Feedback:User/Rose Of Kali/Prevent character deletion
Prevent character deletion
| |
|---|---|
| User | Rose Of Kali |
| Categories | Mechanics → Game features |
Problem[edit]
It's always devastating to get hacked and lose everything from your inventory. The only thing that's usually worse is losing your characters. What's more unfortunate is that character deletion doesn't earn anything for the hacker, but it still happens.
Suggested solution[edit]
I suggest a way to prevent the ability to quickly and easily delete chosen characters. This feature can be called "Deletion Delay" or whatever the developers choose, if implemented. It would apply to the characters of the player's choosing, as explained below.
How it works[edit]
When applied, the character cannot be deleted immediately. Instead, you can mark the character for deletion, and the deletion process can be completed after, say, 5 days. During these 5 days, the character's icon will have a red X across it in the Character Selection Screen, and choosing that character displays "This character can be deleted in X days x hours" and provides an "undelete" button, which cancels the deletion.
After the timer has run out, choosing that character will offer a final confirmation "Are you sure you want to permanently delete this character?" and allows final deletion of that character. That way, if the account was blocked due to hacking, and the hacker marked characters for deletion, the original owner can still cancel the process once the account was returned to them, even if it's weeks later, because the final confirmation will delay deletion forever until confirmed. During the 5 countdown days, Support and the original owner have time to act, and the hacker cannot confirm the deletion of marked characters.
Which characters get this?[edit]
Ideally, this can be applied to a particular character by selecting a checkmark in your inventory window or hero panel. Doing so displays a warning with an explanation that proceeding will permanently apply this restriction to that character. Once complete, a little icon will replace the checkmark to indicate the characters who went through this "procedure." The ability to choose which characters to "semi-immortalize" allows players to choose this option for the important characters that they have no intention of deleting, and protect them from a hacker, nasty little brother while you went to the bathroom, or yourself in a fit of rage over accidentally merching a BDS, but still allows them to quickly remake unchecked characters if they wish, such as for PvP or if they typoed a new character's name.
Options[edit]
As some people may not log on for longer than 5 days, they would not be able to notice that their characters were marked for deletion. If during those 5 days Support has not blocked the account "to prevent further damage" as they often do, the characters can still be deleted by the account thief. For this, there can be an option to increase the number of delay days at the choice of the user, up to 20 or 30. This way, the user can choose a longer deletion wait time "at their own risk," if they are willing to put up with it in the case that they decide to delete the chosen character after all.
Alternative[edit]
This feature would not be necessary if ANet had the ability to restore characters that were deleted by a hacker, which I believe is not currently possible.
Note[edit]
...that this suggestion has nothing to do with losing hacked items, that's another issue, for which I have a separate suggestion here: Feedback:User/Rose Of Kali/Item protection from hack theft. This is only about characters, which can take a very long time to develop, earn titles, skills, birthdays that count for the next generation minis, etc.
