Designing Accursed Towers: A Scalable Social System for Long-Term Retention
Context
Diablo Immortal is a mobile multiplayer game with a variety of social systems. Clan activities in Diablo Immortal required heavy, active involvement—alienating casual players and overloading leaders. Social play is one of the strongest drivers of long-term retention, so we needed a casual system that encouraged daily engagement across all player types.
Challenge
PvP-exclusive modes left most clan members disengaged
Clan leaders were overwhelmed by admin complexity
Tutorials were long, inconsistent, and often ignored
Goal: Design a feature that fosters inclusive, sticky clan participation
Research
Leaders were burning out—struggling to manage multi-layered systems
Players wanted non-PvP ways to contribute, especially casuals
Tutorials lacked consistency and were rarely effective
Seasonal content was growing more complex, with poor onboarding
Goals
UX objectives:
Empower leaders with low-friction strategy tools
Let casual players contribute through PvE
Onboard players with modular, reusable tutorials
Key initiatives:
Created a scalable tutorial carousel, later adopted across game modes
Developed a visual language for tower ownership, curse status, and PvP state
Designed filtering and map scaling tools to reduce leader friction
Responsive Map Scaling
Designed the clan map to reveal different layers of information at each zoom level—helping leaders shift seamlessly between high-level strategy and granular tower details.
Why it works: Mirrors player behavior—when players zoom in, they expect precision; when zoomed out, they want clarity and overview.
Player vs. Environment (PvE)
Designed HUD, mini-map statuses, loot and in-combat visual feedback. Tuned gameplay experience through playtests.
Player vs. Player (PvP)
Designed HUD, mini-map statuses, loot and in-combat visual feedback. Tuned gameplay experience through playtests.
Collaboration
Led UX from concept through live patching
Ran internal + community playtests to validate and refine tutorial/map flows
Worked with UI Art to deliver a clear, scalable visual system
Partnered with Production to ship post-launch enhancements based on feedback
Created reusable tutorial templates now retrofitted across multiple features
Results & Next Steps
Increased daily clan activity and logins—across casual and competitive players
New tutorial framework became the default onboarding model
Feature success led to the launch of Alliances, a new social system driven by Accursed Towers' impact