never reach level 20. The match ends too quickly.

Question from Nemesian in LatAm

On the Hanamura map. The ability for the object in the “reconnaissance” camp…

¿Do the dragons chase “invisible” heroes? (Nova, Zeratul, etc)

¿What happens to the dragons if for example they are chasing a Tassadar and he uses his Dimensional Shift (E)?

Question from Zeldris in LatAm

ZeldriS: With the arrival of Heroes of the Storm 2.0, ¿will you add a map editor? Like the one demonstrated at BlizzCon which can be seen on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQDbEC7nOI4