I mean… sorry to hear that happened to you, but it really takes an incredible amount of ignorance at this point to delete a character by accident.
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Well, took some time to someone actually do it. I already knew that would happen just didn’t expected that would take too long.
Doesn’t matter how you design an interface, users will make mistakes when comes on definitive stuff.
You can make harder as you can, still folks would make mistakes. Creating too much resistance would hurt who would actually want to delete, that would eventually lead to more mistakes.
That’s why, there’s no good solution. The older system was fine, maybe use another icon or better icon.
Don’t get me wrong, but I used to work on UI/UX design and this kind of thing doesn’t surprise anymore. Minimalist design are often used for a reason, the same design often uses stuff like icons and ask for confirmation. There was no problem with older system, maybe an icon change, which I think they done it at some point.
You can’t beat users mistakes if they skip all fail safes or ignore the warnings. Also you hurt the usability if you put too much barriers on it because they would ignore even more.
D3 you can also delete characters and you don’t need or have that amount of barriers. Sure they have rebirth system that most folks use, but in the past they had delete and even these days with 3 rebirths some folks ends up deleting some characters for free slots.
Users will be careless and doesn’t matter the amount of fail safe mechannisms you put in place, that would be make the user more annoyed and be motivated to do even more mistakes.
D2 is a straightforward game, folks got used to be straightforward while they play it. So implementing something hand-holding would make folks do mistakes because they would be bored or annoyed by the unecessary steps to do a simple task. Even more if they’re tired or in not their best judgement state.
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Good old DOS6.22 had the undelete function and even in D3 you can undelete the last deleted character. Why is it not possible to have same here. So if someone accidently deletes the wrong character, it should have the undelete last deleted hero.
It is easy to say, Dude you have to act very not smart to do this, learn from it. But it does not help his friends borrowed item. Have one Undelete and all problems are solved.
Until, folks start to using as temp way to have an additional character and the problem scalate again. While I get the frustration, doesn’t mean would solve all issues, someone will do mistakes or exploit the system. Is the way life is.
Overcomplicate it, folks get bored and would do stuff without paying attention. Like happened in this case
Oversimplificate it, folks would do it straightforward like done in the past even with confirmation windows.
Create fail check mechanisms, folks would skip it entirely. Even with confirmation folks kept deleting.
Create revert actions, folks would abuse the system to the point that eventually would make a mistake and lose their “failsafe” revert.
Either folks trying to be smarter and exploit the system or folks just tired/not in their right state they would do mistakes. Doesn’t matter how mistake proof you try something.
There’s no such thing of perfect system to prevent all mistakes. Only systems that helps you to notice it and some to undo, but even those who undo generates often unecessary burden to the point that most of them have a grace period or just not exactly doing it but setting a timer to do it.
The undelete system, would have the same issue if the game eventually crashes by example or just folks delete more than one character. How the system would handle that kind of behavior or pattern, the response would be changing the database and how the game works. Which is well know that’s not a good thing to do in a “software” already released because of the odds of data corruption would be really high, their backlash on global/regional servers generated a ton of issues for several folk already.
There are too many variables to consider and the result often would be the same or mostly the same.
Bringing us to Pareto’s principle. Which would expose that that kind of behavior impacts a small percentile and the effort to solve is too high to actually be “good enough” to implement.
When ladder starts and get seasons, folks eventually will start delete characters more often and those things will happen again. The problem isn’t the system but the lack of attention on the person who uses it. While they could have done a different system, they wouldn’t because is how d2 worked and most of their goal was release the game in “playable” state as fast as possible. If they had took more time and planned some stuff better maybe the game wouldn’t had the amount of issues that has right now.
dude… it shows a GIANT version of your character standing in the middle of the character select screen… how do you not notice it is the wrong character?
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whenever i delete a char i double and triple check x times that i am on the right char and before he has no items in inventory. I dont understand this, how can this happen. There is an extra 5 Second timer to prevent one from this to happen. Have a look at the right side. Sorry, it is your own fault and nothing bad about this. If this means youre out, good bye.
No further development time should be spent on this. You have to select the character you want to delete. That character is then front and center, huge, middle of the screen, wearing all the gear. You know exactly what you are deleting. Then you have to stare at the middle of the screen with the character directly behind the confirmation that you hold down for 5 seconds.
Wow even after the changes, people are still deleting their characters. How sad.
And even sadder, somehow still making it the devs’ fault.
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Your buddy is gonna want some blood…
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Wow… you mean its been user error the entire time and not the interface?
The character you have selected, is right smack dab in the middle of the screen, you literally saw your alleged 89 sorc as you were holding delete for 5 seconds… that was your clue.
Take your lumps and move on, lots of players offering help!
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I will say that it is strange that when you make a new character it is not automatically selected as the chosen playable character. You have to scroll down to the bottom of your list and select the new hero in order to play it.
Not very intuitive, iv made new heroes and made a game just to see i’m still on an older hero and then have to wait for the timeout before making a game with the new hero!
So i can understand how this happened and it sucks but at least it wasn’t a 90+, leveling gets a lot harder after 90! 89 isn’t too bad to remake but it sucks that you lost the gear! Hopefully you did not have expensive gear!
A waste of an Infinity.
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Still there’s a picture of the current character on the screen. Characters are organized based on the last “use/log in” not by name or order of creation.
Is like a most recent feature. The picture of lvl1 character and 89 will differ a lot and takes most of your screen. Also if the person had only 2 characters would see on the top the last used. While if he had more than 2 already would know how the system works.
The system is not perfect but each interation in fact becomes worst, the earlier interation already was enough. With a change of X in red for a bin.
Other than that any additional step, would be pointless because the amount of folks who would still delete wrongly would be still the same. When ladder launches folks would need to delete characters and some would have to delete like 10, with the 5 sec interval will make folks do mistakes and that interval would make folks skip steps and eventually make mistakes again.
Minimalist design with confirmation of stuff exists as standard for a reason, because users should have a option to check what they doing and avoid do things they didn’t want. The interface like before with a bin instead of x but automatically selected on “cancel” on enter was the best option.
They changed the system and even afterwards users kept doing mistakes, so wasn’t the interface itself but user behavior.
Pareto’s principle: you do 70% of work with 30% effort. This interface already messes with that concept. Which reached the point of waste of time. The system got already overcomplicated and because of it will generate issues. I’m suprised that took this amount of time for folks do that kind of mistake, but on ladder release this kind of thing will appear even more.
that happened to me week 1. deleted my lvl 89 sorc with shako and tals (which was very valuable week 1).
it really sucks. luckily enough, it’s later in the life of this “ladder that’s not ladder” so you should be able to find someone to rush you and find chaos games and gear more easily than before. still sucks, but at least you’re not completely screwed
but yeah they need to make the last character you used / created the top character
After reading this im happy to still have mine! 
Yep, I’m super stressed every time I delete a character because there is no effing way to know with certainty which character you’re actually deleting. It’s insane how bad Blizz is at optimizing their UI.
Lol!! Man how smooth is your brain tho? 
They made this idiot proof and you broke that lol!
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Lmfao. That’s ur fault. Don’t be stupid next time. Jfc