Diablo 4: Blizzard working on a fix so you don’t accidentally activate the battle pass

The launch of the first season of Diablo 4 has not been easy. Between server issues and the overwhelming negative response to patch note changes, Blizzard has had to justify and clarify quite a bit in just a few days.

But one insidious aspect of the season’s design didn’t get much attention thanks to all the other issues everyone’s been having, and it has to do with the battle pass.

The Diablo 4 Battle Pass is included with the purchase of the Deluxe and Ultimate editions of the game, but you must activate what is effectively a token to begin unlocking the premium content of the pass. By not having it activated by default, you can save your token to use in a future battle pass, something many disgruntled players plan to do.

Unfortunately, when you go to the Season tab, the default selection is the Activate Premium button. This is mostly a problem when playing with a controller, because you usually don’t know where the default selection will land on each tab.

But it can also happen when using a mouse, especially if you’re not paying close attention to where the cursor is. The result is the same: you will accidentally click the button and activate your battle pass token without realizing it.

To add insult to injury, there’s no confirmation dialog, which means once the button has been clicked, there’s no going back. that’s exactly what several Reddit users He did, and they were rightly upset.

Even hardcore gamers and content creators are not immune to this. Here is Rurikhan falling into the same trap.

So, Blizzard placed the ‘Activate Premium Battle Pass’ button right next to the button you have to constantly press to verify your Season Journey.

Guess what happened to me and at least 5 other people on my stream. This is directly malicious design. @Devil pic.twitter.com/99KhTR51ad

—Rurikhan (@Rurikhan) July 21, 2023

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The good news is that Blizzard is on it. Community leader Adam Fletcher responded to the video above to say that the developer is working on a temporary fix that will prevent the cursor from switching to the toggle button by default.

“I just had a meeting with the folks on this post stream. We have a workaround in the works that will at least ensure the cursor doesn’t default there and will instead default to Season Journey,” he said. Fletcher.

This type of leading UI design is known as a dark pattern, and it’s something companies have been fined for exploiting in the past, most notably Epic Games with Fortnite. Buttons that initiate a purchase should always have a confirmation popup to prevent things like this from happening.

While it’s good to see Blizzard moving quickly to address this, players who have already redeemed the token by accident are left with a battle pass they don’t want. It’s also another blow to the game, and especially the battle pass, which has already been criticized for awarding so little platinum that it’s not enough to buy a single item in the shop, or even pay for the next battle pass.