Diablo 3 character deletion

9 Jan 2022
Diablo 3 has a short and understandable delay for deleting characters. This delay protects players from their possible inattentiveness and emotional disaster.

Context

Diablo is an action-RPG series of the swords-and-spells variety. Players can’t create characters (heroes) from scratch, but they can choose among several classes of archetypes (classes). They can also customize their heroes’ names, equipment, and skills. People might spend hundreds, even thousands, of hours playing as their heroes. So, they can have emotional attachment to their Diablo heroes.

As of this writing, Diablo 3 is the most recent iteration in the series. Each user-profile can have up to 12 heroes. At the Hero Selection screen, players can select or delete existing heroes. They can create new ones if they have less than 12.

Breakdown

The game creators have implemented a temporary barrier to deleting a hero. They know that people sometimes press X on a PlayStation controller (or A on an Xbox controller or Enter on a keyboard) without paying full attention. So, they’ve disabled the Accept action at the confirmation window for three seconds. The Accept action is visible, but it’s faded. Plus, a digit conveys the three-second countdown. After the countdown, the Accept action is usable.

Diablo 3, Hero Selection screen — Players select a hero among a vertical list of their existing ones. The Play Hero and Delete Hero actions apply to the selected hero.

Diablo 3, Attention message — Once players select the Delete Hero action, an Attention message appears. For three seconds, the game disables and obscures the Accept action that would delete the selected hero. The action is still somewhat visible, and it has a countdown to its usable and more visible state.

Diablo 3, ability to delete hero — After three seconds, the Accept action has its standard usable and visible state. At this point, players can delete the selected hero.

Lessons

This solution is pragmatic and positive. People do press, click, and tap through interfaces without paying full attention. The game’s temporary, yet well-conveyed, delay for deleting heroes is a protective barrier. That is, it protects people from their inattentiveness. This inattentiveness, in turn, might lead them to accidentally-on-purpose deleting a prized hero. Not all players make regular backups using physical or cloud storage.

The game creators show understanding of players behaviors and values in this regard.